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

The exhaust on my Lennox furnace is an oval connector and in order to connect to it I had to bend my round exhaust pipe to an oval shape.  The connection isn't very good and I see there is some leakage around it.  I have the metal tape for sealing up the sections of pipe but the tape wont work very well on the furnace itself.  Does anybody know if there is there some type of high temp caulking that would work in this situation?

Just testing 

Here are some pictures in the early stages.  Still have to replace the fuel line.  This was all I could get when I was in town.  Might deteriorate with contact with oil, I'm not sure.  Thats probably not the permanent mounting place for the filter either, it was just a good place to hang it.  I am building a garage heater that will just be used when I am out there, so I dont need a large holding tank.  5 gallons should keep it going while I am working out there.  My next step will be to get the block made for pre-heating the WMO.  I have been running #1 diesel in it and it warms things up in a hurry. 

Well, I think the pump on my burner might be bad.  I have air, spark, but no fuel.  I removed the line going up to the nozzle and nothing came  out of the pump.  I opened the bleeder and fuel came out of there.  Not a real high pressure stream, but it was shooting out.  I will remove the pump this weekend and see if there is anything obviously wrong.  Is there anything I should look for while I have it apart?

Thanks!

Here is a copy of "TestDriver's" post from over on frybird:  (copied with his permission)

Hello,

I just found this thread by accident and thought I'd share.

I finished building a waste oil heater for my 20x24 shop this past winter. The original plans I used were the MEN design. However, I used a cast iron bell trap drain as the burner. I flipped the bell upside down and spaced it off the drain cap with a 2" section of iron pipe. Of course, the cap no longer pivots on it's hinge. The assembled cap/bell sits on the p-trap part of the drain.

The tank is a former electric water heater (40 gal?) with a 4" downpipe and 7" flue. The reason for the dimensions were strictly based on availability. I cut a door on the side of the tank and used a couple of stainless door hinges to mount it back. The clasps use a couple of more hinges to close the door with some tension. The clasps themselves use off-axis washers as the cams and work quite well and can be adjusted as things wear in.

After fiddling with the burner height, I found the oil splattered off the burn plate too much coating the entire lower section in used motor oil. This stuff never burnt off and eventually leaked past the cancerous seams of the heater tank. I solved this by installing a 3/4" pipe all the way down the middle of the vent onto the burner plate. The pipe has four notches cut onto the bottom where the oil flows onto the burn plate. There must be some cool fluid dynamics going on since the oil is still dropped from the top of the heater, directed down the 3/4" pipe I installed and it never touches the sides of the small pipe. Whatever small air amount that is drafted down the small pipe helps to keep the drops of oil off the pipe and I can hear the oil drops hit the plate bottom.

I put the tank in my shop next to a large vertical bandsaw. The saw had an unused lubricant tank which I adapted to feed the heater. It's about 3/4 of a gallon with a sight glass and a convenient npt fitting. The fitting is hooked up to a needel valve which then runs to the heater with a total drop of about 2 feet. Everything is connected using 1/8" copper tube.

The combination of short drop, small tube and cold temperatures make for a slow feed. I can't build up enough flow to get the heater very hot and it barely makes my shop area comfortable though it's well insulated. This is something I aim to address for this coming winter.

To light it, I pour some kerosene on the trap basin and close the door. The draft is immediate and I start the oil flow as soon as the door is closed. The burn is fairly clean and the resulting deposits fairly easy to clean off.

Another possible upgrade for this winter will be a sort of heat reclamation device for the flue. I'm loosing way too much heat up the exhaust but some of this might be lack of experimentation since I have'nt gotten to run it often.

If my descriptions are lacking, I can further describe or maybe put up some pictures.

Ramon

I had plans of building a Roger Sanders style heater, but have decided to go with a fuel oil furnace style burner instead of the drip system.  Anyone looking to experiment with the drip system might find this burner useful.  If you are interested in the burner, let me know.

From what I have heard:
WMO: 180 - 250
WVO: 275 - 325

What is everyone else preheating to?