Homemade oil burner?

zmoz · Feb 12, 2004

I generate about 10 gallons of dirty oil every month...I'm getting tired of disposing of it. I know there are heaters that run on it, but they are rather expensive. I would like to build a burner to burn it, cleanly, and without any forced air. Is that possible? Anyone have any thoughts on how I might do that? I want something I can just put out in the field and let it burn...not have to worry about it catching something on fire...

Thanks /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

wroughtn_harv · Feb 12, 2004

I think the fly in your ointment is "cleanly".

We use fifty five gallon drums and a bud who has a service come by his place to pick it up. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

djradz · Feb 12, 2004

Search the Oil, Fuel and Lub category on the index. There's plenty there, especially on a Mother Earth News burner.

RalphVa · Feb 12, 2004

One of our church members has a garage with a mid-sized wood stove in it. He has used oil dripping through a needle valve from an oil tank just above the stove. It just drips into a small hole in the top of the stove.

Ralph

Renze · Feb 12, 2004

In our workshop we have a very old oil heater, a tower of about 2.5 meters high. It has an emission gas blower, that blows smoke out of the pipe in the roof. on the sidewall of the bin, there are several pipes, another blower blows air from top to down through these pipes, and the heated air comes uit of the kettle at the floor.
Because of the blower, the flames can get up to the top of the heater, more than 2 meters high.

I think when you dont use blowers, put a big and long pipe on your oil burner, the wind that goes over the opening of your pipe sucks the smoke out of the pipe and it will give a natural blower effect.

tc18ny · Feb 12, 2004

A buddy I work with is designing a waste oil burner. It is alot more complicated than you might think. To really get anything out of the whole project, you must first figure out how to atomize the fuel with pressure. But not too much pressure, because it will ignite. So, you need a pump and a burner designed to burn waste oil. There are many different types of oil burners also. It really is a science to figure it all out. My buddy is very mechaniclly incline, just custome built his own english wheel, but it has taken him months to get to the point of just experimenting with actually igniting the fuel. My point - If you want to do it right, buy a waste oil stove. If not, just put the stuff in a metal pan and burn it. I'm sure if you do the latter, and the wrong person finds out, the DEC would like to have a word with you. Just my 2 cents.

SPIKER · Feb 12, 2004

I would simply look into buying one of the waste oil burners, the price is dropping and in the winter you can heat you're shop for free. simply store the oil in a drum till winter.! not to mention like others said a nice heafty fine for iligal burning or dumping if caught...

also lots of auto parts places will take the oil for free. or run an add in paper for free waste oil people who already have waste oil heaters may need some!

Mark M /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Taylortractornut · Feb 12, 2004

I have a friend that burns it in a heater that has a an ol metal pan welded to smae legs about 8 inches high then he builds a small fier uned the pane with wood scraps and started dripping the oil onto the plate. he als has a small lighed news paper of panelling on top of the plate to start the fire. Then increase the drip to a very steady one. he had an emissin test on it and it was supringly clean. it als works on a bed of coals whichs is simpler but you need to have a good sized fire first. It burns almost smell less and and ittle smaoke when done right. One thing that helps his burner on bothe the heaters is the tube that the ols runs through has been twisted into a coild and hangs over the fire so its pree heated. THat means it take less heat to light it. He heats a 40 by 70 shop with the pane heater then he heats a similat buildin with the other.

RalphVa · Feb 13, 2004

I tried burning used oil in a can sitting in the corner of my wood stove. It burned okay but stunk horribly the next morning after I let the wood burn down.

Might be okay if you kept the wood fire going and occasionally refilled the can.

Ralph

CTyler · Feb 13, 2004

I'd like to have a waste oil furnace but the prices were quite high. Last time I looked was a year ago when we started building the house and shop. The WO furnace was for the shop but the price was $3800-$4200 for 150k btu unit with storage tank.

The ones I looked at burn oil, gear oil, trans fluid, heating oil etc.. and compensate for the difference viscosities. Still havent bought one though.