Is it possible? Combustion chamber size?

[altfuelfurnace]

I have read enough to know that combustion chamber size is critical
with siphon setups. I wonder, could I make a setup for my Miller
Mobile Home furnace in my workshop? I don't even know what kind of
burner to buy for experimenting.

The other thing that has been crossing my mind is to get a boiler for
out there and run WVO in it. There are lines going back into the
house that used to heat the workshop with the home furnace. Maybe I
could make an outdoor furnace like the wood ones that are advertised.

Then again, I'm FORBIDDEN from starting any new projects until I get
the living room and dining room remodeled. Doesn't stop me from
thinking though.

"penst8grad"

[altfuelfurnace]

Hi "penst8grad",
The remote boiler would probably be a better choice since the mobile home
furnaces usually have a small combustion chamber.

Keep your eyes out for a Beckett AFG. You may be able to get one for free from
a heating contractor when they make an upgrade.

Ron Schroeder
WD8CDH

[altfuelfurnace]

I built a gun from the kit sold by craig at ckburners, used it last with an old
woodstove as combustion chamber and had no problems. This year I have it
installed in my miller furnace. I've only used it a handful of times on a few
cool and nights and so far so good. burns cleanly and the furnace functions
normally. no smoke from the chimney and the combustion chamber looks good. I'm
going to keep an eye on the chamber and check frequently for a while. I'm
fairly confident that the miller furnace will work. If I find that the burn
chamber is failing I'm sure something can be constructed from fire brick or
refractory cement to take its place. I would say go for it, it seems to be
working for me, at least so far. I'm using filtered wvo by the way.

synthetictomato

[altfuelfurnace]

synthetictomato,
I found your post very interesting. I'm going to heat my garage with a wood
stove this winter and I'm wondering if you could expand on what components you
used and how you set up a burner for your wood stove? Some pics would be awesome
too. Many thanks.
Richard in Vermont

[altfuelfurnace]

Does the flame hit the back wall of the chamber?
Bob

[altfuelfurnace]

It should just lick the back wall of the wall unless you have a target on the back wall of the chamber you will burn a hole right through the back wall trust me I already did now I went to a buderus boiler and do not have this problem!

[altfuelfurnace]

Joseph,
Would you mind explaining why you went to a Buderus boiler. I am not familiar
with this product and would like to increase my knowledge about these things.
Thank you.
Richard in Vermont

[altfuelfurnace]

I'm a certified Buderus Tech, They are by far THE best boiler out there, A real
3 pass,  they burn so much better than anything out there, I almost feel guilty
about charging a service call to clean one because I don't really have to do
much except replace the nozzle..... NUF said

John Thomas <

[altfuelfurnace]

I also have a Buderus boiler that I burn waste oil in. The combustion
chamber has plenty of room for a waste oil flame to burn, and it does not
have any refractory, but if you burn waste oil the burner has to be right or
you will have some unburnt oil in the bottom of the chamber because there's
no refractory retaining heat to help burn that off. That means the burner
has to be adjusted right and working efficiently. I spent alot of time
redesigning my original burner to obtain an efficient complete burn of the waste
oil.

Andrew.

[altfuelfurnace]

Andrew; I fitted a Beckett modified with a ckburners kit. What I had
to do was install a 10" long x 6" dia piece of ss duct just 1" back
from the Retention head. Before I did this, I had a LOT of smoke just
due to the boiler I had to work with. Today, I fitted a piece of 5"dia
duct, and it works even BETTER. The end of the duct is 12" long on the
bottom and 9" long at the top. So the cut is about 35 degrees off of
perpendicular. The SS will last a Long Time!

dave lindsay

[altfuelfurnace]

Dear Sir,

I noticed that you are a Buderus certified, and I want to ask you what to do
to make to my burner or boiler to burn more efficient and clean. I have the
buderus g215 boiler(the unit) but I had replaced it with a used hansa burner
where I had modified it with delavan siphon nozzle(1G/hour).
I saw unburned wvo on the floor of my boiler, and sludge to the walls.
I preheat the oil to 155C and the air before the burner. Also I work the
preheater block at 155Celsius.
I have also put on a pcb with a microcontroller, that controls everything,
and I can programme it.
Is there anything to do my boiler to make it more clean?Because I will have
very big trouble to clean it.

Thanks

Fnakos

[altfuelfurnace]

What pcb/microcontroller are you using? What parameters are you
programming? I am thinking of doing the same ...

Bryan

[altfuelfurnace]

The combustion chamber of the Buderus boilers are surrounded by water with
no refractory materials so that means the walls of the chamber are pretty
much the temperature of the water. I call it a cold chamber because there's
not enough heat to burn off the stray particles compared to a fire brick or
refractory lined chamber where the refractory gets a very bright orange to
white hot. I like that feature about Buderus because more heat gets
transfered to the water instead of heating up refractory material. I have a
G115-WS5 and it has easy access to clean it. I burn WMO, and if you're
going to burn WVO or WMO, you are going to have to clean it to keep it
running at maximum efficiency. When you burn WVO or WMO the best thing to
do is to achieve the hottest possible flame to burn the oil. They can be a
real pain to get setup because the burner has to be near perfect to get
little oil left over in the combustion chamber and no matter what you do,
there will still be some oil spray that will escape the flame. I don't have
a problem with that in mine, but I spent alot of time studying it to get it
just right and a very efficient oil and air preheater is one of the key
elements here. Any modified burner will burn great in a refractory lined
chamber with no issues, but if you really want to know how efficient your
burner is working, running it in a cold chamber will tell you that real
quick. So, my boiler is smaller than yours but I do burn 1 GPH per hour.
The problem is a little more of an issue with WVO than WMO, but what some
of the waste oil boiler companies are doing to fix the problem, including
the Buderus boiler is to put a stainless steel liner in the combustion
chamber. This will get much hotter than the boiler walls and burn off the
excess spray that gets away from the flame. The liner should be a diameter
that will give you at least a 1" - 1.5" gap between it and the boiler
chamber all the way around, and you should have enough spacers to keep it
centered in the combustion chamber, but it should be around 5 or 6 inches
short at the back end to allow the exhaust gasses to flow back around it to
get through the passages in the boiler.
Andrew.

[altfuelfurnace]

I've seen the Stainless liners, but in the "normal" boiler config, it seems to
cut way back on efficiency. I experimented by placing ceramic floor tile
"strips" in my wet base and they did glow bright white hot. They also turned to
dust. What I'm doing now is firing into a "mantle" (Imagine a Coleman (R)
lantern) made of 1/8 inch thick woven wire, with 1/8 inch square holes. Both
ends are open, and the thing is tube shaped, supported with 4 legs of 1/4' rod
welded on.

After 20 seconds into the firing, the mantle glows bright red, and seems to burn
off all oil droplets that would normally stick to the walls. I seem to get good
heat transfer, and the metal mantle is holding up good. I'm pleased with this
setup so far this year. I get no "goo" left behind to mess with. On a whim, I
stated injecting "make up" air above the main fire to see what happened, but
that is for another post later on. This is getting kinda long winded enough.

Lagbear

[altfuelfurnace]

I do somthing very similar. I have a chamber in a chamber- literally. I took a
cylandrical chamber liner and turned it on its side. Its a few inches from the
burner and a few inches from the back wall of the firebox. A few minutes into
the burn its glowing red and burning off all the overspreay. Its my second
season with this setup and I have been pleased.