How often should you service a heater treater?
We get asked this a lot, and the honest answer is: it depends. High-sulfur fluids and high-corrosion environments accelerate everything. Lighter production with clean fuel gas runs longer between services. But there's a reasonable default schedule that catches most issues before they become unplanned downtime.
Monthly
- Visual inspection of the burner, pilot, and BMS panel
- Verify fuel gas pressure and regulator setting
- Walk the unit for leaks, corrosion, and obvious mechanical issues
- Check alarm history if the BMS supports it
Quarterly
- Burner tuning (combustion analysis if you have the equipment)
- Sensor calibration check on thermocouples and pressure switches
- Pilot assembly clean and inspection
- Firetube external inspection for hot spots, scaling, or damage
Annually
- Full BMS audit against manufacturer spec
- Internal firetube inspection where access permits
- Refractory inspection on indirect-fired units
- Documentation review for inspection compliance
When to plan a firetube replacement
Firetubes don't fail gracefully. Once you see significant scaling, hot spots, or thinning on inspection, plan the replacement — don't wait for it to fail in service. We can quote replacement and schedule it as a planned outage rather than an emergency.
Related guides.
What a heater treater does (and why temperature is everything)
A heater treater is where oil, water, and gas get sorted out. When it can't hold temperature, everything downstream backs up.
Thief hatches: what they do, why they fail, when to replace
Thief hatches sound boring. They are — until one fails and you get a six-figure call from the environmental team.