Mixing used oil with diesel in the tractor.

[2manyrocks]

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a push towards making homes more energy efficient by insulating better, getting rid of air leaks, better sealed doors and windows, using solar and wood heating, etc. Our local electric company used to do "energy audits" to recommend how to conserve power and had some promotional deals on adding insulation and more efficient HVAC units. As the energy crisis in those days eased up, some of those ideas fell by the wayside. Higher fuel prices may make it worthwhile to revisit some of those ideas.

One of the things that used to be done was they had this big fan that they would place in an exterior doorway to pressurize a house to see how leaky it really was. Apartments tended to be the worst because they assumed the tenants would pay the heating and cooling bills, and so they tended not to care as much about energy efficiency. I remember one HVAC engineer telling me that he wouldn't size an HVAC system for an apartment building without doing a blower door test because he never could assume how tight or leaky the apartment building would be.

As houses got tighter, then they weren't exchanging fresh air as much which has its own issues.

I don't know if you have an older home or a newer home much less how well insulated and sealed it may be. Perhaps there may be some inexpensive things you could do before winter to use less energy?

 

[etpm]

After reading a bit it seems that adding used motor oil to fuel for your furnace can be just as bad as burning it in a diesel engine. Apparently a special type of furnace really needs to be used. But there are lots of folks building and using these furnaces. Just how much waste oil are you generating anyway? If you have 20 gallons to use and diesel is at 7 bucks a gallon then you could maybe save $140.00. Would that be worth it? And the stuff doesn't burn very clean anyway. I know, money is tight for lots of folks. Being newly retired and living off of our investments now I totally understand the desire to save money wherever possible.
Eric

 

[Williy]

Anyone seen this????

willy

 

[jeff9366]

Just trying to brainstorm ideas to cut costs.

Kubota B2601

Diesel consumption should be around 1/4 gallon per hour.

We went to $6.40 a gallon today

$6.40 / 4 = $1.60 per hour for diesel.

 

[oosik]

I bought my years supply of diesel two weeks ago - $4.73/gallon. Today - around $5.00/gallon.

 

[oosik]

Dave - you would think that the tankers arriving there in Valdez - could come loaded with refined petroleum products. They could off-load these products and then take on crude oil.

Maybe this just isn't in the cards.

 

[mikester]

I know guys who heat their garages with used waste oil, works great after a bunch of filtration. They don't use high pressure diesel injector pumps costing thousands of dollars to repair or replace though.

Unless you plan running on 100% waste oil I don't think you will save much money in the long run.

 

[5030]

Before 1989 I had no problems mixing used hydraulic oil with Diesel for our tractors. Would not do it with a modern system.

Why not? I do it all the time and never have had an issue. Your fuel filter ahead of the injection pump will filter out anything that might cause the injection system issues. Don't go crazy with it. I'll add a couple quarts of drain oil to every tank of fuel.

Roadway Express (Now YRC) has been doing it for decades. In fact they have their own injection system that meters drain oil onto the fuel. Makes disposal much less costly. Not sure it would work with the emissions engines of late but both my Kubota's and my diesel pickup truck are pre 4.

 

[2manyrocks]

I could see where some trucking company might have developed their own used motor oil filtration system, and it wouldn't be too surprising if they also have determined exactly how much filtered oil they can meter into their fuel systems without causing injector issues.

They are running their engines for hours every day so whatever filtered oil that is injected into their fuel systems is likely getting burned at full operating temps. It's not like they are starting their tractor, doing a small job, and then shutting it down at Alaska temps with the tractor sitting for days afterwards with a mix of diesel and oil in one fuel tank. There is that aspect to consider.

 

[ljjhouser]

Don't think that is an option. Might cost a lot more that it would save.