Waste oil furnaces

stnickstoys · Oct 29, 2003

Hi Guys,
Hi from WI again. Starting to get cold here in the shop again and deciding to build a "bigger" waste oil furnace. My Mother Earth News model from last year's posts works fine but now that my shop is bigger I need to put out more heat than this rig is designed for.

I was wondering if anyone has tried building the furnaces from either benjamin aviation or from Harold electric

http://www.cyberport.net/russ/benjamin/
http://www.heco.net/wasteoil.htm

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on the project but one design uses a little electricity to pump in air and spray the oil and another uses compressed air. Either way an outside power source needed.

Please let me know if anyone has tried them, I would like to correspond with you.
Thanks
Nick

ealasimi · Oct 29, 2003

Hi Nick, I was doing the same this weekend, getting my oil burner going for the winter. Have not changed much from last time, added a larger oil tank and line, all is working good. Had some ideas concerning the oil droping into stove and seeing if differant delivery would make a differance. Always wanting more. Will keep in touch.

stnickstoys · Oct 30, 2003

Good to hear from you again as well. I want to build a stove similar to the two barrel setup simply to get more surface area heating to make more usable heat in the shop. I saw the benjamin aviation and the Harold electric models and sent for literature on both. Almost done with the two barrel stove setup and have to decide on a burner soon. Since my heater is a weekend warrior up to 8 days a month, I'm only looking for a lot of cheap heat once in a while. Therefore, not really worried about using a little electricity to run either a blower, compressor or pump. I'm saving much more using the waste oil as a fuel source. My shop went from 30x30 to 30x60 and the ME heater just doesn't put out that much heat with 14' ceilings. Hope to hear from guys on those two style burners to get ideas like we did with the ME heater.
Keep me posted on your mods.
Nick

CTyler · Oct 31, 2003

I haven't used either one but have read about both in the past. The Heco unit would be nice if you build it yourself. Otherwise at $1800 you may as well buy a commercial 100k+ btu unit that is fully automatic.

art · Oct 31, 2003

We've been using units the Sun units and they do require air pressure on the oil. We are on our second set of units per application and have been using waste oil for over ten years successfully. They don't have plans for these units and I think they are expensive but we have had good luck with them Seems maintence is required around 200 hours for cleaning but they just run after that.

ealasimi · Oct 31, 2003

Have you seen the improvements to the Mother Earth Heater on their web page. http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me6.html

stnickstoys · Nov 1, 2003

have you tried the mods? I suspected all along that this stove is limited by the air flow through it. I was going to mess around with forced air for the burner but knew it wouldn't work with my current burner/air intake pipe design. The current burner forces heat out against the walls of the stove and gets hot enough to warp the door slightly. By the descriptions of Bruce's mods the air should force down into his burner pot and then back up towards the upper sides rather than down over the burner top and out against the lower sides like my current design. May have to give it a try.
Any idea how to get a hold of bruce for more info or pics??
I didn't see any contact info on the MEN site for him.
Nick

ealasimi · Nov 2, 2003

I am going to do some looking for materials this week. Will need to find old hair dryer, my wife will not let me use hers, she has a problem will my modification process and her things being a part of it. Will keep you informed and send photos when done.

stnickstoys · Nov 3, 2003

I too am parts hunting, dug through the pile yesterday and found the 6" heavy walled pipe. I found a blower motor off a gas furnace, just need to find a way to make it variable speed. Maybe a dimmer switch? Will try it. Maybe I will have to find a variable speed motor.
Hair dryer would work great but same wife problem!
Hate to spend the money on a new one for my furnace.
Let me know when you get it together. Would also like to see pics!
Snowed here for the first time today, just a couple inches or so. One more reminder that colder weather is coming.
Later,
Nick

RoyBrooks · Nov 4, 2003

I have a kerosene salamander style heater, would it be possible to use waste oil in this type of unit? I would think the oil would have to be strained and filtered, but if the unit would run on waste oil it would negate a lot of extra work building a new burner. Any ideas?