Installation, commissioning and replacement planning
A kettle is not finished when it leaves the works. Most of what decides its life happens in the week after it arrives.
Commissioning is where kettles are won or lost
We supply the heat-up curve with every kettle, and we will go through it with your team before the first firing at no charge — by call, by video, or in writing, whichever suits your engineers.
Attendance on site during commissioning can be arranged and is quoted per project, because the cost depends entirely on where you are and how long the firing takes. Ask when you enquire rather than after the kettle ships.
What we will tell you, whether you ask or not:
- Charge with pure zinc, above 99.99 %No lead in the base of a new kettle. The wall has no alloy layer yet and is at its most vulnerable to intergranular attack.
- Stack ingots tight against the wall — but leave a 100 mm gap in the middleThe kettle is side-heated, so contact matters. But zinc's coefficient of expansion is about three times iron's, and a tightly packed charge will push outward as it heats.
- Cover the bath during melt-downLimits heat loss from the top while the kettle is being heated from the sides.
- Hold 24 hours at 300 – 330 °CThis is not padding in the schedule. It is where the kettle releases the stress from its own manufacture.
Running the kettle so it lasts
| Bath temperature | 445 – 460 °C |
| Inner wall | Below 480 °C. 490–510 °C is the peak corrosion band |
| Hourly throughput | 1/30 to 1/40 of zinc volume, including jigs. Run it level |
| Temperature logging | Every 30 minutes, recorded |
| Thermocouples | Type E or K, in protective sheaths, calibrated on a schedule |
| Over-temperature alarm | Required |
| Zinc leak alarm | Required. Escaping zinc shorts the detector, triggers the alarm and shuts down heating |
| Emergency zinc pit | Where site conditions allow — 25–30 % of total zinc volume, conical for recovery |
Follow this and the corrosion rate holds at 1.0–2.5 mm/year. Chase output by raising heat input and it does not.
Planning a replacement instead of reacting to a leak
Kettle replacement is a full plant shutdown. Planned, it is a scheduled outage. Unplanned, it is a zinc spill and an unknown number of weeks.
Measure wall thickness ultrasonically on a schedule, plot the trend, and you will know roughly a year in advance. That is enough time to specify, build and ship a replacement into a window you choose.
Tell us your current kettle’s dimensions, age and latest thickness readings, and we will tell you what a replacement looks like — even if you are not ready to buy yet.
Bear in mind that a proper commissioning alone takes about a week. Work backwards from the outage window you want, not forwards from when you notice a problem.
Send your thickness readings
Current kettle dimensions, age, and your latest ultrasonic wall measurements. We will come back with a replacement specification and a realistic timeline.