Didn't find much discussion on this topic so I thought I'd ask, what brands do people use, how do you like them and how much maintenance is there with them. This winter, my heater won't keep up in the frigid temps, and am thinking about installing a waste oil furnace or heater and have no experience with them at all, was wanting opinions on models, brands and what to look for in one. I'm just wanting to use it when we are in the shop to add extra heat, my in floor isn't quite enough on some days, especially when we're opening and closing the door a lot and bringing in equipment that's ice cold. Also looking for a good use for the waste oil we have around the place and generate annually. Any advice or knowledge you'd like to share? We've been looking to install some lp gas convection heaters, but at 5 bucks a gallon for lp this winter, I'm starting to think this is a much cheaper way to go instead, and lower annual operating costs, but was wondering how many more headaches I'll have to contend with to keep it going and running, I've heard some real horror stories in the past about waste oil heaters. Thanks in advance for any and all input.
Randy; Here is a link to an interesting thread about them. I can't imagine the mess the one guy had with the oil on his shop floor. http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=279492&DisplayType=flat&setCookie=1
We have a pair of CleanBurn heaters CB-5000. I would say 99% of the problems we have with them is self inflicted. Main problem is too many guys here think anything can go in the waste oil system. Like oil full o f crap from failed bearing housing and dirt from filthy drain pans. Then if we are low on used oil at our site they will haul some from a sister plant, they seem to think water and antifreeze can go in the used oil tank they have. To add to the problem the storage tank we have is at least twice the size we really need. That means it is never over half full, so condensation is another big problem and with no easy way to drain off this condensation it is a problem. With all that said if you have semi-intelligent people and support from management to properly control what goes into the system and do some basic maintenance they can be a very good option.
I dont have one but know several places that do. It must take alot of oil to run one because none of them can generat the oil it takes to make it all winter. One shop that does alot of oil changes was looking for oil 40 days after they started useing it this winter. Used oil is around $1.50 a gallon so not many places are giveing it away.Luckly last summer i got around 200 gallons of fuel out of barrels that i cut up so my space heater has been used alot.
Our local Cenex garage has had one for 10 years or more. I asked today how it has been. They said that as long as they filter the oil via a settlement tank to get the water and spare parts out it has been flaw less. They save oil all year in a couple of large tanks. He said the biggest expense is getting rid of the crap from the bottom of the tanks. But before they had more to get rid of. The storage tanks have the oil line coming out 3" off the bottom. They have a bottom drain to remove the water and other crap occasionally.
You can build one, they are pretty simple. Get the oil hot, blow in some air, and it will burn. I tried building a small one and ran into problems for controls (If the flame goes out, shut the machine down) A local farmer I know has a real one in there shop. Works great, they pay for service once a month, not sure what that includes. With all of the oil they get from all of the tractors and trucks, they run it 24/7 during the winter, to try and burn all of the oil. If I were you, I would try to modify an oil furnace (so you can re-use the controls) or pay up and go with a professional model.
I work in a few different spots that have home made waste oil burners, all they are is thick walled pipes (about 3/4") with steel plate either end. Have the oil drip feeding in the middle at the top with a tap to regulate the flow. Probably not the most efficient way to burn oil and they put out a lot of black smoke but if you crank them up you can get the the fireplace and six foot up the chimney glowing red. As was said before you need to keep the water out if the oil, particulates dont worry the gravity feed ones as much. Kroll is the name of a company that make waste oil burners I dont know if they are available in USA.
We have one ( black gold ), works awesome, we use a 250 gallon tank before heater tank to seperate water and parts, fill it up and let sit day or two, drain off bottom then open valve and it gravity to main tank, drain bottom of main tank next day. Its all about keeping water and anti-freeze out. We have wood burner with a barrel feeding it that we use to burn off drippins from oil tanks. Have to keep a fair ratio of oil and fuel. Strait motor oil will burn good, add 50 gallons of gear oil and we try to add some fuel we save from old filters and from when we drain off the fuel tanks each service about a quart. Have one person service it, not the whole shop,
I have saw alot of guys in the past try to drip oil into a woodstove and it never worked out good. You would need like OVERWORKED said a special tank were every thing could settle out. A buddy ask me one time if i could figure out how to clean the sludges from the bottom of his oil furnace tanks.
Thanks for the replies, the more people I ask, the more opinions I get, I'm not sure how many gallons a year I'd run through one either, but I'm not going to make one, it would have to be a commercial unit or my insurance company wouldn't allow it, I already asked them that question. As for what brand to buy, I don't really know yet, about as many people love the heaters as do those that hate them from I've gathered on some of the internet sites I read. I still haven't figured out what's different between the brands, from what I can tell they all take basically the same burner assembly and transformer, so after that I'm not sure what's left, anyone have any idea on that?
randy I work on & service 3 CleanBurn CB5000. they are very good units. the 1 heats a metal fab shop 24/7 the other heats a transmission rebuild shop. & the other heats a 40x80 pole barn at a farm. like several have said the big thing is keep the oil clean, the water& antifreeze is a big problem. if you are doing the oil saving tho you can control this. the fab shop has a 1000gal tank inside with a mag heater to keep it warm the heater is on top of the tool room with a small 50gal tank with a heater on it also. the most common problem I have dealt with is the nozzle getting clogged or the flame sensor (fire eye) getting dirty. I will service these at the first part of the heating season, change nozzle,clean filters,clean/check the target for cracks/breaks. the heater at the transmission shop has been there for 8 years now & I have done nothing to it but clean&check it. the 1 at the fab shop has a few more hands lookin at it iv replaced the fan motor, fire eye, transformer, air regulator & the nozzles. the heater is one of the first that cleanburn made tho!! if you have any questions just PM me & I can give you the guys names that have them or I can be any help. the factory are very good about getting parts out to the guys fast if the heater is broke & with troubleshooting the unit if you have any off the wall problems
I've been using a Clean Burn for many years now with no issues. But, like others have said, no junk contaminants in the oil, must have clean oil. The other issue is having enough oil, you'll burn between 500 to 1500 gallons of oil in a winter depending on how cold it is and how warm you keep the shop as well as duration, just a few hours or 24/7. If you did your shop, with the winter we've had, and your location, you could easily eat 2000 gallons of oil. I love my waste oil burner, but you yourself have to consider if you can source enough oil before making the investment. If you do go for it, clean oil is the key. I built a "waste oil sink" that I dump my oil in, has a tray to drain filters as well. Oil is pumped out of the sink through a big filter before it goes to the storage tank. So far this method has given me good service with the heater. And I love how it warms the shop quickly on a cold morning.
Welder buddy of mine put an oil drip on his wood furnace. He said the wood would last a long time using just a little oil.
As far as how much oil you'll burn. No help if you're not sure how much you'll have available, or a heat loss calculation, but if you're comparing fuels, waste oil will basically equal fuel oil or propane gallon for gallon, roughly 30KWH/gal, or 100gal/cord of wood. A heat loss calculation is pretty easy to do, but you'll be taking a wild guess on infiltration (air leakage) without a blower door test. This site has instructions for making a simple blower door and lots of other DIY ways to save energy: builditsolar.com
i have shanedoa in my shop it is a 175k btu unit i have 40x60 shop keep it 40 at night 60 in the day. Were i live we see very cold temps -30 for a month or 2 in not uncommon. i have been very pleased with it i burn about 1500 gallons a year or so. I have very little issues with i clean it every 500-700 hours and keep my oil clean in a settling tank before i pump into my 400 gallon tank in the shop. I get my oil for free so it is a very good deal for me . central ohio heaters is very good to deal with and sell rebuild units.
Thanks for all the information, but I do have some questions, I don't intend to run this at night at all, just in the day on the days we're working in the shop, do I have to keep the preheater tank on at all times, or only just before I fire up the furnace for the day, do I then kick the preheater on, or will that take too long, or how does it work exactly?
The preheater, if I'm correct, is to deal with cold/thick oil, hard to pump. In my area it's not a big deal. There was one day this winter when it was colder that grandpa's arse that the heater sputtered for a moment because of the cold/thick oil. But it's rarely a problem for me.
Willie as usual you are right!! the preheater is to make the oil flow better to the nozzle.. most of the time it stays on (as long as power is on to the unit) its a small 120V heater built in to the unit. the fab shop has a BIG magnet heater on their tank that they leave on all time.(they get their oil from what the generate from their trucks BUT also from some outside sources that are less than desireable contents)
Ok thanks for the information
Anybody ever have issues with contaminates in the oil causing pitting and rusting the steel shop roof? Two guys told me this yesterday alone, they both wished they'd never seen a waste oil burner, both installed them in new buildings and within a few years, the roofs were all rusted and pitted and now they need to replace the roofs, both with cleanburns and installed according to code and how the furnace guy installed them, everything was new when the install was done. The one claimed he was told, either the furnace was out of adjustment at one point in time or there were contaminates in the oil somehow, that caused it, he also told me there was virtually nothing to adjust on the new burners, they either worked or didn't, he'd sent the burner in every year to be checked over since he bought it new 7 years ago and it showed up with pitting on the new steel roof the first year, and has gotten worse every year since. The roofers told him they see it a lot with waste oil burners and steel roofs over time. I was skeptical till one of the owners took me outside, far enough back from the building so I could see the roof and sure enough, the chimney around the waste oil burner was rusty and he told me it was also pitted badly, whatever it was ate through the paint and into the steel and the roof was a rusty mess, and got better further away from the waste oil chimney, it was obvious as to where and what happened, he also had natural gas boilers in the shop too, to heat the offices, there was nothing on the roof anywhere, near the natural gas chimney.
I don't have an oil burner, and I don't know what it is in oil or waste oil, but I see that rust around the chimney all the time. Natural gas or propane will do it too, just way less often than wood or oil. Couldn't really tell you if waste oil is worse than regular oil though. In gas exhaust it's just acidic water. Any new gas burner should be high efficiency and vented out the sidewall with PVC pipe, with the price of gas these days. When you combine an acid (CO2) with an alkaline (ash) you get a salt, and we all know what salt does to steel. The out of adjustment or contamination thing sounds like a bad excuse to me.
I'd also inquire on what kind of buildings they have. Elcheapo buildings use crappy paint/tin. Just sayin...
IM CALLING BS on this... it might have been something burning off the inside of the heat exchanger but its inferior metal coating that's the underlying problem. The flue will reach temps that will melt off paint. I will bet that there was carbon burning off the combustion chamber or something that caused it. the metal has a 50 year warranty on it!!! make them replace it cause its not the oil furnace that's doing it... have the guy fire up the unit & stand outside watch the vent pipe ill say that it will have VERY BLACK SMOKE on start up & it don't matter if the factory set the burner up its the IDIOT that hooks it up job to adjust it... yes the installer has to adjust the primary air, oil pressure, air pressure, & check the flue gas to make sure its running to peak efficiency. that's what gives these furnaces such a bad name is guys like this that don't even know what a combustion analyzer is, LET ALONE KNOW HOW TO USE IT!!!! sorry for the soapbox talk but I see a lot of it here. where guys say I adjusted it the flame looks good now.. IT DONT WORK THAT WAY!!! DO me a favor next time you speak with this guy ask him to show you the print out of where the tech done the flue gas/efficiency test..... ill bet he don't have it, cause the tester is over $2000.00 dollars..
With a slight reservation I would have to agree on this statement. We have had our two CleanBurns for many years, need to check files at work for dates. Used to have "dealer" come out and service them every fall. Now boss will keep "playing" with them till they stay burning most of the time. But even when the "dealer" was doing the service I never saw them use any kind of tester on the exhaust. They would just remove the burner and disassemble the regulators and clean and reassemble with new orings, replace nozzles and electrodes.
this replaced a smaller unit and works great bought it used and replaced the tubes in it that had not been kept cleaned and had stared to rust out. on the other section of the shop we have this both from the same manufacturer but no comparrison on how long it takes to clean compared to the other unit and it puts out hotter air from now on it will only be the gunbarrell type for ease of cleaning and oil to heat usage.
Hatch, if I'm understanding this right, you prefer the lower unit that is more of a blast tube style that says firelake on it, verses the upper most one that says shenandoah on it. Do you know the btu output on either unit? Just out of curiosity do you happen to know the stack temps coming out of each furnace.
FS, sorry I somehow missed your post, didn't mean to ignore you or anything, as for those two dealerships, they didn't work on the burner units themselves, just cleaned the filters and called the tech's that installed the units if something didn't work right, also at the end of the heating season, they'd send in the burner to save the service call, and clean the flue's themselves, and when the burner was done, the tech would bring it back and install it, check it over and make sure it was ready for the next season. I'm not verifying anything, or starting an argument, just asking if anyone's heard of this before or had it happen to them. As for the one roof, both his natural gas boiler and waste oil boiler vent out on the same side of the building about 100 feet apart, there's nothing anywhere near the natural gas vent, and only near and downwind of the waste oil vent is the roof rusty, myself looking at it, I was wondering if they didn't clean the flue's often enough and soot got onto the roof and acted just like soot in the flue's over time, rusted stuff up, but again, I don't know was just asking. Of any of the people near me with waste oil burners, none have ever mentioned a combustion analyzer, not even the sales people I've talked to have ever mentioned one of these to adjust anything.
Randy id have to look them up but yes ive had two of the upper style units and then the straight unit the cabinet kind you have to pull doors off each side to clean the tubes and clean the burn chamber on the straight unit open one door insert tool that comes with unit "light weight hoe with curved edge" scrape it all back to a catch pan. When I bought it I thought I would be giving up some heat or extra oil because it isn't passing air over all those hot tubes boy was I wrong. And Shenandoah turned into Firelake I use a dealer in west Virginia for parts and when I bought new units. these 2 are still going strong the 1st one I got was from another shop I started in and just wasn't big enough for this shop and I melted it from trying to make it do it. Don't skimp on size if one size will do it step up it want have to work as long and will heat the area faster, we turn them down to the lowest setting at night 45 then turn them up to 65 in the morning.
Over the years with practice I guess Ive gotten pretty good at judging the flame by color and lazeness of flame, sound and how easy it starts and all you want to see coming out the stack is heat waves no smoke or something is not adjusted correctly
you have the general idea most look like a old Mack truck at a stop light when they start up..
Stay away from the boilers burning waste oil, they aren't inherently bad products but in my opinion the way they are made and set up causes a lot of problems. If they start from cold and aren't set up to maintain temp they are even worse the soot and the condensation created when the gases hit the cold boiler create a cement like substance that you have to crack apart with a piece of all thread to clean it. when it constantly maintains temperature they will stay cleaner but the passages are way too small for burning waste oil and plug up quick in my opinion.