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Topics - acarter

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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.

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

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.

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

Waste Motor Oil / New to the forum/ thinking about burning waste motor oil...

« on: November 08, 2017, 07:28:25 am »

Hi,

My wife and I just recently moved to Maine from Pennsylvania and just bought our first house a few months ago. I'm always looking for ways to save money somehow I came across the idea of burning WMO. I've been doing my best to find answers to my questions online, but I'm hoping this forum will help answer a few more and give me some input from others with experience.

So, everything I read about heating from WMO is for garages/ shops, and it only seems that the people who are burning it to heat their home are doing so with home-made units. So if it is really as clean as these companies claim, why can't it be used to heat your home? I read on one site that the EPA says you can't use WMO to heat your home, but then a few others said it depends on your state. I don't mind being in the "grey area", but don't want to cause legal problems if somebody finds out what we are doing.

Our home has a 2 year old forced air oil furnace with a Beckett burner. I realize there are several companies that make kits to convert the burners to run off of WMO, but I'm more interested in ready to go bolt on replacement that would let me use my current furnace. I'm looking for something I can buy, install, and not have to mess with (except maintenance and cleaning of course). Does that exist? This company http://www.wasteoilheat.com/waste-oil-burners.shtml seems to be about the only one that I found, but they don't have any contact info and their site leads me to think they aren't legit. I'm away from home for work quite often and I don't want something that is going to quit when I'm gone, I don't mind performing maintenance on a regular basis, but I need to be reliable.

Also, if I was able to find a system that enabled me to use my current furnace, would I be able to use my same tank? I'm read that it will eventually fill up with sludge, is this a real problem? I would love to be able to separate any water, filter it really well, and dump it right in my existing oil tank (which is in the basement).

Thanks in advance,
Austin