waste oil heater

[partsman]

anybody useing one? i am getting about 20-30 gal a week at my shop i have a 50x50 building cinder block building that is very poorly insulated. i have pluged every crack and hole i could find but it still is drafty
i have gas forced air now and that averages about $160-$200 a month.
i am just wondering how well they work and is worth it to change it over

 

[Junkman]

The amount of money that you are now spending has no relationship to the amount of gallons that you are presently using. A waste oil heater will consume as much waste oil as a regular oil burner to produce the same amount of heat. If you can generate enough waste oil, then what you are presently spending on heating oil would then be spent on a waste oil heater until it was paid off. From that point forward, all heat would be "free", since you are not paying for the waste oil. Waste oil heaters do require some additional maintenance in filter changes, and most places have dual tanks that the oil flows from one to the next and the first one acts as a "separator". Other than they, they are very reliable and work well. You might also consider adding some insulation to the building as a way of preserving the heat that you generate. No sense in wasting the oil that you purchase or the waste oil. Around here, they are now buying waste oil and "refining" it for heating oil. The last time I heard a price it was about 35 cents per gallon, but as oil prices rise, they will be paying more for it. I haven't heard what it sells for, since most is used for industrial heating use.

 

[partsman]

i have tried to insulate, it took 12 tubes of caulk and 4 cans of foam to seal all the cracks and gaps around the windows and doors i stuffed the rafters with insulation and then put that blue insulation board over that. the way the building was built i cant get at the block to fill it. a freind of mine said they can poke holes in the cinder block and push foam through it but it doesnt get even and is very costly.
i have never used oil so i am not familier with it, but i have heard how costly it is, and i dont want to end up buying it

 

[DaytonFan]

Waste oil sounds like a pretty good idea, what would one of those units run?

 

[JimmyM]

I know a guy that has one and it uses about 1-1/2 - 2 gallons an hour, they can be quite costly to buy if your looking at a new one, then the maintanance as well

 

[partsman]

there is a guy near me that has a 2 year old unit comes with heater unit, 2 oil pumps a 275 gal tank and i think a 400 gal tank and offered to help me install it for $900

 

[Junkman]

I know a guy that has one and it uses about 1-1/2 - 2 gallons an hour, they can be quite costly to buy if your looking at a new one, then the maintanance as well

At 2 gallons an hour, he will only get between 10 and 15 hours of heat!!! I can't imaging then burning that much fuel per hour, but I have no reference to go by. I will call someone that I know that has one, and see how much his burns per hour. My home heating oil burner only burns 3/4 gallon per hour, based on nozzle size, but it doesn't burn continuously for more than 10 - 15 minutes maybe once or twice an hour. If I were burning 3/4 a gallon of oil an hour 24 hours a day, the dogs would be wearing ear muffs, and sweaters just to stay warm......

 

[Satatic]

How come you dont frame the entire inside, insulate, and drywall?

 

[partsman]

How come you dont frame the entire inside, insulate, and drywall?

i have thought about that but,...... the building was built in 1941 as a bakery and over the years it evolved into a country store and then closed in 98 and sat empty till 2006 when i got it and it was in real bad shape. it took over a month to get it to be able to get it to the shape its in now. i dont think the guy who built it owned a tape or a level.
whoever the mason was did each corner differnt i have trouble setting any wheels on the floor they role away.
it was cheap so thats why im in there
i have been looking for a property out on 422 to get me more drive by exposure and thinking of boarding this property up and useing this one for storage.
but i found this deal on the heater and figured its to good to pass up...

 

[MrBOLO]

Dont those things give off fumes?

 

[Mr_fixit]

I have one for a 2 story block building. Mine uses less than a gallon per hour. You can always find used oil for free around here. For me, it's better than paying for electric or fuel oil, since I can't contain the heat. When it's cold, it runs constantly, to keep the downstairs warmer. There's other things you'll need , like a pump, to pump from 55 gallon barrell to your tank, maybe a truck to transport those barrells, a hoist or liftgate to transport barrels, a good source for CLEAN oil, indoor storage for a tank, etc.

For me I consider it free heat.. with extra work... I think mine with the stove pipe cost between 2 & 3,000. I have one that hangs from the ceiling.

Noisy, too, since the blower motor is really blowing..

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Below is my discussion on used oil heaters for my shop. It is a work in progress and is somewhat unfinished but still has lots of info in it.

Hope this helps someone.

I've started getting serious about doing research leading up to purchasing a whole shop heater. This is for an existing structure so it will have to be a forced air system, no floor heat, and I want a used/waste oil fired system.

I'm located in West Central Georgia and in general, the temps usually never go below +15F, though they will often stay in the mid 30's all day in the winter. The building is a 60x60 metal building, with 16 foot eaves and a 12/2 roof. That makes it 66,600 cubic feet of interior volume. Its on a concrete slab and has the vinyl backed fiberglass insulation common to metal buildings, put on before the sheet metal goes up. Its aprox a R7 insulation value. I have one 10x10 metal sheet roll up door and have a lot of air intrusion above it, and I have a 12wx14h metal and glass garage door (no insulation) and experience air leakage around it also. This is an aircraft hangar (but it has a '53 Jubilee and a '67 2000 in it so this is tractor related) and I have a set of doors covering a 14h x 56w opening that are covered in translucent smoke fiberglass sheet (no insulation of course). There are two man doors with glass in the top half of them, and two sidewall skylights about 3w x 9h each.

This shop and hangar is not used full time, so a used oil heater would be the ideal method to heat. I myself generate a modest amount of oil for two vehicles and a mower and the tractors and I have a couple of neighbors who change their own oil and maintain airplanes and would be able to give me their used/waste oil. I also have co-workers who change their oil and could just as easily bring me their oil as take it to the auto parts store for disposal. EPA regulations allow me to burn all of the used oil I myself generate and that oil given to me by do-it-yourselfers. I cannot burn oil from commercial businesses without first having it tested (very expensive). I have to burn the oil to produce heat, power or other useful product, and not just to waste it or dispose of it, and the individual heaters cannot exceed 500,000 BTUs each.

When I want the hangar/shop heated, I would want to be able to, within 30 to 45 minutes or so, raise the temp from an unheated condition to near shirt sleeve conditions. This is a situation such as coming home from work and firing up the heat and getting started at whatever I planned to do, or on an off day, turning it on in the morning and having it ready to use fairly quickly. This would mandate a somewhat larger than normal heater. Too large and the frequent cycles become a problem, along with the increased fuel burn. A heater that is started frequently would be more prone to problems and forming of soot and ash and from the poor combustion associated with starting up and shutting down.

In looking at heaters I found the following manufacturers.

Reznor, which is an old manufacturer of heaters, now owned by Thomas & Betts and who decline to post the location of their headquarters or manufacturing facilities.
http://www.reznorwasteoil.com/

Firelake, Mt. Crawford, VA
http://www.usedoilheaters.com/index.html

EnergyLogic, Nashville, TN
http://www.energylogic.com/heaters.html

Heatwave which is also found under the name Siebring Manufacturing, George, IA
http://www.heatwave-waste-oil-heaters.com/models.htm

Clean Burn, Leola, PA
http://www.cleanburn.com/

Lanair, Janesville, WI
http://www.lanair.com/home.cfm

Omni by Econo Heat, Spokane, WA
http://www.econoheat.com/

Norki Energy Systems, Poughkeepsie, NY
http://www.norki.com/tech.html


Sizing selection…

Most of the web sites for these heaters simply list SQUARE feet of building space as a reference for applicable heater size. Generally, they give anything under 5000 sq/ft as being suitable for a 150,000 btu heater.

Clean Burn is the only site that has a heater size calculator that takes into account the cubic size of a building or its insulation. Their calculator is very flawed however, giving correction factors that indicate that a no insulation building experiences less heat loss than a minimally insulated building. Also, Clean Burn has a note on the size calculator page that says you must use OUTPUT BTU's when determining desired heater size, then they turn right around and list their different model furnace units and what do they list for capacity? Why, INPUT BTU's of course!!!! Then they note that if you use input BTUs to size the heater, you could end up with an undersized heater.

They do have some good information however, such as suggesting the use of ceiling fans in areas which are over 14 ft high. I may very well consider doing this when I wire conduit for the overhead lighting.

I searched the web over and have been unable to find a good heat sizing calculator, except for a couple that are specifically designed for electric heaters and give the answers in watts, and not BTUs.

I am presently heating the building occasionally with one Reddy Heater, which is a 90,000 BTU model and is quite noisy in addition to producing smelly fumes and carbon monoxide (CO), which can be deadly. From my experience with this heater, I know that I would need at least twice this much heat to successfully heat this building on cold days.

Basic design….

All of the manufacturers listed above make units that are essentially horizontal furnaces. Some are designed as space heaters, using standard blade type fans, and are louvered to distribute the air, while some have squirrel cage fans and louvers but are UL listed as furnaces to use duct work to distribute heat.

All of the manufacturers have an option to mount the unit about 8 ft up on supports on top of a rectangular used oil storage tank "workbench" of about 250 gallon capacity. This gives you a place to empty drain pans, and allow filters and emptied oil bottles to drip out. Otherwise, the fuel storage tank and the heater may be separate and the heater mounted from the rafters or purlins and the tank placed elsewhere, so long as the fuel line length between the two does not exceed the manufacturers specifications.

Due to the design of the units all use some form of compressed air to propel the fuel out the nozzle into the combustion chamber. Some require external air source, such as your shop air, regulated down to 20 to 40 psi depending on the make, and between 2 and 3 CFM of consumption. Not wanting to have to commit my air system to full time operation for the heater, I think this is not a good idea and basically eliminated units that don't have their own source of compressed air. Units without onboard air compressors are Clean Burn, Firelake, Lanair, and Heatwave/Siebring units. Of course another option would be to install a small compressor capable of delivering the needed air and wiring it to the unit, but this is added cost and hassle.

Norki, Omni, EnergyLogic and Reznor all use built in air compressors


Available information and specifications…

Some of the above manufacturers provide a wealth of specifications and information about their units, others provide very little, not even enough to make an educated decision about a purchase of their product.


BTU input and BTU output
CFMs of fan
Temp rise
Fuel consumption.


TO BE CONTINUED.........................................

 

[Junkman]

Below is my discussion on used oil heaters for my shop. It is a work in progress and is somewhat unfinished but still has lots of info in it.

Hope this helps someone.

I've started getting serious about doing research leading up to purchasing a whole shop heater. This is for an existing structure so it will have to be a forced air system, no floor heat, and I want a used/waste oil fired system.

I'm located in West Central Georgia and in general, the temps usually never go below +15F, though they will often stay in the mid 30's all day in the winter. The building is a 60x60 metal building, with 16 foot eaves and a 12/2 roof. That makes it 66,600 cubic feet of interior volume. Its on a concrete slab and has the vinyl backed fiberglass insulation common to metal buildings, put on before the sheet metal goes up. Its aprox a R7 insulation value. I have one 10x10 metal sheet roll up door and have a lot of air intrusion above it, and I have a 12wx14h metal and glass garage door (no insulation) and experience air leakage around it also. This is an aircraft hangar (but it has a '53 Jubilee and a '67 2000 in it so this is tractor related) and I have a set of doors covering a 14h x 56w opening that are covered in translucent smoke fiberglass sheet (no insulation of course). There are two man doors with glass in the top half of them, and two sidewall skylights about 3w x 9h each.

This shop and hangar is not used full time, so a used oil heater would be the ideal method to heat. I myself generate a modest amount of oil for two vehicles and a mower and the tractors and I have a couple of neighbors who change their own oil and maintain airplanes and would be able to give me their used/waste oil. I also have co-workers who change their oil and could just as easily bring me their oil as take it to the auto parts store for disposal. EPA regulations allow me to burn all of the used oil I myself generate and that oil given to me by do-it-yourselfers. I cannot burn oil from commercial businesses without first having it tested (very expensive). I have to burn the oil to produce heat, power or other useful product, and not just to waste it or dispose of it, and the individual heaters cannot exceed 500,000 BTUs each.

When I want the hangar/shop heated, I would want to be able to, within 30 to 45 minutes or so, raise the temp from an unheated condition to near shirt sleeve conditions. This is a situation such as coming home from work and firing up the heat and getting started at whatever I planned to do, or on an off day, turning it on in the morning and having it ready to use fairly quickly. This would mandate a somewhat larger than normal heater. Too large and the frequent cycles become a problem, along with the increased fuel burn. A heater that is started frequently would be more prone to problems and forming of soot and ash and from the poor combustion associated with starting up and shutting down.

In looking at heaters I found the following manufacturers.

Reznor, which is an old manufacturer of heaters, now owned by Thomas & Betts and who decline to post the location of their headquarters or manufacturing facilities.
http://www.reznorwasteoil.com/

Firelake, Mt. Crawford, VA
http://www.usedoilheaters.com/index.html

EnergyLogic, Nashville, TN
http://www.energylogic.com/heaters.html

Heatwave which is also found under the name Siebring Manufacturing, George, IA
http://www.heatwave-waste-oil-heaters.com/models.htm

Clean Burn, Leola, PA
http://www.cleanburn.com/

Lanair, Janesville, WI
http://www.lanair.com/home.cfm

Omni by Econo Heat, Spokane, WA
http://www.econoheat.com/

Norki Energy Systems, Poughkeepsie, NY
http://www.norki.com/tech.html


Sizing selection…

Most of the web sites for these heaters simply list SQUARE feet of building space as a reference for applicable heater size. Generally, they give anything under 5000 sq/ft as being suitable for a 150,000 btu heater.

Clean Burn is the only site that has a heater size calculator that takes into account the cubic size of a building or its insulation. Their calculator is very flawed however, giving correction factors that indicate that a no insulation building experiences less heat loss than a minimally insulated building. Also, Clean Burn has a note on the size calculator page that says you must use OUTPUT BTU's when determining desired heater size, then they turn right around and list their different model furnace units and what do they list for capacity? Why, INPUT BTU's of course!!!! Then they note that if you use input BTUs to size the heater, you could end up with an undersized heater.

They do have some good information however, such as suggesting the use of ceiling fans in areas which are over 14 ft high. I may very well consider doing this when I wire conduit for the overhead lighting.

I searched the web over and have been unable to find a good heat sizing calculator, except for a couple that are specifically designed for electric heaters and give the answers in watts, and not BTUs.

I am presently heating the building occasionally with one Reddy Heater, which is a 90,000 BTU model and is quite noisy in addition to producing smelly fumes and carbon monoxide (CO), which can be deadly. From my experience with this heater, I know that I would need at least twice this much heat to successfully heat this building on cold days.

Basic design….

All of the manufacturers listed above make units that are essentially horizontal furnaces. Some are designed as space heaters, using standard blade type fans, and are louvered to distribute the air, while some have squirrel cage fans and louvers but are UL listed as furnaces to use duct work to distribute heat.

All of the manufacturers have an option to mount the unit about 8 ft up on supports on top of a rectangular used oil storage tank "workbench" of about 250 gallon capacity. This gives you a place to empty drain pans, and allow filters and emptied oil bottles to drip out. Otherwise, the fuel storage tank and the heater may be separate and the heater mounted from the rafters or purlins and the tank placed elsewhere, so long as the fuel line length between the two does not exceed the manufacturers specifications.

Due to the design of the units all use some form of compressed air to propel the fuel out the nozzle into the combustion chamber. Some require external air source, such as your shop air, regulated down to 20 to 40 psi depending on the make, and between 2 and 3 CFM of consumption. Not wanting to have to commit my air system to full time operation for the heater, I think this is not a good idea and basically eliminated units that don't have their own source of compressed air. Units without onboard air compressors are Clean Burn, Firelake, Lanair, and Heatwave/Siebring units. Of course another option would be to install a small compressor capable of delivering the needed air and wiring it to the unit, but this is added cost and hassle.

Norki, Omni, EnergyLogic and Reznor all use built in air compressors


Available information and specifications…

Some of the above manufacturers provide a wealth of specifications and information about their units, others provide very little, not even enough to make an educated decision about a purchase of their product.


BTU input and BTU output
CFMs of fan
Temp rise
Fuel consumption.


TO BE CONTINUED.........................................

Please let me know when the Readers Digest Condensed version is available....

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Please let me know when the Readers Digest Condensed version is available....

I actually started writing this for my own benefit about two years ago. I then decided to write it in a form others might be able to gain some information from, but it has languished on my hard drive, unfinished, for quite a while now.

Charles

 

[PAToyota]

Dont those things give off fumes?

Anything that combusts fuel is going to give off fumes - not a problem if the exhaust is properly vented.

 

[partsman]

Below is my discussion on used oil heaters for my shop. It is a work in progress and is somewhat unfinished but still has lots of info in it.

Hope this helps someone.

I've started getting serious about doing research leading up to purchasing a whole shop heater. This is for an existing structure so it will have to be a forced air system, no floor heat, and I want a used/waste oil fired system.

I'm located in West Central Georgia and in general, the temps usually never go below +15F, though they will often stay in the mid 30's all day in the winter. The building is a 60x60 metal building, with 16 foot eaves and a 12/2 roof. That makes it 66,600 cubic feet of interior volume. Its on a concrete slab and has the vinyl backed fiberglass insulation common to metal buildings, put on before the sheet metal goes up. Its aprox a R7 insulation value. I have one 10x10 metal sheet roll up door and have a lot of air intrusion above it, and I have a 12wx14h metal and glass garage door (no insulation) and experience air leakage around it also. This is an aircraft hangar (but it has a '53 Jubilee and a '67 2000 in it so this is tractor related) and I have a set of doors covering a 14h x 56w opening that are covered in translucent smoke fiberglass sheet (no insulation of course). There are two man doors with glass in the top half of them, and two sidewall skylights about 3w x 9h each.

This shop and hangar is not used full time, so a used oil heater would be the ideal method to heat. I myself generate a modest amount of oil for two vehicles and a mower and the tractors and I have a couple of neighbors who change their own oil and maintain airplanes and would be able to give me their used/waste oil. I also have co-workers who change their oil and could just as easily bring me their oil as take it to the auto parts store for disposal. EPA regulations allow me to burn all of the used oil I myself generate and that oil given to me by do-it-yourselfers. I cannot burn oil from commercial businesses without first having it tested (very expensive). I have to burn the oil to produce heat, power or other useful product, and not just to waste it or dispose of it, and the individual heaters cannot exceed 500,000 BTUs each.

When I want the hangar/shop heated, I would want to be able to, within 30 to 45 minutes or so, raise the temp from an unheated condition to near shirt sleeve conditions. This is a situation such as coming home from work and firing up the heat and getting started at whatever I planned to do, or on an off day, turning it on in the morning and having it ready to use fairly quickly. This would mandate a somewhat larger than normal heater. Too large and the frequent cycles become a problem, along with the increased fuel burn. A heater that is started frequently would be more prone to problems and forming of soot and ash and from the poor combustion associated with starting up and shutting down.

In looking at heaters I found the following manufacturers.

Reznor, which is an old manufacturer of heaters, now owned by Thomas & Betts and who decline to post the location of their headquarters or manufacturing facilities.
http://www.reznorwasteoil.com/

Firelake, Mt. Crawford, VA
http://www.usedoilheaters.com/index.html

EnergyLogic, Nashville, TN
http://www.energylogic.com/heaters.html

Heatwave which is also found under the name Siebring Manufacturing, George, IA
http://www.heatwave-waste-oil-heaters.com/models.htm

Clean Burn, Leola, PA
http://www.cleanburn.com/

Lanair, Janesville, WI
http://www.lanair.com/home.cfm

Omni by Econo Heat, Spokane, WA
http://www.econoheat.com/

Norki Energy Systems, Poughkeepsie, NY
http://www.norki.com/tech.html


Sizing selection…

Most of the web sites for these heaters simply list SQUARE feet of building space as a reference for applicable heater size. Generally, they give anything under 5000 sq/ft as being suitable for a 150,000 btu heater.

Clean Burn is the only site that has a heater size calculator that takes into account the cubic size of a building or its insulation. Their calculator is very flawed however, giving correction factors that indicate that a no insulation building experiences less heat loss than a minimally insulated building. Also, Clean Burn has a note on the size calculator page that says you must use OUTPUT BTU's when determining desired heater size, then they turn right around and list their different model furnace units and what do they list for capacity? Why, INPUT BTU's of course!!!! Then they note that if you use input BTUs to size the heater, you could end up with an undersized heater.

They do have some good information however, such as suggesting the use of ceiling fans in areas which are over 14 ft high. I may very well consider doing this when I wire conduit for the overhead lighting.

I searched the web over and have been unable to find a good heat sizing calculator, except for a couple that are specifically designed for electric heaters and give the answers in watts, and not BTUs.

I am presently heating the building occasionally with one Reddy Heater, which is a 90,000 BTU model and is quite noisy in addition to producing smelly fumes and carbon monoxide (CO), which can be deadly. From my experience with this heater, I know that I would need at least twice this much heat to successfully heat this building on cold days.

Basic design….

All of the manufacturers listed above make units that are essentially horizontal furnaces. Some are designed as space heaters, using standard blade type fans, and are louvered to distribute the air, while some have squirrel cage fans and louvers but are UL listed as furnaces to use duct work to distribute heat.

All of the manufacturers have an option to mount the unit about 8 ft up on supports on top of a rectangular used oil storage tank "workbench" of about 250 gallon capacity. This gives you a place to empty drain pans, and allow filters and emptied oil bottles to drip out. Otherwise, the fuel storage tank and the heater may be separate and the heater mounted from the rafters or purlins and the tank placed elsewhere, so long as the fuel line length between the two does not exceed the manufacturers specifications.

Due to the design of the units all use some form of compressed air to propel the fuel out the nozzle into the combustion chamber. Some require external air source, such as your shop air, regulated down to 20 to 40 psi depending on the make, and between 2 and 3 CFM of consumption. Not wanting to have to commit my air system to full time operation for the heater, I think this is not a good idea and basically eliminated units that don't have their own source of compressed air. Units without onboard air compressors are Clean Burn, Firelake, Lanair, and Heatwave/Siebring units. Of course another option would be to install a small compressor capable of delivering the needed air and wiring it to the unit, but this is added cost and hassle.

Norki, Omni, EnergyLogic and Reznor all use built in air compressors


Available information and specifications…

Some of the above manufacturers provide a wealth of specifications and information about their units, others provide very little, not even enough to make an educated decision about a purchase of their product.


BTU input and BTU output
CFMs of fan
Temp rise
Fuel consumption.


TO BE CONTINUED.........................................

w
WOW you really have done your homework,

 

[partsman]

Dont those things give off fumes?

i dont thnk there is a heater outthere that doesnt give off fumes

 

[6768rogues]

Our town has a waste oil burner and accepts oil from residents. That can be risky, though, because if they get caught burning someone's snake oil that contains PCBs, it could be very costly. That said, waste oil burners are expensive and require more maintenance than a regular oil burner. If you can afford one and do not mind additional maintenance, and if you are sure the oil you get does not contain PCBs or anything that can pollute when burned, go for it.

 

[SHELCO]

We Ran A Waste Oil Heater For 10 Years With Great Results,
We Starting Running Low On Oil For The Lack Of Customers Getting There Oil Changed At A Indepent Repair Shop.

A Local Gentlemen Got Pulled Over Trucking In Waste Oil To His Shop And Was Charged 10 Large For Transporting Haz Waste!
Unless You Can't Produce Enough Oil For Yourself Don't Even Cosider It. Plus Some States Have A Law On How Long Waste Oil Can Sit Around For

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Plus Some States Have A Law On How Long Waste Oil Can Sit Around For

Catch is, it isn't waste oil, but rather USED oil. Big difference to the Feds. You can accumulate used oil for your use, a business can accept from individuals, oil brought in, however, an individual cannot get used oil from a business to burn in his own heater. The Feds limit the heaters to a max of 500,000 btu each but that is huge.

Quoting from the Energy Logic web site.........

Most states follow the US EPA's rules as written. That's because the Used Oil Recycling Act passed by Congress in 1980 established a national policy governing used oil. Burning used oil for energy recovery on-site is defined as "recycling."


The EPA states that generators may burn used oil on-site for energy recovery provided that:

1. the business burns only used oil generated by itself or received from household do-it-yourself used oil generators;
2. the air or water heater is designed to have a maximum capacity of not more than 500,000 BTU input per hour; and
3. the combustion gases from the heater are vented to the outside air.


Do a google search for.......... epa rules for used oil burning

and you get more information than you can read.

Charles

 

[hangfirew8]

Unless You Can't Produce Enough Oil For Yourself Don't Even Cosider It. Plus Some States Have A Law On How Long Waste Oil Can Sit Around For

If you run low on waste oil, you can always run #2 fuel oil. No need to consider breakin' da law.

-HF

 

[kbs2244]

Burning waste oil is a good idea. You don’t have enough to take care of all your heating, but everything helps.
If you see your supply increasing then the $900.00 deal may be a good one.
A little sign by the road saying you accept DIY drop offs may help.
We have a shop here with that kind of sign and every Mon AM there are 3 or 4 jugs setting by their door.

I would think about your building.
The best thing to do with an old leaky block building is to vinyl side it.
Use foam board on the outside of the block, under the siding.
This may seem backwards, but it does a bunch of things.
The siding works as a draft shield that seals the whole wall.
The insulation on the outside makes the block into what they call “thermal mass.” Once it gets warm, it stays warm. And in the summer, once it cools down, it stays cool. It evens out any temp swings.
And it will just make the place look better.

 

[v8garage]

If you run low on waste oil, you can always run #2 fuel oil. No need to consider breakin' da law.

-HF

Wouldn't that kind of defeat the whole purpose of burning waste oil to start with? To me the whole purpose of burning the waste oil is that it is free.

 

[a390st]

I heated a 40lx60wx24h foot insulated metal shop building with a waste oil heater. It was a Black Gold model, and worked like a charm. It burned about 5-7 gallons a day or so in winter, and we had 700-800 gallons of storage plumbed in. It got serviced yearly by the company tech, and we never had a bit of trouble with it. It was never a problem getting oil from friends and neighbors. We kept the shop about 60 or so during the day and 40-50 at night. I think we figured that when we had the doors open a lot and it was extremely cold, we may have used close to 10 gallons, but 5 was about normal. There was never any smell or smoke inside, as that is all piped outside. We really enjoyed it.

 

[Curtis M]

I have run a Clean Burn waste oil heater for about 15 years or more we had 5 big rigs running and waste oil was not a problem. It ran good for the first couple of years and put out the heat. Now the bad they do require work and need to be cleaned out regular make sure you wear a dusk mask when cleaning them out.
Having clean oil you got to have clean oil I was constantly cleaning out filters your best bet is to have a settling tank with a valve on the bottom to tap off the sludge and water before it gets to the filters.

Dont plan on having the heater keep running over night it may work for the first couple of years but do not count on it.

The one i had used compressed air to atomize the waste oil and I constanly had to adjust the oil air mixture depending on the type of oil and the temeture of the shop.

Constant mess dealing with the waste oil. Eventually you get a slight oil mist on everything this comes from the damper when the heater first fire up.

Some of these issues have been taken care of in the New Units and I would not have one again unless is was a new model.

You also need to check local laws in useing a waste oil burner some places they are not allowed.

about 4 years ago I pulled the waste oil gun and installed a Fuel oil burner

 

[JB40]

If you have the waste oil, great, it's typically a 2-3 year payback. If you need to purchase the waste oil, it's probably not a good investment.

People often complain that they are not reliable. They definitely require more maintenance then most other types of heaters. If you follow the manufacturer's guidelines, they can be trouble free.

Here are some commonly asked questions:
http://store.h-mac.com/waste-oil-heaters-boilers.html

 

[79firebird]

A local mechanic shop down the road from me has one well did there moveing locations theres used compresed air to help it also. They burned any and all oil in in reg oil, trans gear oil n such and dident even smell worked good with verry little matince done to it outher then the odd filter for it every month or so on avrage a oil tank full would last them about 2 weeks but it was a huge shop thats what my work went thru on reg oil. For free oil even try your local junk yards

 

[Hades12]

$900 sounds like a good deal, did you get the heater?