Waste Oil Heater Forum - Your definitive source for burning waste oil for heat.

Thanks Russ,
Well, many heaters & a few heaters build especially for boilers, have been built and sold since my last post.
It's a busy time of the year building these drip fed waste oil heaters for New Zealander up and down the country. They like that free heating and free hotwater.

We have a problem in the waste oil heating industry, mainly the drip fed heaters and that can be very dangerous if not checked, I've had the odd times happen to me, where oil has builds up in the burning pot and it all wants to burn at once, we call it "the Chernobyl effect" where the temp can rises to 1000 F, and the thick black billows out the flue.
This smoke can be stopped by blocking the holes off in the rotor and becomes clear very quickly, but it takes a little while for the fire to die down to 600 F. The gas bottle will glows red and so can the flue.
So what we are thinking is, we will now put an overflow copper tube in the burning pot to stop this from every happening especially to people that install these heaters in their homes.
I will be looking into it today and will be posting it on our website: www.dripfedwasteoilheating.com hopefully later today.

So what will now happen, is should the fire ever drop down in temperature in anyway, and the oil feed continue to flow at the same rate, the oil beings to build up inside the burning pot, so now it will flow out of the pot into a catchment vessel ideally around 20 litres. This container will need to beable to hold hot waste oil, like cut down gas bottle.

These fires tend's to operate without any problems at all infact a bit like a gas heater.
I will light mine at four in the afternoon and have the house warm by the time the family arrive home at 5pm, and turn it off at 10.30pm and I really don't check it. I do have temperature gauge attached to the radiator so I know what the fire is doing via that gauge, and if that gauge ever drops or rises too much I will go downstairs and check the burner, often it's nothing. Anyway check out the website for the new addition.
If you have any other ideas we should be looking at please post.
I hope this Chernobyl meltdown never happens to anyone, check how much oil is in the pot.
Never use a frypan this oil can overflow when burning long hours, the ash builds up and the oil may overflow, as it has nowhere to go.
Cheers hamish 

 

Thanks Russ I hope you can get some use out of that website.
Just finished another one today, that will be off to the customer in the morning.
Also gave the orchard heater some legs and a quick paint job and a nice new flue and cowling.
All good stuff.