Heating with waste oils

[heehaw]

i can't think of the name of the company right now, but they make all sorts of waste oil burners, and their cheapest model puts the oil on top of/or in what appears to be a steel plate/pan, and it burns right there, no additional wood fuel etc.
i'll see if i can locate the co.
ok, i'll bite, what's the plural of garage??? i tend to use creative spelling..
heehaw

 

[ealasimi]

As I said before, still learning. Seems there are many hits on this subject of waste oil.
Does anyone know which type of oil produces the most heat. Crank case, hydraulic, transmission, oil from restaurants, peanut oil from all those deep fryers for turkey, were do people put that stuff when they’re done with it. There seems to be an endless source for waste oil. I have only used crank case oil. Have used oil that had anti-freeze mixed with it, that did cause problems. The anti-freeze needed to be boiled off before the oil burned. I could see that happening by looking down into the burner.

 

[djradz]

Thanks so much for the reply. I've got only a couple more.
Did you end up using a electric or gas water heater? I ask partly because the center pipe almost looks like a gas stove flue pipe.

I thought I read that you had cut the tank down, but in rereading I can't find anywhere where you said this. Is my imagination getting the best of me? I have an old gas water heater I'm thinking of using but I'd probably want to cut it to make it shorter and cut off the burner area.

I noticed you used an oval flue pipe. Was this because a 6" round would not have fit in the small space between the center and the tank edge?

Are you saying you would not leave the heater unattended? I had planned on leaving the heater for long periods on it's own. Maybe this is a bad idea?

Any chance you'll be experimenting any time soon with using straight kerosene?

 

[heehaw]

go to the internet site mentioned earlier in this post..http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me4.html......... they have some pretty good instructions and pictures of how this thing is built..i would tend to agree about not leaving it unattended for any lenth of time, the only regulation on the oil/fuel that i could figure out was a manual valve or the end of the fuel tube being crimped/squeezed together. they do not recommend a tank from a gas heater, because you don't need the hole up the center..or something like that??
heehaw

 

[ealasimi]

I used an electric one. A gas one does have the pipe already in, but it is attached to the tank so all work on that part would need to be done through the door, which on mine is 10 by 12 inches. My pipe is loose and can be lift up with the funnel, giving access to the burner, which does need some cleaning from dirt in the oil. I also attached the burner assembly to a steel plate that is in the sand of the tank. Easier to remove and work on if needed. Planned ahead just in case. I have only cleaned mine once in about 15 hours of burn time. Yes I did cut it down to 3 feet, the plans said they used a short tank. Does a long one make any differance, don't know.
Made the holes in the top pan larger to 5/16 instead of 1/4 inch. Smaller holes were getting plugged with residue from the oil. Since then they seem to be keeping open.
The flue was oval because tank is only 16 inches in diameter. Next one will be aleast 20 inches
Leaving the burner alone would be a personel issue. It could get burning to much and get out of hand. I don't mind leaving it go for an hour or so but I like to keep an eye on it.
The straight kerosene question, not to sure on that.

 

[stnickstoys]

ealisimi,
Thanks for all of your posts, pics and ideas. I really wanted to build the "mother" oil heater and was trying to do the research first. Glad someone stepped up and made one so we all can learn from it. Great posts!
Glad I asked about the idea.
Nick

 

[ealasimi]

Here are some photos, One shows how hot this will burn, sides were this red hot after about 40 minutes after start up. Let the flow go full just to see how hot it would get. I backed off at this point. The other one is burner assembly inside stove with funnel lifted up showing residue after about 6 hours burn time.

 

[ealasimi]

here is the burner

 

[Bird]

That fish ought to be well done./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[djradz]

Hope you don't mind a couple more questions, so here goes:
1. Did you say you cut the tank down? If so, how were you able to reweld it. These tanks are pretty thin. Did you have to do something special? Where did you cut it?
2. Your door frame looks awfully neat! Does it seal well? Did you follow the "Mother's" instructions on this for the door framing or attach something more or different?
3. Do you think most of the flame is occuring on the burner, or is the oil splattering enough that the entire lower section of the stove burns?
4. Your earlier photos shows a lot of red in the lower portion of the stove. It even looks like the section you have blocked with firebrick is red. Is this the case or does the brick pretty much stop the area behind it from getting too hot.