We just wrapped up burning the clearing debris from about 20 acres and I rented an AirBurner brand trench burner. Over all, I wasn’t too impressed with the machine. The air volume moved was much less than I expected. We have an old Finn Fire Ball 2 that burned much more volume than this newer machine. I loved the idea and design but found that in practice the features became bugs. The folding design of the tunnels made setup and transport a breeze. The problem came on the back end when it became apparent the tunnels warped from the heat and would not return to their stored position. Their weight combined with the heat also made them droop. It took some work with heating and pulling them back into line but we managed to get them where they would return to their hangers. They could also stand to use some beefing up to better support their own weight. This is somewhat of a contradiction, but the heat being as high as it is I don’t know of any other way to resist the wrapping effect. I also found that the fan lost a lot of volume throughput from the lack of a seal or maybe a skirt around the main tube’s hole that the fan pushes air into. Has anyone else ran these machines and if so what were your thoughts? I like a lot of the ideas that went into the machine but believe there could be some improvements made to get better efficiency out of the unit.
Bought an Airburner trench burner new back in the mid 2000's for a 70 acre project we cleared 35-40 acres of before the bust in 2008. I really liked the machine and through renting other air burners find the Airburner brand to be the best of them all. We didn't have issues then with the manifolds warping but we made a berm round the pit and the manifolds rested on the berm with dirt backfilled behind them. Who knows they are probably not building the manifolds out of the same steel now. The Airburner moved more air than the other 2 machines I've rented as well. One was a Concept Products and the other is the outfit out of Tifton, GA. The Airburner created a hotter fire so hot that we melted the tail lights lenses. A Concept Products unit we rented recently to burn a few acres. That's my $.02. I don't have a lot of experience just those 3 instances.