Temperature controls. 3 controllers. 2 with sensors that will go on boiler tank and exhaust controlling the temperature control wire going to burner, and the 3rd to the tank but controlling power supply to burner in case thermostat relay on burner fails.

There is a manual switch to run the burner, and a manual shut off switch, and 12v supply switch. The 3rd temperature controller is not included in the manual control so even if you forgot it on theres a safety.
this setup is about as safe as I can imagine for running something dangerous.

 

Pressure gauge will be handy for dialing burn settings in and easier to diagnose any issues in the future

 

This is a great thread!

About 40 years ago I did some work with a boiler company in Thomasville, Georgia. I hadn't thought about them much in the last 30 years, but your work here brings back a lot of memories!!

 

Very cool!!!

 

I think hydronic heating is cool. If you set up a house for hydronic heat and hot water, you can heat the system from electric, natural gas, propane, wood boiler, oil boiler, or even solar or home made waste oil boilers. If I build a home from scratch I would 100% go hydronic. The heat options are more flexible and won't be outdated.

 

My old house used a hot water loop off of a gas water heater. It's not as flexible as your system, but it was about 96% efficient at delivering the BTUs to the living area without venting the gas exhaust into the house.

 

New systems are so efficient that the exhaust is sometimes a plastic pipe to vent outside. I'm thinking gas anyways.
I think an oil furnace may be around 75%.
my boiler in the garage may be a little more since the exhaust pipe is long and runs through the garage to let all the heat into the room, which you can't do in a home with building codes.

As my experiment showed, it would be fairly easy to capture the exhaust heat into a liquid to air heat exchanger, but I'm hesitant to do so because of the little puff of unburned fuel when it fires up every time. I'd guess that a month or 2 would go by, and the fins on the heat exchanger would be plugged with junk between, and I'd have to clean it and it would be a major job to clean.

 

I am of firm believe of future generations will be mining our land fills for wastes we throw out that resources have ran out .Our dependence on fossil fuels will decline as soon as cheaper ways become available .

 

Nice Project there Parkland

bet you could connect a Pressure washer and have instant steam cleaner too
Just a few minor mods

Doug... I doubt much to be mined from a landfill as they are pretty Complex and the oil companies have already monopolized them... I kinda doubt we will exist much longer the way things are going anyway...... But I don't doubt someone will attempt it

 

We've actually been doing that for a long time. Many land fills were organized by type. Newpapers went to section 1, car batteries to section 2, household garbage section 3, metals to section 4, etc. Most of the land fills that were organized that way have already been processed with the recyclable materials dug up and recycled. What's left is mostly biodegradable or plastic.

 

Side note:
as far as dumps and pollution go, I'd really like to see some effluent pipelines carrying that stuff yo high elevation instead of dumping in or close to waterways.
yes I know it isn't toxic, but it's full of all kinds of nutrients and stuff that could be absorbed many times instead of into the water to grow algae and weeds

 

Made a frame for burner and a loop on boiler for it to hook onto and hang.
did some testing by running burner and monitoring how hot firebox and flues get. I originally thought that most of the heat would transfer in the flues, but the fire box gets much hotter faster. I still need to design some kind of combustion chamber to get the burn super clean.
Burning through a 4" pipe or 3" pipe burns very hot, but oil spray will land on the pipe and end up dripping off.
I split a 30" long piece of 6" stove pipe and layed it in the burn box with the top open and it seemed to burn clean and hot, without the metal getting red hot so maybe it will be good enough like this.

 

Heres the setup.
the boiler tank is empty at the moment, so I've been doing test fires for about 30 seconds, then using the infrared heat gun to check the firebox and flue temperatures to see where the heat is concentrating on.
I tried using regular fiberglass insulation as a front door seal, and it didn't last long before the heat degraded it. I will have to get ceramic wool. The regular insulation seems to be fine where the box sits over the flues though, the exhaust is only a few hundred degrees.
I've been testing with 50% diesel/waste engine oil because it's cold enough to freeze water in the garage since there isn't any heat.
The firebox or combustion chamber design is tricky; the more you contain the flame the better it burns, but the less heat goes into the firebox. So some experiments will be done to see what the best way is to make the flame burn intense as quick as possible. If droplets of unburned oil hit the firebox, it cools them off and eventually there will be oil in the bottom of the firebox, and it burns smokey because the oil isn't burning completely.
Also, if there is hot combustion gases swirling around the burner, the burn is way hotter and better.
also in pic you can see my fuel separator I made, so the solids and water settle out to be drained off. I think (hope) this will work good enough to keep just the standard oil burner filter.
oil will be filtered with paper towel before going in tank.

 

 

So I got it all running , exhaust temps run about 180*c on diesel and 220*c on waste oil. Waste oil seems to heat the boiler up a lot faster.
the waste oil needs heat to fire up though, which is currently provided by a heater and blow torch on fuel line, but I'll be putting a line heater on it instead after.