Hey- Any one using a waste oil heater? if yes, what kind of consumption do these things have? if you run out of waste oil, can you use fuel oil? and most importantly, do they work worth a damn, or should I go with Infrared? the torpedo heater of doom ain't gonna cut it now that we are doing paint...
The last dealership I worked at had one installed and it worked good, it was a big unit and it seemed like it took a lot to get it installed, and I guess one of the fittings was loose and it spilled ALOT of oil all over the shop. But after that it seemed to work worry free.
You might want to check out the garagejournal. Alot of threads on this subject. (its a division of the jalopyjournal hamb family).
The dealership I work in has one as a supplement to the fuel oil furnace. It gets a bug up its *** occasionally and has to be tinkered with, but that usually happens when it gets a slug of extra dirty oil through it. If you've got the oil to run it, it's great. Let all your neighbors know that you'll take their drain oil for free.
I heat my shop with a waste oil heater I built last year basically from plans from an old Mother Earth News article that I stumbled on the internet. It's made out of an old hot water tank. The original plan just dripped oil into the stove onto a "burner" made from two old cast iron frying pans. Combustion air was drawn into the stove thru a pipe and exhausted thru a chimney but the newer oils have a higher flash point and in order to get mine to burn hot enough to be clean I added a small blower that forces air down a tube onto the top of the burner. I can adjust the speed of the blower to get a clean/hot burn. The oil is stored in a 15 gal tank made from an old air compressor mounted at ceiling height above the back workbench and runs through a copper tube into the stove. I can adjust the drip rate by turning a valve in the feed line. I burned it all last winter and made some modifications to it this fall. It goes thru about a quart in an hour and the surface temp of the stove runs about 900-1100 degrees. Fan on the bench behind the stove circulates the heat. It keeps my shop t-shirt warm in below zero weather. No smoke or annoying odor from the chimney just a heat plume. Including some sections of chimney and a wall thimble I've got about a hundred bucks into it. I also tried some old waste cooking oil the other night. Smells good and about the same heat output. I know you're probably looking for a commercial built unit but this homemade question comes up once in a while and I thought someone might be interested. Price of the oil is right and overall it makes good heat for me. If anyone's interested I can try to post some pics or send em to ya e-mail. INXS
Got a INOV8 brand at my business. We do a lot of oil changes so we generate more than we use. I'd heat my hobby shop and house if I could afford another unit. Here's their website. Good folks,too. http://www.inov8-intl.com/
had one in a shop i used to work at, worked pretty good and not alot of smell but you have to run fairly clean oil (oil only not antifreeze water etc)in them or they ash up pretty heavy and require alot of maintenance, also if you run the same kind of oil in it all the time ie. motor oil, they work consistant, but if you mix oils, ie. hydraulic, gear they need to be adjusted for the thicker or thinner oils.
Mine was 500,000 BTU Clean burn, worked well as long as you had clean oil. NO WATER/ANTIFREEZE. I used to let my extra oil freeze, or should I say the water in it, and pour the oil off the top. My furnas sat on top of a fuel oil barrel stand with the barrel under it, Nice and all together, I could drain the anti freeze out the bottom of the tank, All in all No smell and alot of heat, just had to baby sit it every so often. Consumption was about 1 gal. per hour running wide open. Wish I had one for 30 X40 garage.
I know a local dealer saves 6k a month in heating expenses by using one. Not sure about the setup itsself but dang, thats huge reduction in overhead.
I've got an Omni OW150h I use in a 36x30. It works pretty good, but you have to babysit it every now and again... Check the flame, adjust the air etc.... Beats the **** outa the wood stove I used to use...
We were talking about these things at work the other day. Dude there was getting ready to build the Mother Earth unit and found an article about a guy who had one and found ways to modify it to keep the maintenance down and make it more consistent. I'll see if I can come up with the info. This is a build it yourself unit.
I had a few of them in buildings I've rented. They work great & can burn anti freeze, motor oil, diff oil, trans fluid. Just make sure you do regular PM maintenance, yearly at a minimum. You'll save a fortune on heating oil.
a couple buddy's of mine that own dump trucks have them .....one had a 44x64 and it kept it in the 60's in the winter pretty easy .....the other guy has a old concrete block building probably built in the 50's or 60's.....its 36x50 ....and its the same way ......t shirt temps in winter......i think one of them told me they can buy used oil for 50 cents or so gallon if they need it....but he also owns 6 or 7 trucks so there is always oil being changed......brandon
A shop owner I know here in town has one in his 5000 sq ft shop and it works real well. He goes around and emptys waste oil barrels in other shops around town to get free waste oil and the people are happy to get rid of it for free, I know he come to our shop every couple of months and gets a free fillup. I'm sure the quality of the unit will make the most differance.
Start here - he has the original instructions plus an improved burner and links to some variations. http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me4.html
Why yes! Here is the one the dude at work is building... http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me11.html Edit: Seems 2many may have beat me to it.
I don't think so, as a matter of fact, my manual says that new engine oil won't burn either. If you use clean oil, it has to be fuel oil..
I had one that came with my house, it heated the house(two units)the shop 30 by 60 with 20 foot ceilings and the swimming pool, and hot water tank, the unit had its own garage built to house it. The tank was 1800 gallons of oil and the plenum and water tank was 10 by 15 large, I was always having to screw with it, I'd come home and the thing would be smoking white all over the neighborhood, I had the EPA called on me, no problems there. oil was always a ***** to get unless you paid 50 cents a gallon. The best thing about it was that it would heat the pool to 115 f in the winter, in the mornings my son would be in the pool before school, steam everywhere and he looked like one of those japanese snow monkeys sitting in the hotsprings, eyes closed, contemplating. I was told when I purchased the house the unit installed was around 30 thousand, I would never pay to have another one
try a quick search......i started a couple of threads on this about a year or so ago....i started gathering the parts the the mother earth one (i think i still have all the print outs from the sites)....i kept reading that modern oil won't work as well, but it looks like other's have made it work.... i wound up using coal.......cheap! i don't get enough oil to justify it......still like to try one, though
We have a commercial "Clean Burn" unit at the car club I belong to, heats our 30 stall shop to 55 quite easily. Has an oil heater for the thicker stuff and atomizes it with compressed air. We just had it "reconditioned" after over 10 years of so-so maintenance. We love it and could not afford to heat the place without it.
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