SHOP BUILT WASTE OIL BURNER

[GOOG]

I have a very large shop built wood stove that I'm thinking of converting to waste oil.  I have seen a few youtube videos on the subject, but really know nothing about them.  From what I've seen, it looks great!  I have plenty of waste oil to burn.  The shop I'm heating is only 30'x40' with a 12' ceiling height. It is well insulated.  

So, I am wondering if anyone here has any experience with them that they'd like to pass on. 

Thanks for your help. -Tom

 

[alex g]

My only advice is be sure you get ok to run it from insurance company. If it's not compliant with there codes they won't cover you if you have a fire.
 

[gearhead204]

my neighbor built one in his wood stove used a car wheel and a shop vac for the blower, with gravity feed on the oil. would have too look at it again and get some pics.

[BillyT]

I used to subscribe to "Mother Earth News" in the 80s I'm  pretty sure they had a set of plans for a waste oil burner the magazine still exists in newsstands maybe you could grab one and look in the back for a list of their plans don't think they're too expensive! Also in addition to insurance regulations I'd check zoning (quietly) I  suspect the smell might give you away Goog!

[BillyT]

Goog, I just googled (no pun intended)😁 mother earth news waste oil heater and they did an article on WOH Dec 31 2009 I know you can order back issues which would be cheaper than the plans, but the plans are very complete! There are several videos showing the completed plans, one person heated a 20 by 20 garage, everyone seemed happy with the heater! Looks like a vertical pipe like a culvert pipe and a gravity fed oil feed into the top which drips into a pan where the fire occurs.seems pretty simple but you'd have to be really careful about safety the one fellow said he got 800degrees out of his heater! I'm a welder,and you can braze at 800 degrees! Good luck!

[Hobert62]

A local guy has a purchased commercial one.   It uses shop air to force the oil through nozzle.   

[Vladislav]

Some folks overhere use home-made devices.

Actually it's like a thin tube oil goes through by gravity and fall onto a frypan (usually an actual kitchen frypan!) All that is put into some housing, a kind of big pipe installed vertically with a pipe at the top for smoke.

What I saw was a terrible view of really dark black smoke from the exhaust. A lot of heat was produced though.

One guy who used it one got fire. He had some ventil in the oil supply pipe to get correct amount of it when burning. He put a bit more than needed and didn't do observation as he used to every half an hour. The oil got over the edge of the pan and leaked outside spreading flame. He had his device in the foundation with concrete floor and walls so no loss excepting smoke, big black oil spot and emotions.

Seeing such stuff I lost any intend building one for my shop. Some other guys use factory built units and they work good. My need is a boiler since I have water pipes and radiators. Those I checked out some years back were expensive (starting from $3000) and also required an air compressor which was not included. 

[gearhead204]

16 hours ago, Vladislav said:

Some folks overhere use home-made devices.

Actually it's like a thin tube oil goes through by gravity and fall onto a frypan (usually an actual kitchen frypan!) All that is put into some housing, a kind of big pipe installed vertically with a pipe at the top for smoke.

What I saw was a terrible view of really dark black smoke from the exhaust. A lot of heat was produced though.

One guy who used it one got fire. He had some ventil in the oil supply pipe to get correct amount of it when burning. He put a bit more than needed and didn't do observation as he used to every half an hour. The oil got over the edge of the pan and leaked outside spreading flame. He had his device in the foundation with concrete floor and walls so no loss excepting smoke, big black oil spot and emotions.

Seeing such stuff I lost any intend building one for my shop. Some other guys use factory built units and they work good. My need is a boiler since I have water pipes and radiators. Those I checked out some years back were expensive (starting from $3000) and also required an air compressor which was not included. 

Vlad, a buddy of mine is building  a waste oil  fired boiler from scratch for his shop, he used the burner from a old waste oil furnace then built his own core from sch. 80 pipe,  then punch pressed the headers, I will try to get some pictures when I go back to his shop.  

[kscarbel2]

https://www.cleanburn.com/

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[RowdyRebel]

Grandpa used to just soak phone books in a bucket of used oil. When he was heading into the shop, he'd grab one and light it in the wood stove. Would burn long enough and hot enough to heat the shop while he worked. Seems cheaper & easier than any fancy plans to "convert" the wood stove. Only problem with that these days is getting your hands on some old phone books...used to be a lot thicker and much more widely available.

[GOOG]

Thanks for all the input.  I'm going to build a drip type super charged version of a few I saw on youtube.  If done right they are very clean burning and quite reliable.  I don't see me leaving it unattended for long, but we'll see how it goes. I have a friend who knows a good bit about burning waste oil.  We are going to pre heat the oil and use a blower of some type (possibly a bilge blower) to kick it up a notch.  I just put a bunch of wood in the shop today and hope to be converted by the time it's gone.

As far as the waste oil furnaces sold today.  They are in the $10K neighborhood, and they are a big headache to keep running.  I know two contractor friends that have late model furnaces and they are not impressed.  They told me when the fuel price was up a few years ago it made more sense, but not now.

I can build what I have in mind pretty cheap, and if it all goes bad, go right back to burning wood.  - Tom 

[m16ty]

I've seen several people try to build homemade waste oil heaters. They do work, kind of. I've seen them produce a clean burn but you have to be constantly fiddling with it to keep the fuel/air mixture right. The problem is that most of them are made to burn dirty oil. There's just no way to accurately meter dirty oil. Only way I know of to meter the oil is force it, under constant pressure, through a orface. To do that the oil has to be clean.

I know of one guy that had a factory made waste oil heater that he ended up taking out. He said it just got to be too big of a mess. One problem is they use a lot of oil so that required him to have to get oil from others. The other oil would sometimes be dirty, clog filters, and just make a mess. Add to the fact that not too long ago, recyclers were paying right at $1 per gallon for used oil. I think it's come down some now with the price of fuel.

 

My setup works ok. What I've got is a wood stove made out of 30" gas pipe with a oil drip line in the top. I use wood and let the oil drip on it. It will really increase the heat output and make the wood last longer, it works best if you use green wood. The down side is it is a very dirty burn and stinks. It doesn't really matter to me out at the farm but it may not be something you would want to use in a neighborhood.