SBS Refractory Service
Costs and process2 min

What does an hour of furnace downtime cost? The figure that decides the strategy

What does an hour of unplanned furnace downtime cost? That figure decides the right maintenance strategy — and very few operators have it to hand.

Emergency call-out on an aluminium furnace during an unplanned shutdown

What does an hour of unplanned furnace downtime cost? That figure decides the right maintenance strategy — and very few operators have it to hand.

Three items for any honest calculation

  • Lost production: tonnage times contribution margin — with melting units, quickly a five-figure sum per hour.
  • Reheating: a furnace that has been allowed to go cold needs a controlled heat-up curve with holding stages. That often costs days, not hours — and belongs in full in the outage calculation.
  • Consequential damage: continuing to run with a worn lining risks breakthroughs and a major incident instead of a plannable repair.

Our experience from 500+ projects: around 80 % of refractory failures announce themselves. With thermography during operation we detect a thin residual lining early and translate the finding into a targeted partial repair in the next planned shutdown window — a fraction of the cost of an unplanned failure.

And if it does happen after all: the emergency service gets back to you within one hour and is usually on site anywhere in the DACH region within 24 hours — with our own installation teams.

At a glance
80 %
of refractory failures announce themselves
five-figure
outage costs per hour with melting units
Further reading

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Emergency Service

24/7 emergency hotline and rapid response teams for unplanned furnace shutdowns.

Maintenance, Inspection & Shutdown Planning

Regular inspections and predictive maintenance for maximum furnace availability.

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