Service Detail
Thermal Efficiency & Heat-Loss Audits
Identify heat loss and energy-saving insulation upgrades.
How We Help
Insulation fails silently. There is no trip, no alarm, and no dramatic event — just a lining that gradually stops doing its job while the equipment continues to run normally. Fibre settles and opens joints, mineral wool absorbs water and never recovers, cladding admits rain at failed laps, and compressed insulation at pipe supports conducts heat straight through the system. None of it triggers anything. The cost accumulates quietly in the fuel bill, often for years, and is usually only identified when someone finally measures surface temperatures against design. A thermal audit converts that vague sense that efficiency has drifted into a specific, prioritised, costed scope of work. Zenco Systems carries out thermal surveys of furnaces, kilns, boilers, steam networks, and process pipework across Kenya and East Africa.
What a Thermal Audit Covers
Shell and casing surveys
Surface temperature measured across the full surface in a consistent grid rather than at convenient points, since losses concentrate where nobody walks.
Steam and process pipework
Surface temperature along the run, with particular attention at supports where insulation is crushed into permanent thermal bridges.
Uninsulated item count
Valves, flanges, traps, and fittings commonly left bare for maintenance access. Individually trivial, collectively one of the larger recoverable losses in most plants.
Moisture and cladding assessment
Staining, damp lagging, and failed cladding laps — the most common cause of insulation underperformance in outdoor and humid installations.
Defect classification
Separating air in-leakage, local defects, moisture ingress, and genuine under-specification, because the remedy and cost differ enormously between them.
How the Work Runs
- 1Establish the baselineObtain design surface temperatures or previous survey data. Without a comparison point, absolute readings are difficult to interpret.
- 2Record operating conditionsProduction rate, fuel, ambient temperature, and wind exposure at the time of survey, so results are comparable against future audits.
- 3Survey systematicallyCover the whole surface including high level and behind pipework, photographing findings with position references.
- 4Classify and prioritiseSort findings by defect class and order the scope from cheapest and most certain — sealing and bare fittings — to lining upgrades.
- 5Report and registerDeliver a costed scope plus a register that becomes the baseline for the next survey. Rate of change matters more than any single snapshot.
What You Receive
- Surface temperature survey with position-referenced photographs
- Findings classified by defect type, not just listed
- Prioritised scope ordered by return per unit cost
- Estimate of recoverable loss with stated operating assumptions
- Baseline register for trend comparison at the next audit
When You Need This
Annually, or at each major outage. Also worth doing whenever specific fuel consumption has crept upward without an obvious cause, before committing to a large insulation capital spend, and after any significant change in production rate or fuel type. Surveying before specifying is what stops budget being spent on the accessible areas rather than the expensive ones.
Thermal Efficiency & Heat-Loss Audits FAQs
How much fuel can better insulation actually save?
It depends entirely on current condition, which is why the survey comes first. The recoverable figure is a function of surface area, how far surface temperature sits above ambient, and annual operating hours — so continuously running plant recovers far more than equipment operating in shifts.
What equipment is used?
At minimum an infrared thermometer or thermal imaging camera, ambient and air speed readings, and design surface temperatures to compare against. The comparison matters more than instrument sophistication — a trend against previous surveys is more informative than any single absolute reading.
How often should a thermal audit be repeated?
Annually or at each major outage. Because degradation is gradual and silent, periodic measurement is the only reliable way to detect heat rate drift before it becomes a large recurring cost. The second and third surveys are more valuable than the first, because they show rate of change.
Will the audit tell us what to fix first?
Yes — that is the point of it. Findings are classified by defect type so the remedy is clear, then ordered by return per unit cost. Sealing and bare fittings typically come first because they address losses that are large relative to what they cost to fix.
Can a survey distinguish insulation problems from combustion problems?
It is the main way to do so. Both raise fuel consumption and both develop gradually, but the remedies are entirely different — replacing lagging will not fix a burner out of adjustment, and retuning combustion will not fix waterlogged duct insulation.
Do you supply the remedial materials as well?
Yes. We supply the full range of industrial insulation — ceramic fibre, calcium silicate, mineral wool, foil-faced systems, and sealing materials — so the survey findings can be actioned without a separate sourcing exercise.