Battery Charger -
I am a recent and avid convert to the idea of using waste oil for heating. It seems to me the closest thing to a free lunch that we have remaining to us in this petro-challenged world of ours. I have a feeling that more and more people will be waking up and smelling the sludge, so it's probably best to jump on this bandwagon before it's over-crowded.
I've done some research and so far the best bet for waste oil heaters seems to be a company called Black Gold. Many of the big, well-known companies here in my area are using them and they have nothing but good things to say about them. They have three sizes - 140K BTU, mid 200's, and mid 300's. They're not cheap, starting at around $7,000 including a 250-gallon tank with a built-in system for preheating the oil and keeping contaminants like water, antifreeze and sludge from getting into the burner. But hey, the payback period doesn't seem bad at ALL.
I have a fairly well-insulated shop, 3,000 sq. ft. in a steel building with 14 foot ceilings. They estimate that the 140K would be plenty and that I'd use about 1,200 gallons a year to be toasty warm. Everyone I talk to says to make sure I use ceiling fans set at a low speed. I have a couple, and I'm going to have about 6 in all.
The next question obviously is where to get the petro to burn, and what's acceptable. You'd be off to a good start with that 300 gallons, and if it's being presented as "good, quality used motor oil" it sounds like filet mignon to me. Even if it had water/antifreeze in it, which it just might not, that wouldn't be a big deal. It would be at the bottom of the barrels and could be fairly easily removed and recycled. It also doesn't seem to matter (and can actually be beneficial) if the stuff you burn contains transmission fluid (burns GREAT), gear oil (OK in small doses, doesn't burn great), paint thinner (gotta burn great), hydraulic oil (burns well) or a wide variety of other petro products. And as long as they don't represent a large percentage of what goes into your main tank (too volatile if burned in too high a concentration?), I believe you could accept certain amounts of lacquer thinner, many types of solvents, naptha, benzene, you name it. The biggest no-no that I've heard of is chlorinated solvents, for instance some types of brake cleaner. I believe it has to do with the CFC thing that made us all switch over from R-12 refrigerants to R-134. I could not in good conscience burn chlorinated petro products, and when I go this route (and soon ... it's gettin' COLD in CT) I will probably invest in a chlorine detector and reject any batches of oil that contain it in unacceptable quantities.
Contrary to what might be a popular misconception about waste oil burners, Black Gold claims that their emmisions are "100 times cleaner than those from a single automobile". Hearing is not believing, and I remain highly skeptical about that one, but for now I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. They do have some pretty impressive technology at work. The bottom line seems to be that they're pretty environmentally sound, and a lot better than dumping the stuff on the ground, or put into barrels and THEN ending up in the ground.
It's late and I'm tired, but I have a few thoughts about how to come by waste oil to keep the home fires burning. More to come hopefully.
WARM regards, John D.
P.S. I don't claim to be an expert in all that is involved in the environmental aspects of heating with waste oil. If I'm off the mark anywhere, I welcome any input.
