Building a waste oil burning stove for my shop

[patrick_g]

It is the other way around. Water is heavier than any fuel and therefore will fall into the bottle that he has straight down from the tank. You do do very nice work!! I am curious about the test firing!!

Mike

You have just won the SHARP EYE award and will have your name entered into a drawing where you may qualify to win a swell prize!!!

Pretty dumb huh? I used to wonder at what age senility started to be evidenced. For me, apparently, just about now!

I reread and understand how the water will drop out. See yo later, I gotta go and have my head checked!

Pat

 

[patrick_g]

burning sawdust works well IF you can keep it moving around so that the chips/dust are exposed to the flames and air. if it packs down it will only smolder on top and make a huge hard hunk of carbon goo.
mark m

OOPS, I don't need no stinkin' huge hard hunk of carbon goo! Oh well, I might have to stick to scraps and shavings and just keep on using the sawdust as soil amendment. I thought it would be a way to kill two birds in one fire, get rid of my waste oil which is not in large enough quantity to warrant having a waste oil heater in the shop and get heat from the sawdust.

I have a waste oil heater that I inherited from the prev owner of my property (dozer business) but don't want it taking up space when I have so little fuel for it. Hmmm, I wonder how much the operator of the two oil wells on my place would charge for crude oil at the well head. It should be well under $2/gal since the price at the well head is not as much as the barrel price you hear on the business reports on the news.

Pat

 

[Donman]

That picture of your copper line above the conical worries me that it is too close to the heat. I played around in the past with waste oil burners and found that oil in copper lines need to be cool enough so the heat will not crust up the oil in the tube and plug it up. I hope the airflow will push the flames and heat sideways to keep it cool enough not to crust up. I believe the original water heater stove terminated the oil line about 8 inches above the conical and in the drop tube itself where it is cooler. Good luck with the test!

 

[LetsRoll]

You have just won the SHARP EYE award and will have your name entered into a drawing where you may qualify to win a swell prize!!!

Pretty dumb huh? I used to wonder at what age senility started to be evidenced. For me, apparently, just about now!

I reread and understand how the water will drop out. See yo later, I gotta go and have my head checked!

Pat

Pat....you dont have senility. What happened is, you had a brain fart.
A small brain fart, none the less, a brain fart.~ ~ Ppppphheeeeww!!!

 

[LetsRoll]

Don't forget you need a low pressure regulator to maintain your desired air pressure on top of your oil. (Maybe you have it already and I missed it in your description). As the level drops, so does the pressure and so changes the burn. If you don't have one you can increase the ratio by adding another large buffer tank to the top side of the oil tank (connect it with an air hose). But still, for a long burn a regulator would be best.

Looks great, keep us in the loop!

I didn't mention it cause if I need air pressure to help oil flow on cold days, I'll add a regulator and a few more air fittings. Plus, I'll need a new air tank. If you look at the picture with the tank and stand, at the top of the oil tank is a filler neck that has a pipe threaded cap on it. That cap will not hold air pressure unless I seal the pipe threads. Cant do that cause that filler neck is how I will be refilling the tank. So, if air pressure is needed, I'll be adding a 1 1/2 inch female ball valve to the filler neck and another threaded pipe to the other end of the female ball valve so that I can screw the cap back on. That cap will keep anything from getting into the filler neck and entering the oil tank.

As for the bottle that is at the bottom of the drain pipe, that bottle will only catch trash or water when the bottom valve is open. That ball valve will stay closed until I need to drain the trap. Which will be every time I start the stove up.

 

[LetsRoll]

That picture of your copper line above the conical worries me that it is too close to the heat. I played around in the past with waste oil burners and found that oil in copper lines need to be cool enough so the heat will not crust up the oil in the tube and plug it up. I hope the airflow will push the flames and heat sideways to keep it cool enough not to crust up. I believe the original water heater stove terminated the oil line about 8 inches above the conical and in the drop tube itself where it is cooler. Good luck with the test!

It worries me too. But I want to get the stove going. If it causes a problem right away. I will be changing the air intake tube as well. I should have put the air intake tube right over the conical. But that is nothing my torch and welder cant fix. I do have a torch tip cleaner that I can use until spring gets here, if the 1/8th inch copper tube gets clogged up. Hopefully my current setup will work until spring gets here. There are a few things that I will be changing once the weather warms up.

 

[akpilot]

Hello, I'm new to the forum. This thread has been a great read I appreciate you sharing with us this build!!
One thought have you considered welding in a horizontal pipe 6-10 through your front and back plates and install a fan to blow the warm air across the room?
I built a wood stove like that several years ago and it worked really well. JAT

Mark

 

[LetsRoll]

Hello, I'm new to the forum. This thread has been a great read I appreciate you sharing with us this build!!
One thought have you considered welding in a horizontal pipe 6-10 through your front and back plates and install a fan to blow the warm air across the room?
I built a wood stove like that several years ago and it worked really well. JAT

Mark

Mark, the amount of metal that is in this stove will put out allot of heat just by itself. So, no through pipe is needed. A fan behind the stove will help. I plan on wiring in some ceiling fans once I have everything done. Since I built this stove, I've had to move everything around my shop. This stove will put out a ton of heat. My friend has built the same stove that I have and standing 5 feet from it, will toast you pretty good. But, his burns firewood, mine uses waiste oil. I'm not finished with mine just yet, but I'm getting real close to finishing it. I have the inside all done. Just waiting on the weather to finish the flue pipe on the outside of my shop. I have the flue pipe finished for the outside, just have to pour some concrete for a pad, so that I can mount the flue pipe to. My place has high winds sometimes and the flue pipe will be going from the ground up to the eve of my shop (15 ft). So, I need a pad of concrete to bolt the flue pipe too at the ground level. I'll post some pictures this weekend if mother nature lets me.

As for the stove, I've changed a few things as well. I cut the air intake pipe out and welded the hole back up and built some door intake air vents (front of stove). I've changed the oil line as well. You'll see the changes once I post some pictures. I also changed the needle valve as well. The one I was using was not working very well. I did run a few test outside. Which told me allot about my setup.

 

[patrick_g]

Mark, the amount of metal that is in this stove will put out allot of heat just by itself. So, no through pipe is needed. A fan behind the stove will help.

If you have LOTS OF WASTE OIL the above is close enough.

Otherwise, a large tube, preferably with an "S" bend in it, running through the inside of the stove with a duct fan shoving air through it will do good for your efficiency. Not carried to ridiculous extreme, a longer exhaust pipe will give more efficiency too (Longer is better so long as it draws well.) An awful lot of heat goes up the flue pipe and is lost. A concentric larger diameter pipe or even a rectangular cross section sheet metal box wrapped around the flue pipe with a fan to circulate air through it will extract a great deal of heat from a long flue run.

Again, these steps and a non issue if you have so much fuel that efficiency is not a consideration.

Pat

 

[skidsteer.ca]

As for feeding the conical, why not bring the oil line up from the bottom into the center. That way the flame is not trying to coke the oil in the line.

The following pics are what I have come up with so far to feed oil to a wood fire. I going to see how my supply last to see if going straight oil is justified.
I have a 100 lb lp tank for the dirty tank and a 200 lb?? for the secondary tank. Oil is poored through a strainer and a 2" ball valve into the first tank. Which is then sealed and pushed with regulated air into a finer strainer and into the second tank. From there it runs through a hydraulic filter, a hydraulic flow control valve, at @ 45 psi, it then goes into a mixing chamber were 5 psi of shop air is introduced and the mixture is pushed through a pressure washer 30 degree nozzle to atomize the mixture somewhat overtop of the flame of the wood fire. Once the stove reaches 500 degrees the oil burns on its own above the fire. The flow control valve must be set below 1 1/2 turns when the stove is cold and reduced to 1/2 a turn once its up to 500 degrees. If more oil is fed the stove temps will climb up over 900 f
Warm weather has prevented me from testing it for more then 2 hours at a time.
Ken