has anyone tried this yet

[mikey ny]

I am still looking for and alternative renewable fuel to back up my wood boiler. My hs tarm boiler has an oil burner at one end that i don' use. I would like to run some filtered wvo through it. I was just wondering if anyone else has tried this. I have read about people using it in diesl engies so I think it might work in an old oil burner. One problem I have is my boiler is in my detached garage so the wvo would probably be too thick in cold weather. I could run the wvo through the domestic coil that I don't use to preheat it. I plan to experiment with it when I am done tweaking my hot water solar panels.    Any info would be helpfull.

[geoffd]

This site describes how to use Used Veggie Oil in a burner for DIY Metal Casting, I am sure something could be done with this method for heating a house.

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/oilburners03.html

Cheers

Geoff

[whatsnext]

Veggie oil burns great. You might want to consider a wick instead a forced air burner.

[mikey ny]

I have heard the wick method is a bit smokey and stinky. Since I live in a city I would rather not go the wick method athough it would probably work ok.

[whatsnext]

You've heard wrong but, I guess, you could make it smokey of you wanted to.

John.....

[ghurd]

Has anyone tried WVO in a water heater?

They change some NG heaters to kerosene around here.

G-

[BoneHead]

Do you have any animals? I mean like pigs, chickens or cows? The reason I ask is that I am building a methane digestor which takes advantage of animal waste. This is tried and true and many large dairies use the method for re-couping their losses from feed and electricity costs.

This guy ran his car from methane gathered from chicken crap and it was confirmed by bigwigs in his country:

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_bate.html

I have about 70 chickens. I am trying to afford enough fencing to be able to rotate them from yard to yard but it's more money than I have. I want to do this to control the smell but recently decided to purposly contain the dung and use it in this way.

I was going to post my progress on this site but can't exactly find the place where it should go. I don't know how many folks on the forum would even be interested or if any have animals. Any kind of dung will work.

From the stuff I've read, 300 lbs of chicken dung can produce 4.5 gallons of liquid methane which is equal to 50 gallons of gasoline. Gas conversions are easy enough and can be used to power any gasoline powered engine. It's cleaner as far as emitions go and there is no carbon build up reducing wear on the engine.

To start something like that would take a digestor (any tank or airtight drum that can be heated to 90 degrees with a small flame), a pressure tank that will hold at least 50psi and a tank compressor. A small tank compressor like one used to fill scuba tanks will work well and can be found used. The tank to store the gas should be at least able to hold 1100psi because that's the pressure that methane becomes liquid which will allow more storage in a tank.

If you care to wade through all the bullcrap (haha... lil' joke), there is a lot of info available on this. A google search should turn up some good stuff.

[mikey ny]

I have thought many time about building a wood gasifier or methane digester like you have described but the storage of the gas is a big deterent. Who can produce 1100psi at home to liquify the stuff. I also read that if you could get the gas to minus 265 f it becomes a liquid. Can't do that either. I think the whole concept is fantastic and it works, free gas, but only if you are using it as you produce it. I have a few more thoughts on storage using propane tanks, vacume and a compresor. If you google the site for wood gas stuff you will find it, I think.

[BoneHead]

I know where you're coming from. The 1100psi thing is a problem for me as well. The smallest compressor I have been able to find that will do it is 55hp. It would be easy to build an adaptor for PTO power but my tractor is only 17hp, so I guess thats out for now. If I did have the power for it, there's also a lot of heat from gas compression that can be used... If I knew how.

The big dairy and egg producers have the money for that stuff, I don't...lol. My dad (64 years old) has told me how the farmers in this area used to store their methane in innertubes and harvested it from wooden seller type buildings used as digesters. No advanced materials or methods, just poop, wood and rubber hose.

The propane tank thing is where I'm at too and that's what I'll do until I really decide if I'm going to stick with it. I live a little closer to "the grid" than some folks do, so I still have a little choice in the matter... Then again, "A wise man prepares for disaster"... I'm not a doom and gloomer but when the power goes off here in the winter, no one seems to get in a real hurry to turn it back on.

Besides, I have the chickens and in the spring we sell chicks. I make about $400 a week on that for 4 or 5 months (give or take $100) so the poop is gonna be there whether I use it or not. May as well use it.

[TimV]

I sure wish more folks would comment on what you asked....Veg oil in a furnace would be great in upstate ny  I would try it in a second. In fact I was thinking of trying to mix some with fuel oil . I think I may just start by trying some new salad oil and see if I can get my garage furnace to fire with it....I think you might need constant ignition to keep it going and maybe a larger nozzel My nozzel is 1.25

Sure hope you get some more comments on this ...At 265.9 for fuel oil yesterday at the cheapest company in my area its going to a cold winter.

And i bet used veg oil is getting scarce

[BoneHead]

Yeah... I'm sorry. It's my fault. I got off on a tangent.

Vegetable oil is perfectly doable but it can get pretty expensive (as far as VO goes)at 1/3 gal per hour. I'm not sure how the HS tarm boiler is set up but here are plans for a homebrew oil burner that was designed to run on used motor oil. It's supposed to burn clean although I'm unsure how to get a clean burn from motor oil...lol. Here are the designs:

You can compare it to what you have or you can fabricate it yourself and use it along side. The specifics on it are here:

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me4.html

If it will run on used motor oil, it most definitly run on vegetable oil, although I would think that the dirtier, the better.

To the OP: Mikey, your a whiz man, I've seen some of your posts. I bet you could compare these plans to your burner and figure out what needs to be done if anything. Let us know how it works out.

[mikey ny]

great info, I had previously seen the older version of  that heater. The new version looks like a big improvement. I was a little weary of the old design because my system is left burning unattended quite often. Even though it is in the garage it still a bit risky. The new design may be worth altering to fit into the combustion chamber where the oil burner goes. One big problem with trying to run wvo through an oil burner gun is the viscosity, especially in the winter. I have 150 gal. of wvo to experiment with, I thought about mixing 50 50 with some kero but that cost money. I will keep you posted when and if i get the time to experiment.

                                             Mike

[BoneHead]

I was thinking about that too. The thought that I was entertaining was a way to get to the portion of the tubing that's used to preheat. The part in the exhaust flume. If you could install a valve there as well as one further up and have a way to access it, you could ensure that the tubing was precharged with WVO or whatever you were using. At least there would be something there to preheat when you fire it up.

With only one valve up closer to the reservoir, the cold oil would have to flow all the way down to the preheater. The valve in the preheater itself may help that.

Another idea would be to take a 1-1/2 threaded pipe, cap it on both ends, pop holes in the caps and rig it in the line itself somewhere close to the flume. That could serve as a preheat chamber. With the volume of the 1-1/2 pipe, surely that could create enough suction to pull the cold stuff through the line... Of course, then you would REALLY need the second valve...lol, but it could be right at the end of the preheater pipe and not inside the flume itself.

Just some ideas. I hope it helps.

[glort]

I have built an oil burner which uses forced air. I tried many draught type designs but I found them to be unsuitable for the purposes I had in mind and hard to actually put the heat to work. The Burner I have  utilises a VW demister Blower and the fuel pump from a Subaru. I have added a speed controll switch which regulates the blower speed which is manily used for start up but could be used where less than full heat output is required. I have also added a needle valve to control oil flow. The burner can be throttled over a pretty wide output.

It does take an amount of preheating but once running it self sustains perfectly. The design is basically a tube in tube design with and tangental air intake. I designed this roughly off the design of early Gas turbine engine burners. At full output with the setup I have it has an output of roughly 500,000 Btu/ Hr or 50 HP. Run flat out it uses a little over 7.5L of oil an hour when it is set to burn a very clean flame. It may use a little more when run slightly rich which seems to produce more heat. With a stronger blower and a higher output fuel pump this could be increased without touching the burner dinentions itself. Improvements could also be incorporated inot the cuttent burner to increase its output from the same blower and fuel pump.

The current design is very good for applications such as a furnace but I believe the addition of a secondary air supply could lower the output temprature to make it more suitable for lighter heat exchangers such as utilising a car radiator etc.

The burner seems happy with any type of oil including used engine ( I know, I know, was just a test :0)  ) and transmission oil. Of course my prefered fuel is WVO. Because the  burner has no small venturis I just filter the oil through a t-shirt and don't have any problems with blockages. There is no buildup of any residues I can see inside the burner which I think is because it glows dull to bright red while it is operating and any buildup is burnt and blown out. While the burner works well, I think the next thing to making it as practical as possible would be to design some controls and failsafes which would allow it to be left unattended for long periods of time and still work efficently and safely.

My idea is to utilise this burner to heat my pool so now I have to work out how to build an economical and reasonably efficent heat exchanger. I havent done the maths yet but I may build another improved burner and run the 2 together in order to get the time/ temprature rise I want. I have also built some smaller burners which I use for heating waste WVO to make it filter easier and boil off any water.

If anyone is interested I have posted some pics of it heating up my outdoor Pizza oven.  www.daretobedifferent.com.au/burner

I have taken some pics at different blower and oil flow settings to show the differences in the flames produced.

Hope this is of some interest. :0)