Orange flames in my greenhouse wall furnace

[Daintree]

I thought I would share this, in case it happens to someone else -

Our humidity here is very low, and some of my plants aren't happy about that, so I finally decided to do something that may work better than patio misters.  I decided to start with something cheap and low-tech, and built a humidifier out of a sterlite tub and a five-head ultrasonic fogger that floats.

Works like a charm! Yahoo!

But when it came time to turn on my furnces, low and behold, my "blue flame" gas wall furnaces were burning orange.

Danger, danger Will Robinson! Orange flames mean carbon monoxide!

My detector wasn't going off, and my quail weren't dead, but I called our heating guy, who came out with his carbon monoxide sniffer and said everything was fine. He couldn't find anything wrong with the furnaces or explain why the orange flames.

I did a bit of research and found out that ultrasonic humidifiers vaporize whatever sodium particles are naturally in our water supply, which then drift over to the furnace and contact the flames, and harmlessly turn the flames orange!  Chemistry 101...

Carolyn

[BoBiscuit]

Wow, that's good to know! I run humidifiers in the house during Santa Anas when the humidity can drop to 5% or less. The stove burners put out orange flames when I do this, and I've always wondered why. Regular water vapor, like from boiling a big canning pot, doesn't do the same thing.