I retired two years ago and spend a lot of time in my Reloading/Repair shop. It is my above ground Man-Cave. I live on a mountain in New Mexico and it gets cold here. Minus 15 degrees F is not too uncommon.
I have a propane furnace in my shop but fuel prices are going nuts out here. I needed to find a cheaper alternative to heat my shop which is only occupied during the day for a few hours normally.
Many decades ago the “Mother Earth News" a 60/70's publication would have great articles on how to do just about anything to make life easier and on the cheap.
I remember a Waste Oil burner that had no moving parts to speak of that would produce a lot of heat for a little fuel.
The concept is so simple you'd think it would not work but it does. You slowly drip waste oil (it does not matter what it is) onto a very hot surface in which the fuel flashes into vapors which ignite instantly and burn at a very high temperature. No smoke and almost no odor what so ever.
Jump to 2016. Why not build a Stove containing a burner and capture most of the heat produced and then move the hot air around using a small fan? To increase the thermal output and temperature of the burn, add a forced air stream.
So I did a list of materials of what was needed. I pondered the stove design for a day or so and worked out in my head what I wanted. It had to have a good mass for heat retention and still be able to be moved if need be. It had to be 100% reliable and as safe as possible. I wanted as few moving parts ( KISS) so it will always work and anyone can run it. It had to be HOT!
After all it is the whole idea. A nice warm shop in the dead of winter.
The stove is a 24” I.D and is ½” thick. It stands about four feet tall. It is made from high pressure oil pipe line (how ironic) and the floor of the stove is ½” high carbon steel plate. It will never burn/rust out in anyone’s life time.
The top of the stove is a step down for the larger pipe left over from an old Cracking Plant. The chimney is off the shelf. A thimble is used to protect the roof as it exits outside.
The burner is a design I thought of but cannot take the credit for as I know someone else has had to think of it before. I like simple.
I’m using free parts from an automotive brake shop. The “firebox” is a dodge pickup truck rear brake Drum. The top of the firebox is a brake rotor from the same truck. The two slip together as if made to do so! I cut the center out of the disk and welded on a heavy piece of steel pipe that I perforated to increase air flow. The drum is welded shut to contain any oil. A hole is drilled through the brake disk to allow oil to drip into the burner. You do not need to do this. You can drip the oil right down the chimney into the burner. I wanted a safer and longer lasting oil feed.
I then drilled a hole at the bottom of the chimney to allow the air fitting. The air is spun in the chimney as if it was a “Flamenado” This is where all the magic happens. The heat produced is amazing.
Waste oil is fed by gravity via a 5 gallon steel pail and a steel line via a petcock valve. The valve controls the drip rate. This is the only moving part in the fuel delivery. It is fool proof and easy to clean.
The pail is far enough away from the hot stove wall as to not be a fire hazard but close enough to warm the oil for a free flow.
The only real complicated part is the air compressor. And that is pretty much bullet proof. It is a surplus twin piston Air Brush compressor. It does not provide a high pressure, but it is constant. You don’t need much air. The pump is about the size of a kid’s lunch box. The running of the compressor is the same as a 75 Watt bulb. Not much in cost.
A rubber hose goes to the stove from the compressor and then to a copper air line to the burner. I used a salvaged gas orifice from an old stove to restrict the flow and speed it up to a jet of air.
You don’t need the forced air for this burner to work but it really increases heat output for a given fuel amount.
Inside of the stove, above the burner, I have stacked several steel plates and old brake rotors each with an air gap. Think of a pagoda as they absorb and deflect heat to the walls of the stove. This works very well and reduces heat loss.
To light the stove requires an ignition source. I use Diesel. Gasoline is far too dangerous to use.
I pour into the burner about a ¼ cup of Diesel and drop a match into it. The diesel fuel heats the burner walls to about 600 degrees F in a matter of seconds. A flu draught is created and it gets hotter as the seconds pass. I then open the petcock on the waste oil to a small stream of oil.
The oil is fed by a stainless steel tube.
The burning diesel starts to vaporize the waste oil and it burns. I then turn on the air compressor. Instantly the vapors ignite and the flame temperature starts to climb. Within minutes the burner is running at over 1,000 degrees F and has a nice whooshing sound to it. At this point the burner is self sustaining. It will run as long as there is fuel.
Fuel is not reduced to control stove temp. I like a drop of oil a second.
There is neither smoke nor odor inside the shop. Outside there is a slight odor of something burning, but it does not smell like oil more like hot steel. No smoke to be seen.
Within 20 minutes the 500 pound stove is producing hundreds degrees of heat which is controlled by oil flow. A drop a second of oil will keep the stove at 350 degrees all day long. At 150 degrees F a thermal switch kicks on (magnet and sensor on side of stove) and starts a small fan to blow the heat at the ceiling downward.
The stove burns 5 gallons of oil in ten hours. The shop is at 70 degrees F. And it cost less than 50 cents in electricity to do it. The oil is FREE!
I have not found oil that will not burn.
No PCB’s in my waste oil . My suppliers have it tested if it is transformer oil from before the 70’s.
Oil is so abundant I have to turn down suppliers.
Cleaning out the burner is fast and simple. The burner opens instantly and what is left would not fill a coffee cup after burning 55 gallons of oil.
The stove stores heat for many hours after shut down.
Since I built the stove last year I have moved the compressor outside of the shop to its own weather-proof container to reduce noise in my shop ( I listen to a lot of music/news as I putt around)
I’ve added insulated corrugated steel to the walls closest to the stove of my shop just in case of a run-away stove temperature. The stove has never gotten hotter on the outside than 550 Degrees F on a wide open burn. Better to be safe.
There are several designs on the web to use. They all work well but I would be worried about fire as many of them operate at very high temps that would burn you or start a fire almost instantly if touched. Not good.
The cost of the stove pipe and roof thimble cost more than the stove to build!
I doubt I have the cost of a good Mosin Nagant ’91 rifle in my build.
My stove is safe, clean and I’m doing my “Green” PC stiff burning oils that will never be illegally dumped into the ground or our waters. The oils are not in danger of being in a truck wreck as they are transported across the country to be refined again or incinerated.
Did you know many of the incinerators do not capture the heat nor do they use the produced heat in anyway? What a “waste” of waste oil.
You are saving the suppliers lots of money not having to pay to get rid of the waste oils.
My design burns very, very hot. You can add more air flow, or spray the oil into the burner to get the burn even hotter if you wanted. Some do.
I kept my design simple and safe as possible. The inside of the firebox can reach over 1,200 Degrees F to provide a very clean burn and many states really like this.
I thought I share my little project. You might want to save some cash as well.
