Has anyone built a waste oil heater

I've worked in plenty of cold ass shops. I don't remember any of it being fun.
Had a cool shop in Ohio almost 30 yrs. ago with a super coal stove. T shirt
working when it was frigid outside. That was fun... Till the whole place
burned down. First off lets be careful out there this winter, I wouldn't
wish what I went through on anybody. Plenty of discussion on our sister
site and yes even I read through the used oil heater thread.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24280

 

I too have one that I made/converted.... It does not smoke at all. and has very little oder. It started life as a mid fifties Siegler fuel oil forced air heating stove. all I did was remove the fuel oil regulator and replaced it with a feed pipe for oil. after about 30 Gals just scoop the crud out of the bottom. and if I run out of oil I just run fuel oil throuh it. the only function that does not work reliably with drain oil is the low pilot burn

 

Id love to see pics of these home made heaters . This could be a grate thread if people would show how they converted them . Im going to go with the forced hot air oil fired converstion seems to be the safest bet and cleanest .

 

Hi Everyone,
I am gathering up parts to build one from a 50 gallon water heater tank that I have gutted already from my house. I came across plans back 20 years ago in Mother Earth News Magazine. See this link for improvements made to the original stoves.. Please read through all the info..
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me4.html
Good Luck with your stoves and do make them safe... duane

 

so is this a kit just made to burn used oil, how much was it, do they have kits for all brands of burners, thanks

 

no its not a kit i dont think follow the link that i posted . The parts can be bought on e bay it tells you step by step in the link to the The Garage Journal Board

 

Home made Waste Oil heaters are easy to make and contrary to what some say, they burn well with almost no visible emissions and no smell, (Well,... much less than from a wood fire in both cases) By climbing on my roof, I have found trhat my heater only has a slight odour similar to freshly laid bitumen, this is only detectable for about 20-30 feet

I have used one in my home now for 12 years without complaint from my neighbours, in fact, most of them are probably not aware that my heater is powered by Waste Oil.

It's biggest single advantage after almost free running costs is that having no pumps or fans, it still works should you lose power.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lwSmYz_g6U

 

way too much mess for me, & the smell & smoke just can not apprecite it at all. wood is so much better for me.

 

I recently built a new garage and went with the in floor radiant heat. It is perfect. Cost to heat is minimal, I keep it at 55 deg all winter. No fumes, No open flame, No fan, no mess to clean up. The best part is when I open the garage door to pull the winter beater in it doesn't take long for the garage to heat back up because the concrete floor acts as a giant heat sink. I guess the only bad thing about it would be if one of the tubes under the concrete ever broke.

However, It doesn't help with disposal of used oil.

 

Any waste oil I come up with...cooking oil, engine/transmission oil, etc gets dumped into my home heating oil tank...

 

You do mean A GARAGE BOMB !! Don't You !!!! >>>>.

 

3 liters per hour..almost comes out to about what 19 gallons a day (24 hours)thats like 133 gallons a week..you better have a dam good source of used oil..any one wanna doubble check my math..some times i fuck up and see it wrong

but im pretty sure i got this conversion right..133 gallons per week and lets say i just use it on the weekends..so 20 weekends for up here in michigan 40 days at 19 gallons 760 gallons and thats being conservative..it gets dam cold up here,at times..and if you have a good source of heat you tend to want to use your shop more..

i cant ever get my hands on 700 gallons of waste oil, nor would i want to store it..it is concitered hazardous waste, and you would have to contain it properly..sounds like a big EPA pain in the ASS
Hell even if i used it half the time..380 gallons of used oil is alot of oil

i definetly think this idea is for a warmer climate than where I live..maybe a good supplimental heating unit to take the chill off., but not for weeks of use or continual use..no way

 

Friend has one ,,kinda big but works fine..Also a local Tire store has one,,lets people drop off used oil for free.

 

i built mine from an old ELECTRIC water heater tank. cut in a door, hinged it, added 3 legs, cut a hole for the chimney, have a cast iron frying pan in the center, an old jerry can hung about 3' above, oil line wrapped around the smoke pipe. i start it with oil soaked sawdust and a little kerosine to start, set the drip and it heats up a good portion of my garage

 

Good thread. We're planning a cabin down in the country & this is ONE thought I had for a cheap method of heat -- free used motor oil.

For safety's sake, though, I thought put the heater in a sepatate shed and use a duct & fan to bring air into the cabin. Most all the applications discussed here are for fairly spacious garages & workshops, presumably with fairly high ceilings, I think.

Any thoughts, guys?

 

Your math is spot on I'd say. Fortunately here in Australia our winters are much more mild than yours, and the heater only runs for an average of 15 -18 hrs a day on low heat (about 1-1.2 lts an hour), and i do have an excellent source of used oil. I have usually got 2 - 3000 litres in storage at any given time.

I have a 1 tonne (1000 litre) bulk container at the local Toyota dealers workshop and when it is full (about 4-5 weeks) he rings me and lifts it onto my traytop with his forklift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oaehdI1SbI

A modified version of this unit is in use heating a Machine shop in Daventry England and on a day of 4degC below freezing, it maintains the shop at 19degC (66deg F)



The only alteration needed was a reflective radiant heat shield between the heater and the wall. A 6' x 4' sheet of 1" millboard covered in 20G, stainless steel.

 

Awsome for you..that is key , having a good source and a reliable source.
If you dont have that, when you need heat you will be sunk. and have time and money into a useless piece of equipment thinking you could go cheap on the heat and in all reality it ends up a no go.

I think this is a good idea if you dont live in the colder areas of the country, something to take the chill off in a well insulated shop. That way the heat you do produce out of the oil you burn isnt wasted so quickly
Maybe in an area of the country where the coldest temperatures are not down below say 38 degrees F
I dont mind working in 45 to 50 degree shop..but i sure hate it when its dam colder than that..or when you can just lay your hand on a wrench and pick it up, because its stuck to your hand like your tongue to a flag pole

 

I once heard of this old school aproach to waste oil heating: You use a cast iron frying pan and zigzag stovepipe over it. Up, 90 degree turn, straight, 180 turn, and so on a couple of times until the stack goes up through the roof.

Then you set up a drip into the frying pan. The zigzagged stove pipe gets hot, and there is your heater.

Something crude like this can be built very inexpensively and might be a solution where you only want to use the heater incidentally. That could solve the problem of getting 100s of gallons of waste oil.

 

My oil consumption is metered as you will see in the video, the meter is designed for milk, and runs at almost exactly half speed. At the moment it is showing 14,994 lts (Today) which when multiplied by two gives me a total consumption of 30 tonnes in 10 years. I never had the meter for the first two years of use.

The motor dealer loves me as it normally costs him 5c/lt to have the oil collected. The collector then sells it to brick makers who mix it with their heating oil and burn it in their kilns.

This summer, i will be making a few alterations to my heater to improve it's efficiency, it will be interesting to see how much difference it makes with a secondary air inlet that will lift the fire higher into the firebox and also the effect of installing a baffle to slow down the hot gas making it hit the sides of the firebox rather than just going straight up the centre and out the flue.



This shows the 3/4" thick cast steel baffle (Mack clutch plate) that will be trimmed to fit and also the piece of cast steel (railway bedplate) that will cover the centre hole. Some idea of the gas flow area around the edges can be seen here. It is almost exactly the same as the cross sectional area of the flue. If the centre piece burns out I will replace it with fire brick(s).

That's the plan

 

I am been playing with waste oil heat for several years now. Had one old industrial stove, a wood stove with a bucket, and now a new used commercial unit. The old industrial stove was just wrong for my shop but I think it was a good unit. My old wood stove I had a 5 gallon bucket, a line, and a valve. Heated the shop but like others have said was very hard to control and pretty risky. Just recently bought an Eliminator stove used. Seems like a great setup and if I had a little more insulation in my shop it will do a great job of heating.
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One big thing to keep in mind with any sort of heating is your insurance. Most companies will not cover any sort of wood stove let alone a jerry rigged home built oil stove. I am not saying don't do it just saying that if you have your stuff insured it is something you need to factor in.

 

although we didnt build them we have some waste oil burners that heat our warehouse at work they work great

 

I have a couple of industrial ones in my business had them since 1995 they work great BUT require alot of maint. We are always cleaning them

 

Most of the systems are way too complicated and don't need to be.

Mine works great with no blowers, no electricity and no smoke after start up. And no smell indoors.

55 Gallon Drum

Cast Iron Door and Frame from Hardware Store - Typically an ash cleanout door for a chimney - about ten or fifteen bucks new.

Flue Pipe

Three foot section of old Exhaust Pipe

Coffee Can

Set the drum on its side

Fab some legs or set on blocks

Cut a square hole and screw the cast door frame in with sheet metal screws

Cut a hole and mount your flue pipe. Don't worry. Any leaks will draw air. Fire won't leak out. No need for furnace cement if you can cut a half ass circle. Just shove the pipe in a few inches and secure with a couple of small pieces of angle and screws. Sheet metal is fine.

Cut a 3" hole in the top of the barrell (The side is now the top) opposite the flu end. . This will allow you to insert your old exhaust pipe which will be an air intake and funnel. The old exhaust pipe will sit almost vertically just above a coffee can which will sit just inside the door.

Your drip will come from whatever container you use through a small valve and drip into the old exhaust pipe. The exhaust pipe should sit on a slight angle so that the drip runs down the inside of the exhaust pipe where it is preheated as it heads for the can which you have stuffed some old newspapper to start the fire.

The old exhaust pipe will stay cool as air is drawn in just like the intake on an engine.

If you preheat your flue pipe it will draw any odor from start-up out of the system. You can stuff some paper up in it and light it or run your torch over it for a couple of seconds just to get heat rising inside the pipe. That's only if your picky. Diesel guys won't need this step.

Cut a hole in the flat front face of the barrell as a second air inlet that you can adjust. A simple flap over it with a bolt or screw will allow you to slide it open or closed as needed.

Once the fire is going and the intake pipe (old exhaust pipe) is glowing cherry red you should see no visible smoke from the chimney if you have your air adjusted properly.

I cut some long slots in my intake pipe just above the coffee can. it seems to have a sort of catalytic effect as the edges get hot.

Space it from flammable walls etc., just as you would a woodstove.

 

Yo, Clik.........................How about a pic?????????

 

check out this.<cite>www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/.../me11.html </cite>

 

Yep,... they are great in theory, and can pump out some serious heat, but many builders have no success at all in getting them to burn cleanly.

Here's a link to a guy who shows the smoke from his Mother Earth heater http://www.youtube.com/user/yonmoore#p/u/15/omsjsDEj2Rw

and the clear stack from my design even though the heater was unfinished at this stage and had water in the fuel causing sputtering and panting. http://www.youtube.com/user/yonmoore#p/u/11/6GLKaT0jniw

Here's a later update.http://www.youtube.com/user/yonmoore#p/u/10/TDxmSAPxx8w

 

Hello Robert I really liked your modifications to the testing of the burner, you letter from distant Kazakhstan, former USSR My name is Andrew, could you give me a wiring diagram of your torch, with respect Andrew!

 

My daily driver is a VW diesel.

I burn waste motor oil (5W30) and ATF in it, mixed 50/50 with diesel.

It will run on richer blends, but it can be hard to start and smokes when blended over 50%.

Of course it is warm here at least 6 or 7 months a year.

Hybrids are for LOSERS.