Waste Motor Oil Furnace - Any thoughts?

[OntarioMan]

I've been reading a bit about the use of waste motor oil as furnace fuel - specifically for my garage/shop. Any thoughts?

Mother Earth News Waste Oil Heater

[wy_white_wolf]

They suck.

Friend has one in his shop. He had a towing business so he did generate a lot of waste oil. But still not enough to heat he shop. Tried getting waste oil from other shops. None of the oil he got from others was clean enough to use. They'd all dump antifreeze in the waste oil tanks and it would screw up his burner. Ended up being a maintenance nightmare. He replaced it with a coal burner.

[DaleK]

Suppose it depends where you fall in under the ban on using waste oil heaters in Southern Ontario. Doesn't bother me, but if you're south of the French River and not an ag operation using exclusively your own oil, just depends who's watching.

[tamsam]

the ones we used years ago were pretty good heat producers but we had upwards to 200 gallons of tranny fluid a day to get rid of. The ones we used had to have air pressure all the time as they sprayed the oil like a spray gun into the fire box. For a small shop I would think it more bother than its worth. Sam PS We were heating a 200X 600 ft building.

[Ross]

I wouldn't have that MEN heater anywhere on my property. It's so out of code and poorly designed it's really just an oil burning campfire.

You need plenty of air for efficiency, but you have to keep the velocity low. After considerable experimentation, I found that you must use a large air tube (the 4-inch tube used in the MEN heater is fine), but you must use a restrictor at its inlet to keep the velocity low.

This is just wrong. Too much air and you'll lift the fuel clean out of the fire pot as unburned fuel and carbon monoxide (which is unburned fuel too) As this thing is a natural draft burner (lke most oil burners/boiler/furnaces) it needs a draft regulator to control the air. Restricting the input air (like a wood stove) will work but not well.
I really think the solution to the cleaning problem is dangerous. The reason you don't keep on pushing the reset button on a normal furnace is you could be pooling oil (like this MEN heater intends) If the burner lights up and heats that pool it will explode. Used oil would need more heat than #2 furnace oil but it's very inconsistant in visocity and flash point. I'd rather chip the clinker than sweep up my building. Nothing in their fuel supply is to code it all needs to be able to withstand 1000 degree heating. So if there is a fire the oil supply doesn't disintegrate fueling the fire even more so. I you want to see a modern waste oil vapourizing burner check out http://www.thermobile.us/ yeah it needs power to control the fuel supply but really it solves so many problems to just meter the fuel by temperature it just makes sense to use a little electricity.

[fishhead]

What about using it to burn used cooking oil? A friend of mine has an outdoor wood burner that he burns used motor oil in but he said he can used cooking oil too.

[plowjockey]

I know of several shops that use them. Cheap heat, but they do have monir problems with plugging.

If you have enough free oil, why not?

[WayneR]

http://www.green-trust.org/oil_burner.htm

http://cogeco.ca/~woproject/

http://www.quietcorneraec.org/FAQwas...conversion.htm

There are also several foundry sites that also burn WO in their equipment.
It should also be possible to use them for space heating .

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/index.html

These may use too much oil since they strive for temperatures to melt iron.

More information can be found by searching Wastewatts and Babington .

[zant]

The shop next to mine had one-nothing but problems-WHY-they were too stoned/lazy to do about 15min of maint every day.....Another shop had a CleanBurn and the owner spent 15-30 min every day cleaning flue,burner,etc-never had a problem and heated his shop on used oil from his business at no cost....