Heater and Condensation

[GMCAMARO]

So I ran the heater this afternoon in the garage. It's a forced hot air, propane fired 125K BTU unit. When I noticed condensation coming out of the exhaust. A lot of little drips. It was also coming out of the condensation trap, is the stuff coming out the exhaust normal?

 

[HoosierBuddy]

The byproducts of any combustion of a hydrocarbon include CO2 and H20. For propane the chemical equation for complete combustion is:

C3H8+5O2 = 3CO2 + 4H2O

In the real world, you end up with some incomplete combustion leaving some CO and some free O2 on the right side of the equation too...but you get the point. Water is a big part of the flue byproducts. Some of it condenses is the flue and runs back to the condensate line. Some of it goes up the flue. In general, the higher the efficiency of the heater, the more water will end up in the condensate line instead of out of the flue.

Phil