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Messages - acarter

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1
Waste Motor Oil / CK burner kit
« on: February 16, 2020, 09:59:09 am »
About 3 years ago I bought a used Clean Burn burner and triad boiler and set myself up for waste oil. After 2 seasons of messing with the old Clean Burn setup I decided to give the CK Burner kit a try with a new Beckett burner. I put it together and set it up this past summer, it's been running since October and the few times I've had issues it has been air compressor related, the burner itself has been flawless. The Clean Burn burner was an almost daily "tuning" of the oil and air pressures to get it to burn right and there was always something wrong with it (which was most likely age related). The CK burner has been a "set it and forget it" machine.

I tried a few tips and ended up with the 1gpm nozzle to get more heat for a large boiler. 12 psi seems to be the happy spot for easy lighting and decent flame size. I have an air regulator (set at 40psi) inline before the reg on the burner itself, this prevents any fluctuation in air pressure (from the air comp. cycling) at the primary burner reg. So once I set got done the initial tuning in the fall I haven't touched the air pressure since.

About once a month I clean out the lower chamber of the boiler and get about a coffee cup of very light ash, much better than the old burner.

I also want to say that the few times I have had a question about the system during setup or afterwards Craig from CK was very quick to respond and very helpful.


2
Take two filter heads/ bases that accept cheap hydraulic filters of your choice, then just take some iron pipe with a few ball valves and T's and you could have the option between either filter and/ or a bypass pipe with no filter.

As far as the indicator, depending on what you intend to use it for you could either use a vacuum gauge or a pressure gauge before or after the filter rack. For example, if you are using this in your suction line to your boiler/ furnace then you would need a vacuum gauge after the filters. But, if it's being used for a transfer pump then a pressure gauge before the filters would fit the bill. It would be a trial and error process to learn what pressure/ vacuum was your stopping point, you would have a starting number with a new filter and then have to decide what flow rate you could accept (how clogged you let the filter get).

An example of a filter head...
https://www.zoro.com/baldwin-filters-hydraulic-filter-base-base-ob1314-ob1314/i/G7607336/feature-product?gclid=Cj0KCQjw9ZDeBRD9ARIsAMbAmoaIWyW6JuuMI27Y4y84JkLP6U-xTY_v2v3uvfuVmtoBgzB_4dvyq2waApM0EALw_wcB



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Waste Motor Oil / Re: Preheater block cleaning, Clean Burn
« on: September 12, 2018, 10:00:06 am »
Took it all apart and soaked the whole block in gas for about a week, then cleaned it with some gun cleaning tools... turned out pretty good. Going to be firing it up in about a month so I guess I'll have to wait to find out if my wires are all back together correctly :-)

4
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Preheater block cleaning, Clean Burn
« on: August 18, 2018, 05:43:43 pm »
Thanks!

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Waste Motor Oil / Preheater block cleaning, Clean Burn
« on: August 15, 2018, 07:43:50 am »
Hello,

I have a Clean Burn CB4000, from the early 1990's. I was wondering if anyone knows the procedure to clean the preheater block? I just got the unit last year and had a pretty successful first season, but every now and then my nozzle would get clogged, so I'm blaming it on carbon build up in the preheater block. Considering the unit is over 20 years old and I don't know it's history I'm thinking it would be a good idea to clean the preheater, I can't seem to find any info on this site or anywhere else, I know it needs to be soaked in something, but not sure what.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Austin

6
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Waste Oil Boiler install
« on: March 08, 2018, 07:18:30 am »
The cleaning I'm doing once a month is what I would call ash buildup, not carbon. Mostly just a few inches in the bottom of the firebox (which is relatively small) and I just take my hand with a glove and scrape off the stuff on the walls of the firebox, comes right off. Vacuums up easily. I'm sure I could go longer but considering how easy it is I'm happy to do it once a month.

Either way, there is no smoke and it's working perfectly so I'm not messing with a good thing. It burns great anywhere between 4-6psi oil and about 27 air pressure and that's the way it's staying.

Austin

7
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Waste Oil Boiler install
« on: March 02, 2018, 08:18:12 am »
Well, I thought I would give an update. It's been over 2 months now since I've had a real problem with the unit. Ever since I put the larger nozzle in it's been working pretty well. It seems that a good cleaning is required of the firebox about once a month. That takes me about 15-20 minutes from start to finish, so I can handle that. It burns very clean, no smell outside and nothing but heat waves coming out of the stack.

Every once and a while it will trip itself off, for whatever reason, but this is less than once a week and a press of the reset button and quick adjustment of the oil pressure and we're back in service for a while. During the cold snap in January I was burning around 8-10 gallons/ day with boiler temp set at 180. Now that the highs are in the 40's and lows just below freezing I've turned the boiler temp down to 140 and we're burning 3-5 gallons/ day. The furnace blower in the house runs a little longer (because the water temp is lower) but it still heats the house up fairly quick. I'm pretty happy that the gauge on my heating oil tank in the house hasn't moved for months!

8
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Transfer Pumps?
« on: January 07, 2018, 06:28:26 pm »
Well, I used the new diaphragm pump for the first time yesterday. Much better than the old gear mesh pump. Oil and air temp was around 20 degrees F, pumping through a screen filter and hydraulic filter I probably get about 2gpm, unrestricted (no filter) probably closer to 5gpm. I'm happy with that, in the warm weather I'm sure it will get close to the rated 12gpm...

Austin

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Waste Motor Oil / Re: Transfer Pumps?
« on: December 26, 2017, 12:55:29 pm »
I just ordered the diaphragm pump from northern tool. I'll post back once I see how it works...

Austin

10
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Waste Oil Boiler install
« on: December 20, 2017, 03:32:55 pm »
Ok, so I just checked my nozzle inventory...

The nozzle that was installed when I got the burner was a 9-2. I After a few days of frustration, wondering what the heck I was doing wrong, I installed the 9-31 and it's been working almost perfectly since then. I also have a handful of 9-5's which after a little research seems to be the stock nozzle.

So it seems that I'm running a slightly smaller than stock nozzle, which makes sense because my blast chamber is defiantly smaller than the original Clean Burn furnace.

Now that I think about it I'm guessing because the previous owner burned Vegetable oil he needed a smaller nozzle and that's why the 9-2 was in there, does that make sense?

Are nozzles something that wear out pretty often? I'm not sure how old the current nozzle is, but is it something I should have a good spare of?

Also, what is everybody setting their preheater temp to? The Clean burn manual says 150, but it seems to work better at 170.... I've read the over 180 and there is a high risk of carbon buildup in the heater.

Thanks,
Austin

11
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Waste Oil Boiler install
« on: December 20, 2017, 03:06:42 pm »
That Cleanburn 4000 is a big unit, with the factory nozzle it's rated at 280,000 btu and 2.0 gallons per hour fuel consumption. Did you get the pump with it? The manual I saw calls for around 7 psi oil pressure, and 26 psi air, which is way above and beyond what most of us are running in our kit furnaces. I'm not a furnace or boiler expert and I don't even play one on TV, but do you need that much BTU for your setup? Depending on the size of the burn chamber and how much water you're heating, you might be able to drop down in nozzle size, oil psi and air psi and still do what you need to do. One clue might be cycle time, if the unit cycles on and just runs a short time and cycles off, then does it again shortly after, that may indicate that it's oversized for what you're heating. It's more efficient, or at least that's what I understand, for the unit to run longer cycles less often.

Thanks for the info.

It did come with the "Clean Burn" pump...

It came with an assortment of nozzles, and I have no idea which one is factory. Right now I'm running around 5psi oil and 22psi air and that seems to be working pretty well. In the last 24 hours I've burned just shy of 10 gallons and it's about 15 degrees at night and 30 during the day, I was also heating the garage for a few hours. That's a major improvement from before I cleaned the blast chamber, but that's still a lot of oil, I would love to get the down to maybe 5 gallons/ day when I'm not heating the garage at all.

I'm going to go look what nozzle is currently being used and post back...

I currently have it set to kick on at 170 degrees and off at 180, I would say it takes it 10-15 minutes to get back up to temp if nothing is on, and longer if the blower in the house is running or the shop heater is on. The off time depends on how much the heaters are running but at most it's off for about 45 min.

12
Waste Motor Oil / Transfer Pumps?
« on: December 20, 2017, 08:33:35 am »
Lets talk pumps... what is everyone using to transfer their WMO in the cold weather? The pump I have (that came with my used burner) worked ok in the warmer weather, but when it gets below freezing my transfer rate is way less than 1 gpm. It is a "gear mesh" style pump.

I'm thinking an air operated diaphragm pump, like the link below would do the trick. This is about the cheapest one I found, it is rated for 12gpm, but I would be happy for 2 or 3 when it's below freezing.

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200623841_200623841

I think I've got the burner figured out (fingers crossed), this morning makes my first 24 hours without having to go reset it, so it's time to invest some money into transferring the oil.

13
Waste Motor Oil / Re: Waste Oil Boiler install
« on: December 11, 2017, 10:10:38 am »
Austin, nice looking set up. twenty gallons per day seems like a lot of fuel. are you running an expansion tank and is your boiler system a closed loop?

Yes, I agree. That's why I think it still needs a lot of cleaning. There is probably at least an inch of buildup in the blast cabinet of the boiler that's probably acting as an insulator. I got the fire tubes clean, but was in too much of a hurry to get it hooked up and didn't get the rest cleaned... I was also heating the uninsulated garage for most of the day when I was monitoring the fuel burn, but it's at least going through 10 gallons a day with just the house.

I'm running a "gravity fed" or "open" system. Just  like an outdoor wood boiler. I was able to avoid having to plumb a fresh water line out into the detached garage and deal with that freezing. There is a 5 gallon bucket in the rafters of the garage that's my open expansion tank :-). The only disadvantage to this setup is that there will be oxygen in the water, so rust in the boiler will be more of a problem than a closed system.

Austin

14
I just made a new post with some pics of the install, let me know if you have any questions.

Austin

15
Waste Motor Oil / Waste Oil Boiler install
« on: December 11, 2017, 08:01:55 am »
Here are some pics of my setup I just got finished installing. I have a few bugs to work out, but it's working well so far.

I have this setup in my detached garage with 1" pex lines run underground to my house to a "water to air" heat exchanger in my ductwork of my existing forced air furnace. I added a second thermostat in the house, wired directly to the furnace blower only and a strap on aquastat wired in series. So when the thermostat calls for heat, if the boiler isn't up to temp it won't turn the fan on and blow cold air around. I just keep my old thermostat (for the forced air furnace) at a lower temp as a backup.

As you can see I also have a small hydronic shop heater that I put in the garage, I have it hooked up to a thermostat, but only run it when I'm out there because the garage is uninsulated. I just let the hot water run through the loop 24/7 to keep it from freezing (the fan is controlled by the thermostat).

I found the Triad Boiler, and Clean Burn "CB4000" on craigslist. I was going to convert a normal boiler with the CK Burner kit, but luckily found this and saved a bunch of time. I have some bugs to work out on the burner itself, but it's working pretty well considering I haven't put any money into it yet.

I also have to figure out how to clean the boiler better, the previous owner hadn't cleaned it in a while and the fire tubes were almost clogged with soot buildup. I've got them all clear, but the bottom blast chamber still needs a lot of cleaning and the burner is running a lot more that it should be, when the blower is on in the house it can't quite keep up and looses ground on temperature. The burner is probably running 75% of the time, and at that rate I think I'm burning through about 20 gallons/ day to heat a 1200sf house.

As you can see, I have two tote tanks setup. One is for settling, and the other is the tank that it draws from. I have a cleanable screen filter, and a hydraulic filter that it runs through before going into the draw tank, plus the actual filter on the burner pump.

Austin


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