I apologize if this isn't the place to ask, couldn't find anywhere else to put it...

Has anyone ever tried running a fuel oil furnace on WVO or a mix of #2 and WVO? Other then compression ignition VS electronic igniter I dont see much of a difference. The fuel should still burn and put out heat, just curious how all you Veggie heads think it will work. I'm getting 5-7 gallons a week from a local bar and have determined that I will never burn in the warm summer months what I collect over winter and summer.

Diesel Rod

 

In a word, no.......WVO is way to thick even when heated to work in a furnace. Biodiesel will work, but takes some fine tuning to work right.

 

what about a blend 50/50 or less WVO?

This weekend I am going to find some spare nozzels out of the furnace and see how they spray with the WVO and a 50/50 blend. I have settled and filtered the oil very well. at 70º the stuff flows like fresh oil.

Diesel Rod

 

Your more than welcome to try, but I tried it a couple of times and it just wouldn't fire consistently.

Let us know how it works for you.

 

To resorrect this, I am curious what the outcome was for the WVO being burned in the fuel oil furnace?
Heating the oil and atomizing it are the key to consistent ignition of straight WVO.
Most guys use a machined aluminum block with a cartridge heater to heat the oil all the way to the nozzle. They also use an air siphon nozzle (with 12v air solenoid) to atomize the hot oil, making it much easier to ignite.

curious if you were successful with ignition using 50/50 K1 blend.

~Outlaw~

 

Funny this popped back up, Just last week I was pondering this again. here's some background info..

I have a fairly new, under 5 year old forced air fuel oil furnace with an off peak electric heating element in the plenum, the Electic is the main source and if it can't keep up, or the power company ripples me, the fuel oil kicks in. Last winter was fairly mild here, winter aveveraged in the 20º's. With the electric it costs me $4 a day to heat the house in the middle of January.....It's hard to get any cheaper then that.


Now to the good stuff...there is a 300 gallon tank in the utility room that had 80 gallons of #2 in it when I posted last year. After I posted I flipped the electric off and started burning just fuel oil. Every weekend I would dump in 10 gallons of filtered WVO and continued to do that until late March when it really warmed up outside and the heat rarely ran. At that time there was still 70 gallons in the tank. I have no clue what the #2-WVO ratio is in there now but the power company has rippled my electric heat a couple of times and I have heard the FO turn on, so it still works after sitting all summer.

I haven't looked very hard but I would like to find some electric valves and make a setup where the furnace will start and run a couple seconds on #2, switch over to WVO once lit and running, then on shut down switch back to #2.

Like I said before though, @ $4 a day you really can't stick to much money into anything and still save, it only costs me $500 from Thanksgiving to April Fools day....

Diesel Rod

 

I deliver fuels for a living, and others have tried this with mixed results,most problems are fuel temp related, as most people have tanks outside,or under ground,here in western washington..you said your tank is inside...and your furnace is newer...furnace oil is dyed #2 diesel..is your fuel pump,(Fuel unit) two stage (has return line) or singal stage.(no return line)? watch out for your burner geting gunked up from unburnt fuel...good luck

 

Within the last few weeks I have finished the conversion of my fuel oil furnace to 100% waste veg. oil. It has been working flawlessly since I got things fine tuned.
I purchased the conversion kit from ckburners.com for $300. That's the price of only 1/3 tank of #2 oil? and I had maybe $50 -$100 in odds and end pieces/parts. It did take me about 8 hours total and a couple Emails to get things wired up and running correctly. The burner modification instructions are great, but the wiring schematics leave a little bit to be desired though.

Before the conversion I tried running a block heater before the pump to heat the wvo to thin it prior to reaching the nozzle. It didn't work for me, I think it was a combination of several things.....1-wvo cooling to much before exiting the nozzle, 2-nozzle not atomizing the wvo enough to aid in ignition, 3-improper air swirl/flow at retention head.

The conversion kit uses a machined aluminum block with a thermocoupler, cartridge heater, and air-siphon nozzle. It also comes with a solid-state relay and pre-programmed Digitial Controller and new retention head. (While experimenting with this I did find that the less airflow the better at the retention head.)

In short, this is how the unit works after conversion:
Your normal wall thermostat (in my case, a NEST thermostat) calls for heat which triggers the digital controller to turn on and preheat the wvo in the machined aluminum block. Once the wvo is up to 180 degrees it triggers another relay to open the air solenoid (for siphon nozzle) and start the "spark box" transformer, blower, etc. Once the wall thermostat reaches temp. everything shuts down.

I live in a 2000 sq.ft. log cabin built in 1825 in Ohio. I have completely remodeled the home over the past 3 years so it is better sealed/insulated that it was prior to me doing this. It does still have a few drafty spots here and there though. So far since the conversion, it has been in the single digits the past 4 days and the furnace has kept up heating the house to 70 degrees without any issues......

My next step, an oil fired hot water heater with the above conversion kit added. Currently we have an electric hot water heater. This contributes to 1/2 of our monthly electric bill charges.
I found an old used oil fired hot water heater on craigslist for $200 locally.... I have not purchased it yet but plan on it this weekend if I can talk the guy down on the price. Even if I paid $200 for the water heater, invested another $300 in the conversion kit (totaling $500), I would break even on costs/savings in about 5 months. After the first 5 months, its all money in the pocket each month.

~Outlaw~

 

I had what i thought was a great idea a couple of weeks ago, until i came up with a better one...

Idea 1.

I was going to find a fuel oil boiler, put it in the old gainery with a 500 gallon stainless steel bulk tank. Fill the tank with water and use the boiler to heat the water. Throw a bunch of Pex in the bottom to act as a heat exchanger and run a line to the shop and to the house....not only would i have only one heater for both, i would also get free hot water for the house, plus i love hot water heat... After allot of thinking, planning i decided to go a different route..

Idea 2

This one works better for me, i have 2 diesel trucks, friend of mine has a diesel jetta. We both decided that we need to build a bio processor. We could both burn bio year round, I could also burn it in the furnace with no modifications, i would find a fuel oil forced air furnace for the shop and burn it in there too...

It came down to building the hot water system, retrofitting a heat exchanger into the house, burying lines, or just build a processor and not modify anything...

Diesel Rod

 

Huge question first. What is your source for that much oil?

 

Currently we are collecting 15-20 gallons a week. There are a few other places right here in my town that i could get too. Rough estimate numbers are 20 gallons a week for the furnace, another 20 a week for my truck, but if need be I could always drive the car to work and save the bio for the house and the TDI. Speaking of cars.....anyone ever made there own ethanol? I think I'll start a new thread for that.

That was the main reason for deciding to just burn bio VS doing the hot water and removing my electric.....if i end up using more then 4 gallons a day I'll just turn the electric back on, its only $4 a day....the shop also has a wood stove, but wood isn't exactly abundant out here in the red river valley....

In the end its all just a big experiment and if it works ill keep doing it. I like the idea of recycling used stuff and not paying the man anymore then i have to for anything.....

Diesel Rod