Waste oil heat

[phantom dually]

I am looking for a long term low cost heating solution for my garage. I have found a few ideas like the waste oil burners or heat pumps. I beleive a heat pump I could get air conditoning unit with it also. That would kill 2 birds with one stone in itself. What do you guys have or know of?? Its cold out in that garage!!

[Longhorn Man]

Look at the waste oil thing very carefully.
We use it at the shop, even though it does save thousands of dollars a season, it has been 5 years and we are just seeing the profits. Very expensive to set up, maintain, and in all reality, you'll be needing to buy used motor oil since you could never produce as much as is needed. Plis the compressor will have to be on when ever the heat is on.... I can't see it workin in a home shop.

[phantom dually]

The heat pump idea seems to be more reasonable as far as the $$$ go. Anyone have a heat/air pump??

[Rollie396]

The thing that bugs me about this subject is that there is such pressure to reduce pollution by any means possible,yet the powers that be have no problem whatsoever charging astronomical fees for the "green" alternatives.If the price of natural gas wasn't so high,this thread wouldn't even be necessary!
That said.....I'm watchin this one for replies

[phantom dually]

Originally Posted by Rollie396

The thing that bugs me about this subject is that there is such pressure to reduce pollution by any means possible,yet the powers that be have no problem whatsoever charging astronomical fees for the "green" alternatives.If the price of natural gas wasn't so high,this thread wouldn't even be necessary!
That said.....I'm watchin this one for replies

You are correct. Currently my 2800 sq ft home is heated by Natural gas. In my area we had a 73% price increase on natural gas alone. I need to heat my garage which is 30x40 with 12 ft from floor to bottom of rafters. I refuse to pay for natural gas at that price for the garage. I have a gas line ran into the garage but Im afraid of the bill.

[Tx Firefighter]

I've been seeing about 2k dollars buy in price to get a waste oil system going in your shop. I just built a 30x40, and I'm really considering it.

It looks like it will burn about 4/5 of a gallon per hour of usage. All my drivers are diesels, so they take 3 gallons each oil change, and my wife owns a big construction company with dozens of tractors and dumptrucks, so I think I can get enough oil to support it.

Like Andy said, they do use shop air also.

Basically, since Propane prices has near doubled, it's looking more attractive all the time.

[PanelDeland]

My B-I-L used one in his tranny shop for years.He built the first one and it worked but was somewhat problematic.I think he got it to work pretty well after the first year.A few years later when he needed to replace it (the drum rusted/burned out)he bought one.It worked great and had few problems as long as he filtered the fuel.Of course he had tons of used tranny fluid to run in it so fuel was no prob.

[pritch]

I wonder if one is made that would connect to a boiler. I am getting set up for hot water (actually glycol) heat, but I'm undecided on how to heat the fluid. I have 2 propane fired water heaters, but like has been said, the price of propane is going up along with everything else. I also wonder just how much oil you really would have to buy. It seems like everyone is looking for a place to get rid of the stuff.

[phantom dually]

I just bought some Kersosene today at $3.69 a gallon. OUCH

[rodnok1]

The waste oil heaters are good, but they require alot of maintenace. We had 2 huge units in a shop I worked in. The biggest headache was they required adjusting the pumps to compensate for colder weather. Many aday we were freezing until we fixed the pressures and shop warmed up. We used kerosene to thin it when it was cold and we didn't have much oil. It required major adjustments. You have to clean them thouroughly at least once a year or they don't work. Also when the do break, few people work on them and parts can sometimes be a pain. When they are adjusted right they have almost no emmisions, but when they get out of wack they spew nasty black smoke(read oily). Prob wouldn't want one myself unless it was away from buildings/cars.

[phantom dually]

Yeah the heat pump idea is looking better!!

[Leinie]

The latest thing here is corn burners. You buy a 50 or 100 bushell hopper and a corn burner with an auto/auger feeder and it will heat a 3000 square foot home on 3/4 bushell a day. You could buy all the corn in this county from any farmer for $2.50 a bushell.( for that price they would probably deliver )

If I had a rural place I'd put in a corn burner and heat water/glycol and run it in the floors

[1972C10]

Northern Tool Sells One Called An Elimnator 3000 or something like that for around 2-3k i dont really recall the specs.


Personally I used a Wood Burning Stove Made From 20" Rims Burn Scrap wood and anything else i can find There is a local pallet manufactureing company that give away stacks of cut off pieces of oak May be something similar in other places They even load it with a fork lift as much as you want.


I also have an Oil Drip Installed On My Stove With a 30 Lb Freon Tank For A Resivoir And A Ball Valve to regulate the drip Puts out plenty of heat as long as theres a bed of coals to drip oil on