Cold Flow Improver

Managing or using stored fuel in cold weather necessarily means adding winter anti-gel treatment to the stored fuel ahead of time. Winter treatment to prevent fuel gelling is essential in these cold weather climates. It’s not an optional thing.

But going from that recognition to having your stored fuel protected in the winter time means having the answers to a few other questions - when you need to treat, whether you need to re-treat (and when). Not to mention what you should use.

Protecting Your Diesel Fuel in Cold Weather With Cold Flow Improver

Cold Flow Improver is Bell Performance’s commercial grade winter anti-gel treatment for diesel fuel. Similar to how fuel stabilizers work, antigel treatments like Cold Flow Improver are combinations of active ingredients, with each part performing a different function that all work together to keep the fuel flowing well in the winter cold.

One part of the package keeps wax dispersed and away from each other throughout the fuel, which limits their ability to grow and thicken the fuel. Another part of the package will keep the waxes suspended in the fuel and keep them from dropping out as quickly, which means they don’t settle in your fuel lines and in your filters as quickly.  Another part of the package helps keep any water in the fuel from freezing and forming ice crystals. 

The combination of all these things is……fewer gelling problems at lower temperatures.

Cold Flow Improver provides commercial grade protection to keep all your diesel engines and systems running like they should in the winter.

When To Use Cold Flow Improver

Like stabilizer, winter treatments like Cold Flow Improvers need to be in the fuel before the winter gelling problems start. Their biggest value comes in what they stop from happening.  They don’t reverse fuel gelling - they keep it from happening.

How Protected Will Your Fuel Be With Cold Flow Improver?

What level of protection will a package like Cold Flow Improver give to the fuel? A common but important question that actually means how many degrees will treatment reduce my fuel’s problem temperature by?

The ultimate answer depends on some things about the fuel that you’re simply not going to know beforehand without doing the kind of extensive testing nobody thinks to do - things like wax distribution analysis (the size of the paraffins in your fuel, and how they’re distributed, will markedly impact when they drop out in the cold, which means they determine whether that happens at higher temps or cold temps).

Generally speaking, treatment with Cold Flow Improver should give you 15-20 degrees of protection from gelling. Meaning that if your equipment experiences gelling problems at 15 degrees F, you should be protected down to 0 deg F or even below that.

Of course, if you’re managing large amounts of mission critical winter diesel fuel, the safest way to know your true answer to that question is simply have your fuel treated and tested. If that’s important to you, talk to us and we;ll be glad to help. 

Is Antigel Re-Treatment Ever Necessary?

Another fair question to ask is whether anti-gel treatment is a one-and-done type of thing? Winter fuel storage managers know they need to get Cold Flow Improver in their fuel before the temperatures drop near the cloud point. But does one treatment last the entire winter? Should you believe an additive treatment that insists one treatment is all you’ll need?

Winter diesel fuel gelling is so much an “it depends” kind of thing that anyone who insists they know one treatment is all you need probably is overselling their solution.

The truth is that, in many cases, one treatment in the winter may be enough protection. But in some other cases, you may need to re-treat the fuel to ensure your protection continues to the level you need it. 

Like when?

Remember that antigel packages like Cold Flow Improver act on the wax components coming out into the fuel that want to drop out, stick together, and thicken the fuel. Cold Flow Improver stops that from happening, but the tradeoff is that the antigel chemistry gets “used up” the more it has to do this.

Does this mean you lose all protection every time the weather gets cold? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. But it does mean that you need to pay attention to the weather temperatures in your area for clues that the Cold Flow Improver is going to be kicking in and working.

Here’s what you’ll want to look for:

Periods where the temperatures drop close to or below the fuel’s cloud temperature and stay below that mark for multiple consecutive days.

The longer that happens, and the more often that happens, the more your antigel chemistry will have to fight to protect the fuel. And that means a greater chance that your Cold Flow Improver protection may need to be supplemented with an additional treatment. 

Make no mistake, this is true of every winter anti-gel treatment. And it’s helpful to know what to look for to prepare for it. 

A Variety of Options For Your Needs

Cold Flow Improver is available in a variety of sizes to meet your winter fuel treatment needs. 32-oz bottles, 1-gallon bottles and 2.5-gallon jugs for small to medium tanks. And for larger jobs, 55-gallon drums.