Building a waste oil burning stove for my shop

[bx24]

dogbreath (or anyone else) - After reading this and other wood stove threads, I too am concerned about insurance and potential fire issues. Although you will loose a boat load of heat by putting the stove either in a small shed or just outside, I like the idea of heating the actual building with circulating water.

Does anyone have any good links for the specifics on how to do this?

 

[excelagator]

As far as air to fuel ratio. You could incorporate a blower in the draft and then before entering the burning chamber have a simple sliding damper door. This what we have in a wood pellet stove we used in WV. Another thing to fine tune your ratio is look at your exhaust, it should be clear as possible. I will say this is from my wood pellet stove days, but I would think the principles are the same.

I know that my insurance company needs to know if we heat with wood. I know Our premium would be much higher with wood. Fireplaces are ok though.

Dan

 

[dogbreath108]

BX,
If you are going to build the unit from scrap your self (and have a bunch of time on your hands). Make the burner/ furnace assembly first because you will have a lot of time learning and tweaking it to your liking. My take is that most people can get overwhelmed with the size of the project and never finish... Just like Ma used to say "small bites so you don't choke" . (yeah, I choked a lot as a kid....) Anyway after your burner is working good and your on to the boiler, you will need a few temperature switches for the water control, a circulator to move the hot water, a heat exchanger for the burner, a heat exchanger for the shop, an expansion tank, safety valve and vacuum breaker etc. With time spent, it would be a semi-permanent addition to your shop (not an experiment unless you have a lot of time and lots of waste oil) .These are most of the components used in a home hot water system. If you know of someone removing an old system you could scrounge an awfull lot. Speaking of which I have seen guys convert an old house boiler unit to burn waste successfully. The on/off control is usually the hardest get straightened out as the fuel needs to be heated to work well at startup and shutdown many times clogges the nozzel (thats why the commercial units many times run compressed air through the nozzel for a short time at burner shutdown). I would like to try that route myself but have not been able to find an ultra cheap boiler in the past few years. if you have no experiance in controls or heating systems you could get youself hurt with an overpressure boiler that you made yourself. Talk to some of your friends as you probably know someone who is in the line of work and would have a lot of fun helping you out. (The cold shop can keep you focused on the project )

My unit is a double 55 gallon drum unit (over/under) similar in appearence to the first poster of this thread. But the top unit having the water heat exchanger. Legs and connector pieces where bought from northern as there 55 gallon drum wood stove conversion kit. You can hand fabricate these pieces, but it gets you off to a quick start so you can focus on the burner.

 

[patrick_g]

Anyways, i have some guys at work who need to get rid of their waste oil... as soon as that's up, i will drop down the ash pan and start burning wood again.

Soak the wood in a barrel partially filled with the oil and go "dual fuel."

Pat

 

[mrkool]

Hey BX,
I used a wood fueled water boiler to heat my shop and house.
It's a Hardy H4, built in Mississippi out of stainless steel.

here is the back where the pump, blower and other controls are located

Here's the water coil in the duct above a 90% gas furnace and heat pump/ac "A" coil:

and here's the garage/shop behind the house, that it keeps warm all winter
mainly because of a lot of free wood from down the street.

Also, getting ready to connect it to my 80 gal water heater to pre-heat the water to help with my electric bill, but I'm very interested in the waste oil heater, since an auto mechanic friend of mine goes through huge amounts of waste oil that he's giving away.

 

[excelagator]

Cool project. Makes me think the old 100lb propane tanks I have would be great platforms for this. Of course cleaned and plunged first.

Dan

 

[DRL]

Cliff,
Great thread so far, please don't let it die. I have wanted to do something like it for a while, only heat water. Would like to surround the fire box with a full water jacket, but with that much heat sink I would need a good combustion chamber around the fire to get it hot enough. I noticed that you used steel for your conical and Rodger used alum. Did you have a reason or just what you had on hand.
Have you ever looked at these heaters.

Harold Electric Co. specializing in Ag & Mobile Products

I was over in Walla Walla a while back and went over to see him. Was very impressed with the output, no I am not a salesman(no connection) just impressed. They are a little more complex as they have a blower and a oil pump, but that might make them more controllable.

Thanks
DRL

 

[bx24]

DRL - Cool link

MrKool (or anyone else) ... What is the ideal temp that you want the water get up to in the boiler section? Is it over 212 (probably why they call it a boiler ....

I have an old furnace with the coil all ready to go and fabricating up the boiler side would seem to be straight forward if the temp of the water were fairly low (similar to a water heater on full temp). If the water stayed low like that, safety would be helped by using a pressure relief valve off of a water heater. If the the temp is over 150 though, more learning is going to be in order.

 

[DRL]

bx24,
I don't think you want to mess with temps that hot, pressure is to dangerous. I installed floor heat in the new house I just finished for us. Had it designed then installed it myself. The water entering the floor loops is never over 107, usually more like 90. I was thinking maybe 150 in the heater and use a mixing valve. Don't know how that would compare to a coil in a forced air unit.

DRL

 

[bx24]

I found these two images / diagrams that clarified things as well as caused more questions. Why would you want to put the circulation pump on the "hot" side? I would think that it would cause less stress to the pump if you were to put it on the cold side and push rather than pull the hot water.

I also read on one of the systems that it operates under normal atmospheric pressure ... basically an open system not pressurized.