Waste Oil Burning?

Mother Earth News had some good articles on this some years ago. In essence, they would drip the waste oil on a hot metal plate to vaporize the oil.

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 00:18:02 GMT, "Bert and Eileen Plank" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

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I don't say this very often, but I googled "waste oil" (heater OR heating) and found 21,000 entries. The first ones were the Mother Earth ones.

***************************************************** I know I am wrong about just about everything. So I am not going to listen when I am told I am wrong about the things I know I am right about.

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 00:18:02 GMT, "Bert and Eileen Plank" vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

But do read this

(heater+OR+heating)&hl=en&lr=lang_en watch the link. It's too bloody long. You need to copy paste, not click.

***************************************************** I know I am wrong about just about everything. So I am not going to listen when I am told I am wrong about the things I know I am right about.

What I was wondering was how I can convert the oil burner I have to burn waste oil. ie what conversions or adjustments do I have to make.

Bert

I burn waste oil in my oil fired burner and only had to change the nozzle, and readjust the elctrodes. Changed from a solid spray pattern to a cone hollow pattern, and a bit larger in GPH rate. Had to oopen up the air flow a bit also, but it burns clean d works fine. Its used in a crucible furnace, but no reason it would not work in a domstic heating setup as well. I used to heat my shop with waste oil in an oil fired domestic hot air furnace when I lived up north and had no problems then either. The biggest thing is large sized filtering capacity and clean used waste oil......of course flow may be a problem with it getting thick in extremely cold weather but you can dilute it with regular heating oil or diesel if need be....and prefilter and strain it good before pouring it into your oil burners fuel supply. Visit my website:

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

The "clean oil" requirement is important. You especially want to avoid burning anything containing chlorine. This practice can make dioxins form. If you breathe any of the exhaust, and it doesn't need to be enough to smell, you can poison yourself over time. It would be bad if you developed health problems 20 years from now because of a mistake today. ERS

There are alot of issues with burning waste oil. By waste oil I assume you mean used motor oil and such from car repair stations.

The viscosity of the oil will vary depending on what the mechanics were working on, (engine oil, ATF, gear oil) which will affect the fire. You should plan on frequent adjustments of combustion air and pump pressure. Also, conventional #2 oil nozzles are not designed to handle oil heavier than #2, and will not produce a proper spray pattern, so when your nozzle isn't plugged up it will make a bad fire, and probably rumble and smoke.

Even take a look at a waste oil tank and notice all the mud & sediment that collects at the bottom? Also, plan on plenty of water/antifreeze in the mix that you will have to try to burn.

The biggest problem associated with using waste oil, even in burners designed to burn it, are the corrosive effect of the combustion byproducts containing sulfur, which condense into sulphuric acid in your flue & chimney. Plan on a stainless steel chimeny liner and flue pipes, or you may see the mortar and bricks crumbling in short order.

A local repair shop has 2 waste oil burners and runs it on #2 oil to avoid the headaches.

When waste oil is collected by waste oil collectors, they sell the oil to refineries that process the oil, and then blend it into #6 residual oil for use by large buildings that have the equipment to burn this fuel. #6 oil is preheated in the tank, and burned by very large burners (Typically IC Industrial Combustion, Cleaver Brooks, or old rotary cup burners.) These units run at 20 gallons per hour and go up from there.

Tony

Apparently, at least it's what the recyclers in the Seattle area told me, the major portion of the waste oil collected here goes out to sea and is used as fule on big ships. I don't know if the fuel is used for heat or the engines. Possibly both? I was told it is minimally processed, mainly filtering and seperation of water. They say anti-freeze messes with combustion. And the oil is supposed to be burnt only out at sea and not close to shore. ERS

I worked in a automotive shop once that had one that was factory made to burn waste oil. We had nothing but problems with it. They eventually got rid of it.

Lane

Anyone have any experience with biodiesel?

Steve.

What I had in mind was oil from small engines,ie ATV's outboards, etc. my own vehicles, and those of my buddies who all seem to come to my shop to change their oil. I had an idea to mount the tank near the back of the combustion chamber and run the supply line of soft copper in a coil around the stove pipe at the back to preheat the oil.

The furnace has two chambers, on for burning wood on top of a chamber for oil burning. My idea was to keep some dry wood on hand to get the furnace and the waste oil warmed up and then kick in the burner to burn the oil.

What do you all think?

Bert Newfoundland

yes, biodiesel works,, except for a few caveats,,

Biodiesel is actually 20% bio, and 80% regular petroleum. Interesting thing is that pure biofuel acts like a solvent and eats through pump seals, there are some other issues I'm not up on too, so they blend it at 20%.I think they heat it prior to blending.

It costs about $.20 to .$40 cents per gallon more than conventional heating oil/diesel, at the 20% blend rate.

Distribution, or getting the stuff is difficult due to low demand.

Biodiesel doesn't mean taking your crisco oil and dumping it into your oil tank. It is refined in a rendering process first.

Other than that, it burns very well, cleaner than conventional #2.

Tony.

Sounds like too much work to get the wood burning just to heat the oil. How about a small tank of diesel that you could start it on and then switch to oil. That would be much easier and reliable.

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show Eric R Snow wrote back on Sat, 18 Sep 2004 10:36:55 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Fuel oil for boilers is what it sounds like, although I though steam went out of practical use decades ago. I could be wrong, wouldn't be the first time :-)

But then he'd have no use for the broken bits of wood you accumulate. :-)

Besides, some folks just like to fuss with a wood fire.

tschus pyotr

Not for heating buildings

there is a companyhere in lancaster county called cleanburn that makes those boilers

Not in boilers. It will be used as fuel for marine diesel engines.

Mark Rand RTFM

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show Mark Rand wrote back on Thu, 23 Sep 2004 21:27:23 +0100 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Hmmm - learn something new every day.

tschus pyotr