Building a waste oil burning stove for my shop

[Bill Barrett]

LetsRoll, stop by a HVAC shop, or your plumbing heating contractor, see if you can get a draft inducer blower off a old furnace, as in FREE. Also next time you fire the heater up lets have a pic or two!!!!

 

[Bill Barrett]

Oh yeah, some of those are DC get the control board too, then you would have infinite to max speed control=CFM

 

[Donman]

LetsRoll, when I was experimenting with draft induced waste oil burners, I had the best luck with a free blower fan off a junked dishwasher.

 

[dogbreath108]

I havent been on here in a while, and was happy to see that this thread is still going.
Some folks were talking about some alternate methods and I thought maybe this would help.
This is intended for the guys just starting out with ideas...

As far as the the main burner design. You will ALWAYS need lots of O2 (forced fan) and above pipe feed method (keeps nozzel, or tubing in this case free from high temp carbon production. In this case, forced AIR carries oil to burner, not metal tubing). A feed from below will always cause a lower temperature area that will cake/clog and make a mess. (unhappy, hazardous junk pile )
Also always use a variable oil pump for feed to the burner. (If you want to argue this point, try if first...) Both the variable oil pump and the air feed fan are VERY easy makes with used or even bought new auto parts.... 12vdc makes for easy variable control. Variable, not stepping control is best (0-100% not lo-med-high) The 12vdc heater blowers are cheap, but you just need to box and port them. Use can use a VERY small engine oil pump (a bit over kill, but cheap) with a 12vdc motor (windshield motor will work just fine, but a bit overkill) for your oil control. That way you adjust oil and air flow for a super hot burn with NO soot. Every other puddling/pooling/low temp burner design is junk, polluting, and an uncontrolled disaster. Maybe just good for ones own experimenting and a self learning curve on oil for heat. Not long term use. Making clean heat not pollution is the way to go.

Hope this helps someone align their project to success.
I not trying to bash anybodys ideas, but you will be happer sticking to these physics for the home made drum/container/stove heater type.


Keep that shop toasty!

 

[Donman]

I havent been on here in a while, and was happy to see that this thread is still going.
Some folks were talking about some alternate methods and I thought maybe this would help.
This is intended for the guys just starting out with ideas...

As far as the the main burner design. You will ALWAYS need lots of O2 (forced fan) and above pipe feed method (keeps nozzel, or tubing in this case free from high temp carbon production. In this case, forced AIR carries oil to burner, not metal tubing). A feed from below will always cause a lower temperature area that will cake/clog and make a mess. (unhappy, hazardous junk pile )
Also always use a variable oil pump for feed to the burner. (If you want to argue this point, try if first...) Both the variable oil pump and the air feed fan are VERY easy makes with used or even bought new auto parts.... 12vdc makes for easy variable control. Variable, not stepping control is best (0-100% not lo-med-high) The 12vdc heater blowers are cheap, but you just need to box and port them. Use can use a VERY small engine oil pump (a bit over kill, but cheap) with a 12vdc motor (windshield motor will work just fine, but a bit overkill) for your oil control. That way you adjust oil and air flow for a super hot burn with NO soot. Every other puddling/pooling/low temp burner design is junk, polluting, and an uncontrolled disaster. Maybe just good for ones own experimenting and a self learning curve on oil for heat. Not long term use. Making clean heat not pollution is the way to go.

Hope this helps someone align their project to success.
I not trying to bash anybodys ideas, but you will be happer sticking to these physics for the home made drum/container/stove heater type.


Keep that shop toasty!

Been there, done that with more than one build. What I'm trying to do is make a reliable burner that is simpler,- not more complex. If we could take a poll of all continuously used waste oil heaters I think we would be hard pressed to find one that takes less tinkering to keep it burning than Roger Sanders design. From what I hear, a few of the forced induction burners are so finicky to keep burning cleanly that many are abandoning their use. Roger did a lot of trial and error tinkering before settling on the design in his article (read it again from the link in the first post of this thread). His final design uses no electricity, is super easy to clean and start up, uses fuel efficiently and has variable heat output. Unless you need a very high BTU burner to heat a very large area this sure looks like a simple way to heat a shop.

 

[skidsteer.ca]

To make a variable cfm blower a simple door on the inlet side to choke of the inlets size would reduce the cfm. (not the most efficent use of power but would work.
Where would on get a 100% variable voltae switch for a 12v dc blower ?
Ken

 

[LetsRoll]

LetsRoll, next time you fire the heater up lets have a pic or two!!!!

I have a few pictures during a test I did on Monday. I used air induction again. I was able to control the burn on Low, med and high and also had a clean burn which you can see in the pictures. I did add a air pressure regulator to my oil tank. I added a 8 inch diameter piece of my flue pipe around the conical so that I could control the flame and get the conical hottier. I could not get a picture of it, but looking down inside while the fire was going, the conical was fire red. In the one picture where you see the brown/tan spot, I used 2 ounces of kerosene and a paper towel to start the fire. I will not use the paper towel again cause it was hard as a rock to scrap off the conical. By the way, I sniped a air induction blower off of ebay. As soon as I get it, I will be installing it. Its 115 volts and the motor turns 3400 rpms.

Don...the pictures are proof of the pudding that air induction can and will burn clean and as long as you have the air and fuel ratio right and you have a hot flame. I dont have a picture of it, but I was getting zero smoke out of my exhaust pipe outside. All I could see was steam (white). Also, in the pictures, you can see how clean the skillet is, the 8 inch diameter pipe that is layed around the conical is. That was a 6 hour burn test. The ash that you see, that is still inside the stove, is from some firewood I was testing and also used to burn the green coating off the stove.

 

[Berniep]

I have been experimenting with a little 115v fan I got at mouser electronics.
http://www.mouser.com/catalog/632/1730.pdf
It is "F" near the bottom I hooked it to a ceiling fan control to slow it down and it seems to take it fine. It's only 30 cfm but it seems to be enough for my burner.
I will post the few pics I have of it later. The project is on hold right now waiting on a suitable enclosure to show up.

 

[Donman]

I added a 8 inch diameter piece of my flue pipe around the conical so that I could control the flame and get the conical hottier. I could not get a picture of it, but looking down inside while the fire was going, the conical was fire red. In the one picture where you see the brown/tan spot, I used 2 ounces of kerosene and a paper towel to start the fire. I will not use the paper towel again cause it was hard as a rock to scrap off the conical.

Nice job! It appears to me that the only reason you need a conical is for the initial start up - something to hold the kerosene while it heats up. If the conical gets fire red hot there is most likely no liquid in it at all during most of the burn. The main reason Roger Sanders used the conical was for liquid vaporization which kept the hard deposits out with his drip feed method. It looks like you are getting a nice clean burn and variable heat with your design.

 

[atgreene]

Wow, great thread. I've been looking at doing something like this for a while, thanks for taking the time to share your info.