Oil Heat Vent Analysis Program (OHVAP) users manual and engineering report

Oil-fired heating appliances have traditionally used conventional chimney venting systems. In more recent times, masonry chimneys have given way to fabricated metal chimneys which have had the advantage of lower installed cost. Even more recently, there has been an effort by the industry to apply power venting technology to oil-fired appliances. These changes in venting technology have been accompanied by ever improving appliance efficiencies. The successful application of these modern, high efficiency oil-fired appliances depends upon the safe and cost effective integration of the heating appliance and the vent system. Unfortunately, due to the complexity inherent in such issues as heat loss, condensation and corrosion the available manual calculations provide only a steady state rather than transient analysis. In addition, these methods are exceedingly cumbersome. While computerized methods have been developed, for the most part they are usually these same steady state calculations placed into a spreadsheet or BASIC program. This report describes the oil heat vent analysis program (OHVAP) for the analysis of ventilation of oil-fired appliances