If ventilation isn’t dialed in, trace carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) can accumulate near the line – and put you in danger of violating OSHA guidelines. This is especially true at startups, set-point changes or during heavy loading. You don’t need a chemistry degree to manage this risk; you need a clear picture of air movement, temperature and humidity in and around the oven, plus reliable gas detection in the room. A Reading Thermal profiling platform designed for bakeries can help make meeting OSHA standards for commercial oven safety easier than you might have imagined.
Treat Ventilation As A Process Parameter
Ventilation often gets treated like background noise – fans on, dampers set, problem solved. In reality, it’s a process parameter as real as bake time or zone temperature. When make-up air, exhaust, and recirculation are balanced, hot gases move where they should and dilution keeps byproducts in check. Reading Thermal’s SCORPION® 2 system helps you see the conditions the product and the surrounding air actually experience, so you can link ventilation settings to measurable results rather than hunches.
Map Airflow To Keep Byproducts Moving
If pockets of stagnant air form near the infeed, outfeed, or inspection stations, that’s where you’ll see the highest readings on your fixed CO/NOx monitors. The SCORPION® 2 Digital Air Velocity Sensor Array travels through ovens and cooling tunnels to show you how air moves across the band and from side to side. With a true airflow profile, you’ll spot zones that need a damper tweak. Clearing those bottlenecks usually lowers byproduct concentrations without cranking up exhaust across the board.
Use Temperature And Humidity To Prevent Surprises
Combustion byproducts and ventilation don’t live in a vacuum. When humidity rises or product moisture drives the dew point up, operators sometimes add exhaust or adjust dampers, which can change how gases move and dilute. Pair the Digital Humidity Sensor with the Temperature Sensor Array to capture a complete cooling/oven profile at product level. The data helps you choose the smallest adjustment that restores safe, consistent conditions without sacrificing quality.
Correlate Gas Events With Profiles
Your facility’s gas monitors are essential for safety, but they’re even more useful when you can explain why a spike happened. Run SCORPION® 2 profiling during startups, changeovers and seasonal transitions, then compare those runs to your gas-monitor alarm logs. If CO bumps align with low air velocity at the outfeed, you’ve found a ventilation issue. If NOx rises during aggressive heat-up, your ramp strategy may be the culprit. This correlation turns “we saw an alarm” into “we’ve fixed the root cause,” which is a much better conversation for both safety and uptime.
Keep Instruments Alive So You Capture The Whole Story
Hot environments can be rough on electronics – even during short profiles. Reading Thermal’s Thermal Barriers protect the SCORPION® 2 data logger and sensor arrays, extending run time so you can document the full journey. When you can profile the entire path in one pass, you won’t miss the subtle transitions where ventilation issues often show up.
Build A Practical Playbook
Once you’ve got a few good profiles, lock in a “golden” airflow, temperature, and humidity signature for your line and season. Train operators to verify that signature after maintenance – before new SKUs – and at the first sign of elevated readings on the room’s CO/NOx monitors. SCORPION® 2 technology will help your team diagnose whether a safety blip is a ventilation imbalance, a loading change or a heat-up sequence that needs a gentler slope.
For more information on how our products help with meeting OSHA standards for commercial oven safety, contact us online or giving Reading Thermal a call at 610-678-5890.