Waste oil heater for my garage.

[Dead Horse]

I would like to build a version of that at about half the scale........... Man, what a nice job you did!

How bad does it smell outside the shop?

 

[dngspot]

When I passed through the exhaust from the stack the smell was slight. Coming from the chimney it is not noticed. Even if you stand right over the stack you will not get the smell as if someone has bad valve covers and oil is leaking on the exhaust manifold.

 

[Dead Horse]

When I passed through the exhaust from the stack the smell was slight. Coming from the chimney it is not noticed. Even if you stand right over the stack you will not get the smell as if someone has bad valve covers and oil is leaking on the exhaust manifold.

Nice set up. have you calculated how much oil you will use in a season?

You have some real talent there................. especially with the smoke wrench!

 

[Nat]

DNGSPOT, I have been following this thread from start. I think you have done a great job, and since you have done the job and it works I may try it myself. One question I have is on the burner. Is it shaped a specific way or would a cast iron frying pan work? It looks to me as if a frying pan would last a long time and hold heat well. Also since my shop is cement block and the rear is cut into the bank I could set a gravity tank to feed the burner but after hearing of fuel flow problems on yours I'm wondering if this would be a problem for me. Any thoughts? Thanks, Nat

 

[dngspot]

I have tried using the cast iron pan by its self and like the conical burner better. It allows me to run a varied drip. If I run the drip fast then a large puddle and more heat, slow then low heat. The cast iron pan does not allow this; the oil must fill the bottom of the pan before it can burn properly. My friend uses this process and when he opens the door you can see a ring of fire at the edge of the pan. My burner has the fire at the center. The burner is concaved at a 12 degree cone. It is made from 1/4 inch steel.

The few flow problems that I was having with my set up have been isolated. One is debris in my valve. The second is the valve it’s self, it has a very small orifice at the entry area. If this continues to be a problem then I have a new valve to replace it. As for the debris I have started to screen the oil when needed. I have also installed a 25 watt silicone heating pad, this helped with start up. So when you install your gravity feed system the higher the better and the warmer the better.

I have been burning the thing for two hours for since Sunday and started with 5 gallons of used oil, stuff that I have had in my shop for a couple of years. It is pretty thick and dirty, I will be glad when it is used up. I have about 15 gallons, a mix of 30 wt power train oil and 10 wt hydraulic oil, which is much cleaner.

 

[alltoys]

Dngspot how is your burner working? Time for a progress report.

 

[dngspot]

I have only burnt 5 gallons of 10/40 wt engine waste oil in it. It is working great. It takes about 45 minutes to heat my garage from 20 deg. to 65 deg.

I am going to raise the air intake tube. I have to keep the intake damper 3/4 closed or the flame will blow out from air velocity. When it is at full burn with the damper at 3/4 open flame suffers from lack of O2.

I also ordered a 3X3 piece of ceramic glass, and still need to install it into my door.

Just a little of tweaking needed.

 

[neon_c2]

Nice heater for me to get started before it get cold.

dngspot How did your come out? Did you get the glass in the door? Got any pics?

 

[dngspot]

By the time I finished the heater last year, winter was pretty much over. The heater did okay but I noticed when the fire was at its hottest I had to close the intake more. This was counter productive as it would lower the flame and the puddle would grow. This Christmas weekend I was working in the garage and we had a cold front move through that lowered the temps to 0. So I fired up the heater and went into the balancing act trying to keep the fire at peak and not smothering it with little air. I was becoming frustrated as I was spending more time with the heater than on the work I had to do, and the garage really never warmed up. During some of the adjustments I opened up the intake and noticed the fire would clear out from the center and turn white on the outer edges of the plate. I could also see a wall of smoke over the plate with just a inch of clear air hitting the plate.

The fix, remove the 3 inch tube and install a 4 inch tube just as Roger Sanders has in his. I finished today to just as the temps got to 50 deg, and lit it up. What a difference a perfect flame no mater how much oil is fed into the heater. It no longer overflows because the oil burns before it can. Dang should have done this last year.

 

[wawajake]

Thanks for update, this was an interesting thread.
For now I have a woodstove in my garage and to get rid of waste oil I soak a few pieces of ceiling tile ( 12 inch by 6 inch ) in a open coffee can of oil for a few days, then throw one piece of ceiling tile in with the wood in the stove every few hours, get an extra hot flame for half hour and boost to the heat (have fan on woodstove to disapate)
In a winter I can get rid of the years worth of oil changes from the tractor and truck and car.

But was always curious about a more techie method to burn the oil.

jake