Hey there,
Anybody ever thought about or built a stove that will burn waste oil and wood? I burn wood to heat the house and shop for most of the year. I recently heard about waste oil heaters and thought it would be a good idea as I get alot of oil. However, after looking into waste oil burners I decided I could easily build one myself, but they burn more oil than my shop generates, using atleast .5 gal/ hour to heat my shop. So.... I've been mulling around the idea of building a waste oil burner onto my existing stove or building a completely new stove that could do both. This way I could get rid of my oil easily and save a bit of firewood.

 

I did in the garage I used to own previous to a divorce and sale of the property. I had a barrel stove that I lined with firebrick and burned wood in it. on the wall I mounted an old 50 lb freon drum upside down with the bottom cut out so I could dump oil into it. The valve on the cylinder worked very well for regulating the oil flow into the stove. I ran 1/4" copper tubing to the top of the stove through a small hole and just let it drip into the wood fire and it really threw out lots of heat. I would turn it off and just use wood if I was not in the garage.

 

My Dad had a similar setup in his garage. It was an old cast iron potbelly wood stove. He drilled a hole in the top, ran the steel tube into the stove where it could drip on the wood, and had a gate valve to regulate the oil. It was (I think) a 5 gallon jerry can with the oil and it was amazing how long the wood lasted. Keep the fire extinguisher handy, just in case!

 

Well, I have not seen this set-up myself, but I have it on good authority and it's a good story.

There is/was a metal fabricating shop somewhere in south-western Ontario, Canada that has a big air receiver tank set up in the middle of the shop as the sole means of heating the place. They cut a big hole in the side of the tank & framed the piece up as a hinged door.

They burn scrap pallets in this thing. They don't bust them up, the "stove" is big enough to burn them whole. And then they regularly throw in 5 gallons of waste oil. When they open the door to reload the inferno, you can see the lake of flaming oil boiling away in the bottom.

That is, unless the enviro-cops haven't caught up with them yet...

Cheers,
Eric

 

I'll be the first to say burning skids sucks, they burn hot and very fast, without a damper you cant keep up with feeding more in, the heat is intense tho


Also working in 100+ year old industrial ruins where the only heat comes from garbage and oil fueled burning barrels and the air leaks take care of the smoke is never fun

 

you can mix your waste oil with saw dust roll it up in news paper 2 inches around and about 10 in. long, when you geyta good bed of coals going you can throw one it. burns long and HOT. I call them super logs. I get my saw dust from the local saw mill FREE.
A couple of chunks of coal will do the same

 

I like some of the ideas mentioned above and will have to try the oil drip method out in my shop. Thanks for the idea!

 

Here is interesting web site that tells you how to build one;

http://www.journeytoforever.org/biof...earth/me4.html

Nate

 

nb 1997, that is an excellent article and an excellent way to build a waste oil furnace. I might take that project on!

 

Ditto on the article thanks for posting the link. I might convert a old pot belly stove by just adding the burner plans. thanks

 

I've been looking at that site for awhile. If you do build one, keep us informed. I will need to heat in my garage, that is if I ever get it built.

 

That's a very neat dite. I spent a few hours browsing around it last night. The info on making your own biodiesel was really interesting.

I might have to go back sometime & read up on how to build a homebrew still. For ethanol fuel, of course...

Cheers,
Eric

 

I adapted our barrell stove in the garage to burn oil, just went a little fancier..

Got a couple of nozzles from pressure washers from the local car wash (friends in low places).. Nice wide pattern, low volume nozzles used for spraying soap & such...

Hooked to brake line (simple enough, they're threaded, just combine fittings until it works)..

Hooked an electric fuel pump to siphon out of a 30 gal drum, and bingo, holy heat...

Gotta put a regulator in though, the flow is a bit high for my taste right now, though with it being -20 or so last few weeks, it sure was nice..

Funny to see people get confused when they walk in and the garage is 90 degrees +... lol...

 

Drainbramage I'm trying to visualize your set up. Funny I was just thinking of using some kind of pump to bring the oil up from grade level to the height so I could coil it around the pipe as per the mothers setup above. Do you pump your waste oil into a pan set up as on the mothers site? Do you drop the oil from above? or a horizontal feed ( like the tank on the ground) I would like to rig up something for next winter. I have already got a old fuel tank I want to collect the oil in. I just don't want to have to stand on a ladder to fill the tank everytime I accumulate some used oil. By having the tank at grade level I could easily pour the oil in, except I lose the gravity flow.

 

The worst thing about wood or alternate heating methods is that the shop never seems to get warm until the job is done. I never could get all that right