Waste oil, how do you deal with it?

I was just curious how all you folks deal with your waste oil. We all have to do something with it. Being a repair shop owner, I generate hundreds of gallons a year. So I installed a waste oil furnace to get rid of what gets drained from customers vehicles. And the added benefit of sort of free heat in the winter doesn't hurt either. But even with a waste oil furnace, it is a messy situation. It had to be stored until heating season, and then there's a matter of transferring it into the furnace. Although I have a pretty clean method that I use, I wonder how others deal with the "oil mess".

At my shop there is a local company that actually come out and pumps the oil, cleans it, refines it, then resells it. They take 200 gallons or more at a time and they pay us for it. The company is called Safety Kleen.

Thanks tim, I just looked up their site. It might be something I will consider doing instead storing and burning it. How big of a shop do you have?

I don't own a repair Shop.. but I have a couple of Diesel Trucks I work on (mine and Friends)... I have 2 55 Gallon Drums, Each sitting in a Square Washing Machine Drain Pan.. I put a layer of speedy Dry inside the pan and rest the drums on the Speedy Dry.. this catches any spills as I am transferring oil from Drain pan to drums. a waste oil heater is on my "want List" but in the mean time, I get rid of it by filling 5 gallon gas cans and taking them to the local Auto Parts stores.. each take 5 gallons of waste oil a day from a customer for Free. So when time permits, I fill up 4 cans, and as I run my errands on Sat and Sunday.. I drop by multiple parts stores and empty them. I do the same with Anti Freeze.. but wait for township recycle events (spring and fall) and Drop it off there.

dlcwent said:

I was just curious how all you folks deal with your waste oil. ...........

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Dlc,
You might want to go to the iATN site and sign up. www.iatn.net.
Then go to the shop management forum and post this question. Lots of very knowledgeable shop owners and technicians on the site. Its free and I have learned a lot there.

I have installed MANY waste oil systems, heres the trick and secret to them, dont tell anyone....

"TWO OIL TANKS, and a 50 gallon drum".....


I run a pair of oil tanks to them, 1 for waste oil and 1 for #2 oil/K1 mix (20-1, so 200 ga of #2 10 ga of K1)...

Put a 50 ga drum on the side of the waste oil tank, with a pump and filter system in it, I use a dee zee pump, krane filter plate, with bf584 spin ons, its not cheap but its the last time you will mess with it, pipe it nice from the 50 gal drum through the pump and filters into the 275 tank. The 50 gallon drum should have a large funnel with a screen in it and your oil catch buckets (I am assuming you are using a tall lift type) should have pumps on them to pump it into the drum..

You have to run 1/2" copper from the waste oil tank to a fb8 filter and oversized check valve), then 3/8" with a couple loops in it with a fb4 filter to a Tee, then run 1/2" up to the burner, Dump your return line into the waste oil tank. (both tanks have to have vents in them and be tied)

So now the next part- care of the oil, Don't use anti frze or water, just oil, and gt your guys in the habit of wiping the oil pans off before cracking the bolts, try to get as little undercarriage dirt in the can as possible...

ONLY pump from the top half of the 50 ga drum, so this means you will run the dee zees pump pickup about 17" into the drum, you never pump it empty and always give it time to settle, the pump is fast and strong so it will pick up a lot of the oil off the bottom half you just dont want the bottom... so you wait until its almost full, then you run it for a minute, it will be half full and then do it again when its full again...


So that is about it, you want to keep your waste oil storage under 3/4" full, which shouldnt be an issue, and if you need more storage just add more drums of oil on drum dollies... The oil and #2/k1 mix will automatically mix pretty well, the trick is making the waste oil have little resistance and the clean oil having more- using small line, and putting some loops in the clean oil side, also you can use the firomatic valve to slow it down also... its a bit of an art, but its easy to tune once you get it going, the return line is going to be pushing into the waste oil tank (very little), and the check valve on the waste oils feed line will stop the clean oil from balancing in the waste oil tank, the waste oil will balance a bit in the clean oil tank but that is what you want...


I learned this method by trial and error, I have a customer in Mass that has 9 work bays, changes A LOT of oil (actually has 2 330 gallon storage tanks plus the system I outlined above), he heats the shop, offices, and a storage building next door all with waste oil...

He bought the systems from someone else, and installed them himself, called me in the middle of the first winter, and my guys fixed that thing 10 times, always gummed up, always going out in the middle of the winter. finally he called and said with the service charges it wasnt worth it, he was better off paying to get rid of the oil and using electric heat for what it was costing him...

SO I went there and started tinkering with it myself, I cam up with this system and it works perfectly, just clean the units once a year, I actually use globe valves and pressure gauges for his system, plus 2 oil reserve pump systems at the ceiling near the 2 larger units, he has 1 person in charge of it, one of the mechanics, he is the only one allowed to pump oil into it, and he pays attention, I kow they say you can have a bit of anti frz but its not worth the aggravation it causes, motor oil, hyd oil, etc is fine, just not water...

I know he ended up spending like $2000 in pumps, parts, (not counting my labor), but he says he is saving $3K a year even after buying the k1/oil mix.. He also said he doesnt dump the k1 all the time, but its working...


good luck, my advice is design it well, use pumps and dont dump, let the oil sit and the thick garbage on the bottom, just get rid of with the oil recycling program, its not worth the trouble of trying to burn it, get a wood stove and dump it on the wood if you dont want to recycle it, lol... That bottom couple inches of sludge, and the water is what causes all the head aches.

When tuning the mix, you only want a tiny bit of the clean #2 mix going in, use the firomatic like a globe valve, you will see just a tiny bit of clean oil, say 85% waste oil 15% #2, so if you burn 1000 ga of waste oil, you should only use 150 gallons of clean, the system I did for that garage only goes through about 1 tank of clean oil a year and he is heating a HUGE amount of space, for a small 4 bay garage, I would say 1 tank full will last 5 years, lol...

hope this helps..

BillK said:

Dlc,
You might want to go to the iATN site and sign up. www.iatn.net.
Then go to the shop management forum and post this question. Lots of very knowledgeable shop owners and technicians on the site. Its free and I have learned a lot there.

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I am a member there Bill. But haven't been there for quite a while. Thanks.

jonjon1, I will post how I have mine set up. I too have played and fine tuned it over the years. I have virtually no problems with the system. As I said, I'll post up some pictures soon. It is not a problem that I'm trying to figure out, I was just curious how others dealt with it. Thanks.... Please check back and give your opinion on my set up.

My parts store has a recycle spot now. Pretty cool. About 8 different bin areas for everything from paint cans to oil, filters, tires, belts, glass, paper(body shops)

I feed our waste oil to this beast, a little at a time through the summer months. If you generate massive amounts of waste oil, good excuse to get more of these. A lot of folks burn filtered waste oil in their older diesels. The newer models not so much.

I have a 30 gallon barrel and when it gets close to being full, I take it to my nephew who has a waste oil furnace.

You should be able to find places that burn waste oil that would be more than happy to take it off of your hands. Find someone close, and make a deal with them for taking it every time you get a barrel full. Even places like the quickie lube places might take it. Some of those places send it in to be refined again, and other places burn it in the W.O furnaces

I just gave 275 away. We have reduced our oil changes and I toss some thru my wood stove when can. I changed from a 275 to a 55 and its about half full and will figure a way to drizzle it thru or give it away.
If I was a 1 or 3 car outfit and lived near or it was practical would pay the 26$ at the Ford garage for oil change special.

I store it in a 55 gallon drum. I used to have a 30 like Kevin but it didn't get returned, so they don't get my oil anymore. Once it's full, it goes to a neighbor that burns it in his modified wood stove with an oil drip.

I just look on CL, there are a number of wanted posts for used oil. when I get around 30 gallons I let them come out and get it...lots of shops burn it for heat so there's a pretty good demand around my areas...

I did look into the conversion process for a home oil heater conversion but haven't found a good one (ie. cheap) to play around with, but apparently with a heated nozzle and heated tank it's not tough to burn used oil with a kerosene furnace...

KaiserJeep said:

I feed our waste oil to this beast, a little at a time through the summer months. If you generate massive amounts of waste oil, good excuse to get more of these. A lot of folks burn filtered waste oil in their older diesels. The newer models not so much.

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^ ^ ^ This !!!

Improvise some filtering since you have complete control of what quality goes in which barrel . . . . ie the real crappy stuff from customer cars would go in waste oil burner for shop heater. The better stuff would provide you free fuel for your diesel rig.

Also, could seek out diesel genset that would run on blend of UMO/diesel and have some nearly "free" electricity.

3rd use could be heating water with some "waste heat" from UMO heater for shop . . . either for use as hot water, or circulate in radiant in floor.

I use Oil Energy Recovery in Rollinsford, NH. Their website says Stow, MA but that isn't where the stuff goes. You may want to contact them for the times when you can't or don't want to store any more. They are local, they recycle the oil and have been around quite a while now so I feel I can trust them. No cost for me. I think they may also pay if there is enough. I'm happy to get rid of it free at my place. Because of security access issues it is difficult to get people to even show up here.

In NY it is a law that any seller of oil (auto parts shop, wallmart, oil change stations) must accept used oil for recycling. Same law for batteries. I usually head there after a few oil changes, i forget what the max is you can drop off but i usually take in a about 10 qts every so often. All you do is write down your address and your off. They take it and recycle it.

If I could follow my plan to put a wood stove in the the shop, I'd run it threw the stove. Since the shop filled up with stuff too much, I don't have the room to put a wood stove in. I have a buddy of mine pick it up for his waste oil burner.

The sellers here take it back also. But they will not take back hundreds of gallons at a time or even drums at a time. They will take back homeowner volumes. Shops cannot send it to the auto parts stores.

I bring it to my local mechanic who has a waste oil furnace or the local DPW which burns it also.

If you have a used oil burner already, jonjon1 has a very good write up. One place I worked we had a system very close to what he described and had very few problems. That system had 4-275 fuel oil tanks plumbed together with the bottom one set at a slight angle so we could drain any water off the bottom. The biggest problem is the fact you have to store so much for so long before you use it and the maintenance on a used oil burner is much more than a gas furnace. Some places used to pay for used oil but I think that is pretty much done now ( I just had my used oil tank at work picked up and was told Safety Kleen just stopped paying for used oil).

DLC: i haven't read all the posts and need to run, but wanted to tell you that my old mechanic heated his 4 bay commercial shop with a heater that used the oil from his oil changes. he had to spend one day a year cleaning it, but his heating bills were zero and it was always about 70 inside the garage and office during the winter (he'd have the guys pull in and out and then close doors when temps were below 40 outside).

i'll try to get the information on the heater because he also put one in his new shop when he built it in 2010.

I have a 300 gallon tote on the side of the shop. Still on the fence about a waste oil heater.

I use it for heat also, I have a Lanair 260,000 btu waste oil heater, i bought new in 1994, it has been used in every year since then, just this summer i removed it from my commercial Auto shop(switched to Propane) and i installed it in my home shop (i had to rebuild it, as the chamber had gotten a crack) It is not a set it and forget it type of heater, im always tweakin the adjustments but it cranks some heat. It hung from the ceiling in the old shop, But I built a stand for it in my home shop as i didnt want to mount it permently..
here it is..

Mine goes to the recycling center at the DPW...

Tommy

Our recycling company picks it up at the street during our regular trash pickup.

-Brian

Before I retired last year, I talked with the Safety-Kleen guy about some oil I had at home. He said that as long as it didn't have any water, antifreeze, diesel or gas in it, he could pick it up. I said that it was just oil from my own oil changes. He stopped by one day and took the whole 55 gallons. I gave it to him for free.

The value of waste oil has dropped faster then the price of a drum of crude oil has. At one point we were being paid over $1.50 per gallon of waste, they would pump the tank empty, then hand us a credit card and add $1500 to the days revenue. This was happening once a week, so it was nice money, it has dropped to about a nickle a gallon. I've heard that Safety Kleen is charging some small quantity generators for picking it up from them.

I service tractors, trailer trucks and and pick ups. We got through several hundred gallons of oil every year. I just give mine to a local body shop that has a oil burning furnace. They bring me new empty barrels and come pick up the full ones. We never charge them anything. We just remind them of it when we need to have them sandblast something for us. The local recycling center collects it as well. Several other shops in my area use it for furnaces as well.

Could always give it to some one else who could use it if you have an abundance.

County government has a rather extensive recycling program in place for home owners. Oil can be dropped off at county recycling locations or my local Napa store. I have two 2.5 gallon plastic jugs with handles to transport oil for recycling.

I was advised by the county that antifreeze coolant could be mixed with the kitty litter type absorbent material, placed in a plastic garbage bag, and put in the garbage going to the landfill. I am still wondering how environmentally safe that is.

I had always gave mine to a local shop for their furnace, But this year I kept it to put into my smudge pots for my little orchard that I planted this year.

I don't generate that much used oil despite owning 4 cars. They get changed on mileage, not time and the highest use one still get less then 10K per year and it's still gets free oil changes by the dealer. When I do fill up the 5 gal pail that I collect used oil in I take it with me to the race track as they have barrels there for used oil. Some auto parts stores in the area do take it as well but the race track is a no hassle option for me.

Local marina buys oil for $0.50 a gallon. When I have a few I stop buy and get coffee money. It's on the way to work.

It is great to burn brush on my property. I only have waste from family vehicles and mowers, etc.

It's a lot of work. I have a 2 bay shop which I heat with waste oil.

Train your help to maintain clean oil, if it looks like its contaminated it goes in a settling drum
MY main tank has a galvanized funnel with screen, check screen dump in, and move on
once that is full I fill 55 gallon drums and keep several in the main shop, the others and other oil I receive goes in the back. It's somewhat of a pain to move the drums but tractors or forklifts make it easy. I even roll them up ramps into pickups and bring up to let them settle and warm

I transfer them with a Roughneck air pump fast and easy. I have a filter plumbed to the end of it and everything that goes into tank is filtered.

I also only pump down to 8" of bottom. I have a separate pick up tube to clean out and transfer to settle.

Anything nasty or unsure, contam with gas I pay to get rid of with a waste recovery company. Its a bit of work, but it sure is worth the savings

I keep drum top pads to keep clean, and BEAT NEATNESS into the employees heads. I am the only one to transfer to tank. I am thinking of getting small trailer with a big 250 gallon tote and use that for easier storage

little Briggs & Stratton engines only hold 20 ounces, and some of the the big Tecumsehs maybe 27, so fortunately I don't have to deal with huge quantities.
I can dump it at O'Reilly's up the street or haul it to the local transfer station and dump it free - up to five gallons at a time.
as mentioned above, I see "used oil wanted" ads on CL quite often. that may well be an option.

Kevin54 said:

You should be able to find places that burn waste oil that would be more than happy to take it off of your hands.

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drivesitfar said:

DLC: i haven't read all the posts and need to run, but wanted to tell you that my old mechanic heated his 4 bay commercial shop with a heater that used the oil from his oil changes.

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As the OP stated, he has his own waste oil furnace already.

You guys building up large supplies of UMO in one location, be sure to CYA with secure containers that don't leak, can't fall over, etc.

Once you're over certain threshhold (think it's around 250 to 500 gallon), the EPA will get REAL pissy if you have leak/problem . . . ie like storm blows over your tank . . . . . . . AND . . . . you did not have the proper containment system.

Friend of mine is mgr at rural COOP and some of his large farmer customers had to build retention berms around their oil barrels, diesel storage, etc. The size and depth of the retention system had to handle the "What If Mishap" of ALL fluids leaking out.

You screw up and it runs into water runoff/stream . . . . . NOT good !!

With bottoming out oil price/glut there will likely be more buildup of UMO.

I give mine to a family friend with a waste oil heater.

Here is the 55 gallon tank with transmission drain pan with a piece of hardware cloth at the bottom(to catch any larger debris). We dump drain pans and let filters drain here.






This is a simple homemade oil transfer pump. It's a oil pump from a chevy small block that has been adapted to a 1/2 hp electric motor.




Pumping through two spin on filters on it's way to the 275 gal. tank



Storage until it is pumped into the "Feed Tank"



Here's the "feed tank" where there are two more filters, one on the pick up tube and the canister filter.


And turning that waste oil into heat...Lanair 200K waste oil furnace.

CNGsaves said:

You guys building up large supplies of UMO in one location, be sure to CYA with secure containers that don't leak, can't fall over, etc.

Once you're over certain threshhold (think it's around 250 to 500 gallon), the EPA will get REAL pissy if you have leak/problem . . . ie like storm blows over your tank . . . . . . . AND . . . . you did not have the proper containment system.

Friend of mine is mgr at rural COOP and some of his large farmer customers had to build retention berms around their oil barrels, diesel storage, etc. The size and depth of the retention system had to handle the "What If Mishap" of ALL fluids leaking out.

You screw up and it runs into water runoff/stream . . . . . NOT good !!

With bottoming out oil price/glut there will likely be more buildup of UMO.

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Good info most people don't know about.