Waste oil burner: Pro/Con

[Jeffh40]

Who has one of these?

Do you like it? Was it worth the cost?

Tell me about your experience.



Looking for a way to heat the 3 car garage of the new house. Options would be a kerosene heater, NG heater (permanently mounted), Waste oil burner, etc.


The waste oil burner looks like a great way to get rid of all of your old oil and since I drive a diesel truck, I go through a fair amount of oil. The costs for a decent one seem prohibitively high though.

 

[NUTTSGT]

I've moved this to the Heating & AC section.

You're probably going to need more waste oil than you generate yourself.

You'll also need to have some storage for the extra oil. Do you have the storage space ?

Can you get good "clean" waste oil for other sources ?

Are you going to run into issues with your insurance company on this type of heat or the bulk oil storage ?

 

[BodyMovin]

I am sure others will chime in but my cousin has an oil burner in his shop and speaks highly of it for the reasons you state. Cheap heat, a way to dispose of used oil. He does say that it goes through a lot of oil and because of that he has to get oil from other people. He has also said that if the oil is not pure, meaning antifreeze or water in the oil it will not burn and makes a headache.

 

[575cat]

Have had my Reznor 140 waste oil furnace since new in the late 90,s best thing since running water 3200 square foot shop in Mn stat set at 68 night & day have to say about 800 gal a season ,I get lazy and only clean it once a year . I have had to get oil from other places though . Stay with the top of the line like Reznor have seen other shop,s with Clean burn and have issue,s and some of them them are not in working any more . Yes a lot of coolant will shut it down bleed out and fire again its up to you to watch what your putting in the tank . Furnace has never been finicky on on waste , gear lube to whatever coolant separate,s out really quick easy to drain out . Yes I believe the smallest unit 140 is going to roast you out .

 

[sberry]

I was wondering and betting when I opened this,,,, I hate to throw away a few qts of oil a year from my car. These are great for quick lubes, I see a big tractor dealer has one and 3000 gallon tank they cant get enough. 3 or more truck oil changes a day,,,, then it starts to make sense but almost all I know use these cant get enough oil.
I got 25 engines,,,, don't have one.

 

[Jackfre]

If you will check NFPA 31, "Oil Installation" you will see that waste oil is for commercial use only. "Shop Speciailties" is our resident pro and will likely be along soon, but I don't think it a good option for a residential 3 bay.

 

[86turbodsl]

I don't know about commercial only, but i think NFPA does state it's not for residential. Maybe there's loopholes for detached garages.

I do waste oil in my shop. I have plenty of oil, but i collect most of the year. I work in automotive and all my friends are gearheads, so i have plenty coming in.

I did recently have a chimney fire from soot buildup though, so there is maintenance to deal with.

 

[Shop Specialties]

Who has one of these?

Do you like it? Was it worth the cost?

Tell me about your experience.



Looking for a way to heat the 3 car garage of the new house. Options would be a kerosene heater, NG heater (permanently mounted), Waste oil burner, etc.


The waste oil burner looks like a great way to get rid of all of your old oil and since I drive a diesel truck, I go through a fair amount of oil. The costs for a decent one seem prohibitively high though.

In the past 29 years I get this call quite often and tell each and everyone of them no. The smallest quality built unit would be way overkill for that small of an area.

 

[greenskeeper]

What size garage and location?

I got a used (free) oil furnace for my detached garage of 550 sq ft insulated.

The unit is over sized (came from a 1500 sq ft house) but that's actually a good thing because I only heat when I'm out there working. It will take the garage from 40F to 70F in about 5 minutes. Hardly runs once it's up to temp.

SEPA and this has been a "warm" winter so far but I've probably only gone through 20 gallons of oil. I have a 55 gallon plastic drum for fuel storage plumbed to the furnace with filter.

Best of all it was FREE!

 

[checkthisout]

We are currently running a Lanair 140 for an extremely tall (26 foot) shop. About 1200 sf. Metal building with only condensate blanket and it will roast you out of there if you want when the outside temps are 20 degrees.

I would say they are too much of a hassle for a residence. If you end up with a contaminated load of oil, you're now stuck dealing with that ****.

You need a large compressed air supply. You can run a smaller compressor but it will constantly cycle when the heater is on. Keep that in mind if you don't want constant compressor noise.

The heaters themselves are expensive and require an expensive chimney system.

They need constant tending if you are varying the types of oils and fuels you use.

 

[nadogail]

How much maintenance, oil storage, and collection are you willing to deal with.
What environmental authority will you have to deal with and how do they feel about wase oil burners?

 

[James-W]

Since Natural Gas is an option, I think going to any other type of heat would be unwise. Natural Gas is relatively cheap, the price of a N.G. furnace would be reasonable, and it would heat your garage very nicely. I run mine all Winter long and keep the garage at 50 degrees unless I am working out there and then I turn it up to 70 degrees.

 

[Barrymaxx]

I heat my 950sq ft 18' ceiling shop with waste oil. The garage is block walls and an non insulated wood roof(rafters)

For collecting oil I have a 275 gallon home heating oil tank out back. I welded a bung at the lowest point of the tank to collect and drain off any water/antifreeze that I get.

Before the storage tank I have a transfer pump and a series of 25 micron and 5 micron filters. I get drums of waste oil from people and pump it all through the filters and into my storage tank. Might be excessive but I like knowing I have a tank full of oil filtered to 5 micron and no water in it.

Then I burn it in a standard household furnace. .75GPH nozzle with the pressure turned up burning around 1GPH. Re-sheaved the blower to keep up with the much higher HX temperatures. It runs excellent.

With 20F outdoor temperatures I can hold 65F inside with no insulation and many many leaks.

Waste oil is a bit of work but its nice to be careless with the heat and it doesnt cost me anything but some of my time and occasionally 10-20 bucks in filter elements

 

[HoosierBuddy]

To me this really boils down to a couple of things. The most important way be are you going to have enough oil to make this worthwhile?

Waste oil has about 200,000 BTU's per gallon. We don't know where Jeff is....or how big his 3 car garage is...but let's say he averages 100,000 BTU's per day of heat during the winter...and the heater runs 100 days.

So...he's going to need to come up with 50 gallons of oil per year.

Now let's figure how much he'll save on fuel assuming he gets all that oil for free and his time to collect is is worth nothing.

Natural Gas is about 75 cents a therm retail right now...but let's figure 80 cents for Jeff.

His "free" 50 gallons of oil is equal to 100 therms of natural gas (a therm has 100,000 BTU's). His bill for that at 80 cents per therm is $80. So he saves $80 per year in fuel.

I kinda see where Shopspecialties is coming from in his reply. No way this will every pay off for a 3 car garage...plus it's a big hassle.

An acquaintance of mine was saving money in a similar fashion using an outdoor wood burner to heat his home most of the time (also has NG furnace). He and his wife are currently living with friends as sparks flew from the wood burner earlier this winter and caught his house on fire. The fire department got it out, but lots of smoke and water damage. I'm pretty sure he's insured...but what a mess. He was saving a lot more than Jeff will...probably more like $500 per year. But those wood burners aren't cheap...and now his house is half burnt down.

Something to consider on top of the extra expense to buy this equipment is it does add some level of risk.

Phil

 

[Randy in Maine]

I would run this buy my homeowners insurance carrier before I did anything.

I think the answer will be quite clear.

 

[cadunkle]

I made one a long time ago out of an old shorty water heater and some cast iron pans among other bits of scrap (http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me4.html). It got the job done but took some babysitting particularly if you used various viscosity of oil. Burned very clean, only smokey on startup but once up to temp perfectly clear exhaust.

It was more work than it was worth, I ended up scrapping it and using a wood stove and ran the soft copper feed to slow drop of oil onto the wood. It worked well enough to get rid of oil and not use as much wood but I wanted to floor space back and less hassle. I used a torpedo heater burning diesel for many years. It was quick and easy to use, and easy to stored out of the way in warmer months.

Now I have a gas unit heater and would never go back to wood or oil. I don't have the time or motivation to deal with either. I'd rather work on my automotive projects than split wood, clean oil lines and filter, or tinker with heaters. You mentioned NG heater is an option, just plumb in a unit heater and be done with it. If I didn't have gas available I'd consider a commercial ceiling mounted waste oil heater.

You said you have a diesel truck... If you want to use the WMO just burn your oil changes. Do some reading on how to filter it.

 

[Jeffh40]

Thanks for the info everyone. This idea sounded way better in my head than this. Looks like I'll just be in the market for a NG heater.

 

[Shop Specialties]

Thanks for the info everyone. This idea sounded way better in my head than this. Looks like I'll just be in the market for a NG heater.

Good choice.

 

[86turbodsl]

If you have natural gas, the answer should be self evident. No way i'd be screwing with waste oil if i could get nat gas.

 

[BKB]

40x64x16 pole barn with some insulation kept at 60-65'F all the time. Home made metering pumps and converted EFM boiler and hot air furnace. I go threw maybe 400 gallons a year in PA. I change filters maybe once every 5 years and haven't changed the large filter going into the 250 gallon outside tank ever, probably 12 years now. Clean the combustion chambers every 2 years and never changed a nozzle. So all in all really no maintenance. I don't have NG so its a no brainer for me. Next year the boiler will be heating the house below 25'F.