Shop Furness II- The Return of the Question

Has anyone here ever had any success running a standard oil furness burner on waste oil???

Through experimentation I've proved to my satisfaction that 10W-30 will definately NOT work at room temperature, just makes a sputtering mess coming outta the nozzle. After doing some research it looks like if I heat lubricating oil to around the boiling point of water the viscosity will drop to about the same as #2 furness oil, which should take care of the spray pattern, but I'm not sure if the igniter will light it off. I'd experiment a bit more but I can't figure a way to keep the oil hot as it goes through the pump/nozzle- from the experiments I've found that they really don't get all that hot while running.

Has anyone here tried running their furness on used cooking oil? Thats juat a WAG on my part that it might work but I know some people manage to run diesels on the the stuff.

All replies before either The Freeze sets in and/or I Blow Myself Up appreaciated.

Howard.

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer
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It's easy if you go to the bother of turning the used cooking oil into biodiesel - 9 million or so websites explain that in endless detail. Most sources warn that if you have an older furnace you may need to replace some of the seals.

Seach on Greasel to look at how diesels are run on heated vegetable oil that has not been biodieseled. For a furnace run on a thermostat, I suspect the biodiesel process comes out a lot simpler than rigging the automatic controls to even try burning straight vegetable oil.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

Ok, I assume that we are looking for something simple here, not needing a cracking plant or anything too complicated. I myself have wondered about this, since I accumulate a lot of 10-30 from changing my four vehicles oil every 3-4 thou.

I know that my brother in law would run kerosene in his tractor when it got really cold and sometimes when not in the sub zero, he would mix some Kerosene with the #2 for his tractors.

Would this be a possible solution to the 10-30 or vegatable oil thickness question? Just thin it down a bit with Kerosene? rather than trying to bring it up to 212 F. or more? Not sure on the mix ratio, but I think it might be worth a try. A little more expensive than cracking it into biodiesel, but it would put a overlooked resource back into the asset colum

Reply to
John213a

I have a real waste oil heater and it preheats the oil and air as it flows to the nozzle. The oil is heated by regular resistive heating elements. The air is heated by a resistive element that is packed in a tube with small metal balls (BB's). The air then passed through the heated BB's. The high voltage igniter provides a constant arc the entire time the unit is running. I use a regular spin on oil filter before the burner. I've added a couple of extras to trap water. I also run all the oil through a homemade water separator before putting it in my tank. Sometimes if I get bad/thick oil I mix it with diesel. That said, I don't use it anymore and would like to sell it. I'm in NW Ohio for anyone interested.

Reply to
asdf

Search on "Babington Burner" for your answer on burning waste oil - it's a nifty dodge to make a dependable and simple burner. You can wangle one up, or buy one all Mil-Spec tested and ready to go! (Looks like a drop-in replacement for a flame-retention oil burner.)

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A nifty picture on how it goes:
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Or an ad slick for their Military Field Cooking equipment:
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They don't try to spray the oil through a nozzle orifice where it can clog, they preheat the oil and dribble it over a slotted steel ball (for the commercial ones, a hemisphere), and pump compressed air into the ball. The air coming out of the slot in the ball atomizes the oil film into an easy to combust mist, neat as you please. And the excess oil that drips off the ball unburned goes back to a day-tank and gets pumped around to try again.

I'm looking at those pictures again, and thinking (yeah, dangerous) that Westlake Lake has a rule against internal combustion motors, they want electrics only. How about EXTERNAL combustion - I.E. steam...

A pontoon party boat that has the moxie to get up on plane... ;-)

-->--

Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Thanks Lawrence- interesting. I almost feel like going out & buying a diesel just so I could do this :). I'll keep it as a plan "B" if I can't figure out a way to make the waste oil work.

H.

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer

John, I have considerd "watering down" the waste with regular #2 or (GASP!) Gas but there may be issues with the way the viscosity changes with temp, it's not a straight line graph & seems very dependant on what exactly is in the "Mix" . This furness is going in a garage where the temperature will often be below freezing, the storage tank will be out side which will be even worse. I'd rather not have to do the testing /calculating/mixing every time I add a new batch of waste. I'm definately figuring on a "dual" fuel setup, it will start on #2 & then switch over to the waste when conditions are appropriate but even at that I may have to pre-heat the #2 to get it to flow properly & light off.

H.

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer

I've been thinking that I might heat the oil electricaly, I was thinking about running the fuel line through the center of an appropriatly sized power resister. Hadn't thought about heating the air though

Could you give me any details on your furness's setup such as

-What temp does it preheat the oil & air to?

-How many PSI on the pump?

-Any part number or GPH/Spray pattern info for the nozzle?

Interesting note on the igniter, all the furnesses I've looked at while researching this seem to be wired to run the igniter full time anyhow, either by cranking the drop out timer full up or more usually just wiring the transformer right across the motor power. Doesn't seem to hurt the electrodes at all.

Thanks,

H.

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer

I've read about the babington before, some people use them for home foundary burners. Just the thing if you have a ton or two of scrap iron to melt down :).

I think I'll stay with trying to convert/modify/adapt/McGiver/bodge/ one of the burners I got already, the advantage being-

a. They fit the furness b. I already paid for'em

Good luck with the water sking ;>.

H.

*Snip*

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer

asdf wrote: [snip]

That sounds like a whole lot of electricity, which is kind of against the "energy efficient recycling" spirit of using waste oil (unless you get the electricity from a wind turbine :). Can you give us an idea of how much electricity (Watts) your setup uses in relation to the amount of oil burnt (BTUs? Joules? Litres? Gallons?). Is this waste cooking oil or some other source?

Tim

Reply to
Tim Auton

According to the manual max start up draw is 14.7 amps. It is a

200,000 BTU unit. It uses waste motor oil.
Reply to
asdf

No idea.

The air pump? 15psi.

Sorry no.

Reply to
asdf

Mine seems to heat it to about 110-120 deg based on the feel of the tank.

Here's where things get different. I've not seen a waste oil heater which uses a pump to pressurize the fuel. Instead they use a siphon nozzle. Mine has a float tank which gravity feeds the oil to the nozzle with about 20" of head. I vary the air pressure based on the oil which I'm burning at the time and the amount of heat I'm wanting out of it. The thicker the oil the more air needed. I generally run between 20 and 60 psi.

The nozzle in mine is just like the nozzle in one brand of kerosene torpedo heater (I forget which brand).

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

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Reply to
Wayne Cook

MOTHER's Waste Oil Heater

You say the skyrocketing cost of oil, electricity, coal, and other fuels has you scratching for a less expensive way to heat your shop, garage, or home this coming winter?

Well scratch no further! Because MOTHER is here to tell you about a dandy little furnace that her researchers have developed -- which costs next to nothing to build and is even less expensive to operate (since it burns the used motor oil that tens of thousands of service stations across the country will still give away free to anyone who'll haul it off).

It's Cheap, Clean, and Environmentally Sound!

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"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Reply to
Gunner

*Snip*

*Snip*

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer

You may wish to post that question on misc.survivalism and alt.homepower and alt.rural as many folks have addressed this issue over the years.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Reply to
Gunner

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Yep ran a domestic oil fired furnace using old motor oils for a long time when I lived up north to heat my shop. I now use a domestic oil fired furnace burner unit, fueled with old used filtered motor oil and sometimes just a touch of diesel fuel to fire up my crucible furnace, and it works just fine. A bit of smoke on initial fireup but when its up and running and hot its smoke free for the most part! Visit my website:

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expressed are those of my wife, I had no input whatsoever. Remove "nospam" from email addy.

Reply to
Roy

Hey Roy, I actually already have your site bookmarked, Great Stuff! Frankly, I think your 10 cent tour is severly undervalued :). I'm sorta halfway through building a foundry myself, but the "Improved Lil'Bertha" variety, I'm aiming towards building the Gingery series of equipment. Someday :(.

To burn the waste oil in your burner did you do anything special, i.e. preheat, pressure increase, bigger nozzle? I've tried 10W-30 "straight up" as a test & all I got was a big oil patch in my back yard. Wouldn't even burn after I lit it off with #2

Thanks,

Howard.

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer

*Snip*

*Snip*

Thanks again. I can't find either of the alt groups on my server or on Google but misc. survivalism is showing up, I'll give thhem a try.

H.

Reply to
Howard Eisenhauer

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