for the last few years we have amassed 4000-6000 litres of waste oil per year. This is mainly used engine oil from industrial diesels but also a small percentage of gear oils, hydraulic oils and diesel fuel. This is stored in ibc's and taken away when all four are filled. An increasingly costly process.
Does anyone know of an economical way of either using this waste for heating purposes or a more economical method of disposal.
Thanks, Nick.
My mate's dad heats his workshop in winter with a purpose-built heater running on waste oil. I believe it drips the oil onto a hot cast-iron plate where it burns, inside a heavy iron casing. A fan blows air round the outside of this casing and into the room. Lighting it is somewhat involved; you have to stuff a few diesel-soaked rags into the bottom to heat the plate up before it can start burning oil. Apparently though you can buy self-starting versions, at a price.
He has a big tank outside (domestic heating oil tank surplus to requirements) that slowly fills up over the summer and gets used during winter.
Pete
Thats a lot of fuel.
I have seen a 'home-made' heater of that sort which dripped oil onto a hot ex-heavy truck brake drum some six inches deep which acted as the burn pot. It might be possible to use a modified oil stove/heater (not the paraffin-oil/kerosene wick type) that uses a carburetor, by filtering the oil carefully first. But they are now uncommon. I have an old oil stove carburetor but don't have such a heater any more to try it. There is/was a drive through auto service station in this city that as long as 20 years ago was burning the waste oil from engine changes in a furnace that heated the premises by hot air. Made a lot of sense with outside doors opening and closing as vehicles were serviced and moved through. Here we now pay a waste oil disposal charge and understand that it is shipped to a refinery for 'reprocessing'. Have also heard of mixing it with sawdust and burning. If one had a plentiful supply, such as at a sawmill, could be used for plant heating. Probably not environmentally acceptable? In some places where wood is primary fuel there are outdoor wood furnaces; in other words the actual burner is located in an outside shed or building, to keep wood chips etc., ash removal and smoke away, and hot air or hot water is routed into the residence for heating. Such a system could perhaps be modified to primarily burn (or add) waste oil.
You can make a burner for this stuff, but the real problem is getting rid of dissolved pollutants.
The will clog filters and burner nozzles, and push some pretty illicit compounds into the atmosphere.
Commercial waste oil burners are available one of the local garages has one to heat the workshop. The suggestions of drip/wick/sawdust burners will almost certainly fall foul of pollutions controls these days. You need a high temperature burn to (hopefully) break down the nasties in the waste oil. Your mix of oils might be a problem as well.
I'm sure google will be far more helpful than here.
Garage/workshop heaters for just this purpose were certainly available once - they usually had to be started on paraffin. Then would burn any old oil. Probably fallen foul of pollution regs these days - although one I remember didn't even have a flue to the outside...
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Nick" saying something like:
Waste oil heaters have been available for years. I don't mean the workshop heaters, I mean pressure jet /syphon burners that use waste oil. They're not cheap - around the £2K mark, but with that amount of waste oil to burn in one, it would pay for itself quickly.
Pete
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