I wanted to put a waste oil heater in my shop and a friend said he heard that it would not burn synthetic oils. Not a problem if I only burn my oil but what if a friend gives me some laced with a syn blend or pure synthetic?
the Ford dealership i worked for up until last november regularly burned waste oil with a significant amount of synthetic in it without issue. Ford's most popular oil nowadays is 5w20, and Motorcraft's 5w20 bulk oil is semi-synthetic (50% blend i think), and a lot of that 5w20 drain oil went thru that burner, not to mention all the semi-synthetic blends of tranny fluid Ford uses now
there is nothing actually synthetic about synthetic oils,so yes,it will burn.no antifreeze though.BUUUUUTTTT,,,in a hobbyist shop,there is no way you could ever come up with enough oil to last a winter.we have eight bays at work,and dont generate enough oil to heat for a winter in a fast paced flat rate shop.dont do waste oil for a home shop,unless you have 3000 gallons already drummed up behind the garage.i would bet we used at least 1200 gallons a winter.its not as easy to get as it used to be,because any shop owner with common sense wants free heat too.
Synthetic oil is basically a very specific parraffin base oil that will burn the same as conventional oil. Be careful of synthetic "lubricant". They may be glycol ester products and will foul the heater.
as bbtrux said you better have alot of waste oil ta burn..I did the math on this somewhere ..cant seem ta find it now..but up here in michigan the ammount i would have had to have for one season was so astronomical i would have had no oil left to do a full season..they use alot of oil. Nevada..maybe its not as cold as here..but you will be out hunting down waste oil instead of working on your project. The syntetic is not an issue..the availability and and ammount you will need to keep your expensive waste burner fed will bum you out in the long run ..than you will eventually get sick of it and have it for sale here in the classifieds
A couple things if you decide to use one......first off find a local trucking or large excavating/well drilling company and offer to take there used oil for free, they usually store it in 50 gallon drums so you could make something for picking up and moving, offer to bring back the barrells when there empty if they will take them, some place do not take them back because they just use the ones the new oil comes in. Next when you install it make sure you try and get your oil mounted level or higher then the furnace, my buddy had a hell of time keeping it fed when the oil sat lower then the furnace, typical old gravity feed idea. as far as the oil there's was mostly motor oil with some hydroylic oil mixed in as well.
A friend of mine uses it as a supplement to the natural gas heater. He has an auto repair business and does a lot of oil changes but as stated above it's not enough to be the sole source of heat. What helps him is that we are in a farming community and a LOT of farmer's are tickled to death to have a place to dump their oil so his reserves get built up quickly during planting and harvest season. I save my oil in 5 gallon containers and make a run up there in the fall to help top off his tanks. With 5 vehicles to maintain I usually make a pretty good contribution.
I was beginning to like this idea till you brought out your calculator. Don't folks in the eastern states use oil burning furnaces to heat the whole house? Or is it kerosene they use and just call it oil? I use a combination of kerosene fired turbine heater to get the chill off, shut er down then my two reflector propane heater on low with one or both burners going will keep the garage warm enough to work out there. The garage and doors are insulated so that helps. About 650 sq feet fwiw. Ventilation is a necessity and I'm doing ok with the gable vent and a big door cracked open a ways. Not sure the altitude where NV Rodr lives, but I'm at 3400' and overnight temps can get down to 16 degrees F now and then. Usual winter low temps are high 20's mid 30's at nigh. It ain't Michigan, but the Dez can get pretty cold at night and stay that way all day even if the sun is shining. I do have gas plumbed to the property and what I'd like to have for garage heat is a natural gas heater mounted up in the rafters like you see in a lot of big shops. Thermostatically controlled - as most are I believe - would be great. Does this style heater come in a size for a small garage/shop? And if so, what do these heaters cost? Does diesel at the petrol station work in the kero turbine heaters? I used to get kero for $2. a gallon. Then California decided it needed to be sold in sealed cans and the price at Home Despair was $20. for five gallons. A few days back, I saw a five gallon can at Lowes - which usually has overly high prices - for $35. The label indicated it was almost 'magic' stuff, but when you looked close it was just kero. Using the turbine kero heater in combination with the propane heater and running the turbine a minimum of time is fairly economical. Last year I only used about 4 gallons of kero. Best part is, propane here is less than $2. per gallon....
I did a search on these and one of the smaller models used a gallon an hour of waste oil. You would need 55 gallon drums setting around of waste oil to keep this going in a everyday shop. I could see using it as a supplement. Unless you had a regular drop off of oil I dont think it would pay off.
yeah i wish i could find my figures on the one i would have needed for my shop..1000SF with 12 foot ceiling..so like 12,000 CF of area to heat..i think i would have burned like 5 gal per hour so workin an 8 hour day would have been like 40 gal per day..wow screw that..I built a 250 gallon oil barrel into a wood burning stove..works great and fuel is free, all i gotta do is chop it down and stack it and load it..
I built one out of an old water heater using plans off the internet. I have a 75,000 btu propane heater mounted on the ceiling that keeps the shop above 40 or so all winter. I use the oil heater when I'm in the shop working because I don't think it is safe enough to run by itself. I have less than $50 into it, and it burns my used oil and gives me free heat.
Guys, he lives in Reno. not that cold to need 3000 gallons of oil for the winter. here in nm they work GREAT my buddy and I built one out of an old caboose stove, and it heats his shop right at 1700sq ft to 65 degrees with no problem. It used about 65 to 75 gallons last year...Best thing we burn everything 90 wt to tranny fluid.... The catch is you dont want to leave it going when your not there. It WILL make a big mess if it goes out and your not there. but its FREE heat....... Bill
www.cleanburn.com CB-1400 FURNACE Max. BTU/Hour: 140,000 (41 kW) Fuels: Used Crankcase, ATF, Hydraulic; #2, #4 and #5 Fuel Oils Uses: Small garages, shops, and workspaces If it comes out of the crankcase, looks like its useable.
We have like seven of these in the three shops were I work but we have a fleet of over 500 trucks. The main shop has a 3500gal tank that we fill up during the summer and then burn for most of the winter. We usually have to buy oil about a month before it starts to warm up because our oil changes cant keep up with the demand but i would say that it is still loads cheaper than paying to rid ourselves of the used oil. We burn all grades of oil, on and off road diesel fuel and a small but not advised amount of A jet fuel, all mixed together of course. The only maintence I see them get is during the summer they get panels removed and the clean burn guy looks them over and sweeps any debis/ash out of them. We also have external filters that get cleaned out a couple times during the winter.
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