Building a waste oil burning stove for my shop

[LetsRoll]

LetsRoll, I noticed in your last post that you are using a cast iron pan and introducing air under some pressure. Did you put the aluminum conical inside the pan or are you abandoning the conical altogether? I can't remember reading in any of your posts that you quit using the liquid vaporizing method.

Don, my conical is steel and it is still inside the cast iron skillet. Since I will be going to air induction, I might remachine the conical down. Meaning, make the conical thinner so that it will heat up faster. I put the skillet inside the stove and the conical inside the skillet cause I was testing the air induction on my last test. I was trying to control the path of the oil. I didn't want the oil blowing everywere inside the stove.

Thanks,
Cliff

 

[wheelsc67]

What type of safety valve did you have in mind? One that was manual that we could shut off when we were away or another float type in case the first one plugged?

My first thought on the saftey valve was just a manual valve you would shut off when you were away but an automatic saftey valve would be even better. I suppose you could most likely make one out of a hotwater zone control valve. You could also make a float very cheaply if one were to rob the mercury switch out of an old wall mounted thermostat and attach it to a float of some kind , an old automotive fuel level sender might be a good source plus old oil shouldn't bother it at all.

Chris

 

[Donman]

Oil can not be brought up from the center of the conical cause of how HOT the conical will get. The oil will be cooked before it even passes out of the oil line.

Roger Sanders article says he runs his heater all day by dripping oil in from the top on to his liquid vaporizer with a puddle of boiling oil in the center without coking up the conical, just mainly ash. I believe there is more intense heat above the conical than below and if his liquid puddle can survive all day by dripping from above, it should work better yet with cooler oil oozing in from below in my opinion.

 

[wheelsc67]

Hi again,
After thinking more about my last post where I suggested using a mercury switch to make a float switch I realized that temps would effect where it thought level should be. A better idea might be a float connected to a micro switch and in keeping with how cheap I can be I have found old vcr's and microwave ovens as great sources for these.
Chris

 

[skidsteer.ca]

[QUOTE an old automotive fuel level sender might be a good source plus old oil shouldn't bother it at all.

Chris[/QUOTE]
That would work fine, I have been using the for hydraulic tank level guages for 12 years now with no problem in our skidders. They have plastic floats and are oem on the early 80 chev pickups.
Ken

 

[Donman]

I don't want to hijack Letsroll's thread here because he is doing a nice job of modifying the top drip method of feeding the conical but you guys got me going on the idea of bottom feeding the conical. Tomorrow I plan to make a temporary adjustable oil reservoir to test the idea of bringing oil up from the center bottom of the conical. A 24" by 48" by 3 1/2" wooden box with the joints caulked and the box hinged at one side and threaded rod cranked at the other end will be my test reservoir. Two by four and one eighth inch deep will be about half a gallon, so the box will easily hold 10 gallons. Roger Sanders in his article says that the conical burner can be adjusted to burn from one gallon in eight hours to one gallon per hour depending on the heat desired. My calculations show that if the oil level can be cranked up 1/8th inch every half hour and the conical stays about 3/4 full that it should maintain about a 60 - 75,000 BTU burn level providing Mr. Google was right in saying that #6 fuel oil (used motor oil) is 150,000 BTU per gallon.

 

[patrick_g]

it should maintain about a 60 - 75,000 BTU burn level providing Mr. Google was right in saying that #6 fuel oil (used motor oil) is 150,000 BTU per gallon.

That assumes 100% efficiency which may be a tad optimistic.

Some fishing boats and the occasional yacht used to use diesel burning cook and heating stoves (sometimes just the one to do both jobs.) Natural draft diesel burners were always more problematical than forced air combustion units but they can work if designed properly and have a good drawing flue pipe (maximizing the flue pipe inside the conditioned space gives lots more heat for the fuel burned.)

I have a small unit designed as a cabin heater, the smallest commercially manufactured or home brew natural draft units I have ever seen. It is approximately a foot wide, about 7 inches deep, and about 2 1/2 feet tall. It has a float bowl with needle and seat to ensure a constant head feeding the ceramic fire bowl via a needle valve. On boats these heaters were ordinarily fueled from a "day tank" which was kept topped off with diesel by plumbing the fuel system's return line to them and letting them overflow, when full, to the main diesel tank. This way when the engine was shut off you always had a full day tank for cooking/cabin heat.

This particular heater is made to be safe to mount to a wooden bulkhead (wall) and has lots of stainless steel in evidence to look nice. The sailboat I bought it for (with a Jimmy 3-71 diesel aux engine) did not come into my possession so the stove is NIB just lying there for over 20 years waiting to get a chance to strut it's stuff. As I will be closing in a 48 ft open side of a 21x48 shed on the side of my garage/shop to be a metal shop, I may install it there. I will have to test its ability to digest filtered motor oil, used cooking oil, or whatever I can scrounge as even off road diesel is a tad pricey for heating 1000+ sq ft with a roof sloping from 8ft + to 15 ft.

I'm guessing an arrangement using an inn expensive universal electric fuel pump and a fuel filter will allow me to batch process (filter) fuel prior to putting it in the tank for the heater.

Pat

 

[tommu56]

patrick_g

WE had a Barracks Heater like in this link at my FIL's cabin it had a Detroit carberator now I think they use a Toyo carb and they are bottom fed

we would flip a lever to lift float valve and it would feed oil in to the bottom of the stove put a small piece of tissue in and light tissue it would preheat the oil and light it off.

ITR Pioneer Diesel Space Heaters

tom

 

[LetsRoll]

I don't want to hijack Letsroll's thread here because he is doing a nice job of modifying the top drip method of feeding the conical but you guys got me going on the idea of bottom feeding the conical. Tomorrow I plan to make a temporary adjustable oil reservoir to test the idea of bringing oil up from the center bottom of the conical. A 24" by 48" by 3 1/2" wooden box with the joints caulked and the box hinged at one side and threaded rod cranked at the other end will be my test reservoir. Two by four and one eighth inch deep will be about half a gallon, so the box will easily hold 10 gallons. Roger Sanders in his article says that the conical burner can be adjusted to burn from one gallon in eight hours to one gallon per hour depending on the heat desired. My calculations show that if the oil level can be cranked up 1/8th inch every half hour and the conical stays about 3/4 full that it should maintain about a 60 - 75,000 BTU burn level providing Mr. Google was right in saying that #6 fuel oil (used motor oil) is 150,000 BTU per gallon.

Don, dont worry about hijacking this thread. Your more than welcome to post your build. Work has had me tied down and I've only had a chance to take a deep breath. Tired as I was, after getting home from work, I went out and fired the stove up. And decided to run another test. I'm trying to find out how much cfm I need to keep the flame stable but HOT and to have a clean burn. Meaning no soot (black dingle berries hanging from the inside of the stove= this is what I call soot, which is unburnt oil). Right now, this is my goal. If it takes me the rest of winter to get to my goal, so be it. What I tryed tonight was a hair dryer and a tube. It didn't do half bad considering how low of cfm's that the hair dryer makes. I'm eyeing some squirell cage blowers on ebay right now, but I'm not just sure how much cfm's I need. I dont want to get to much and have the flame blowing like a jet engine. But I need just enough to completely burn all of the waist oil. So, I'm going to wait before I purchase a squirell cage blower off of ebay. I might just end up building one cause of all the testing I'm doing. I just might get a 1000 cfm blower and wire it so I can regulate the amount of voltage to the motor so that I can slow down the rpm's of the motor. Which will lower the cfm's. But I need to talk to a friend of mine that is a master electrician and ask him how much can I regulate the voltage without burning the moter up or over heating it.

By the way, check out this burner I found on ebay. If a moderator pulls the link cause of it being a ebay auction, the item number is 170177394869. If he pulls the link and the item number, send me a PM and I will get you the item number. Here is the link to the auction. ALASKA HEATER-ALASKA STOVE-OIL HEATER-SPACE HEATER-TENT - eBay (item 170177394869 end time Feb-08-08 08:02:40 PST)

 

[patrick_g]

The latest "Sportsman's Guide" catalog (I think they have a web presence) has some new never issued military heaters.

Pat