Fianlly running furnace on WVO

[wildbill hickup]

Well it's been awhile since I had anything interesting to say here's a little tidbit that I've been working on for those who want to take a bite out of your heating fuel bill. Based on the prices I've seen this year and what they are promising us in the future it's pretty hard to argue the cost effectiveness of this little venture. I'll even try and save you more money by letting you know the mistakes I made.

Well let's see several barrels, different platforms, lengths of hose, resistors, wire, a heaping handfull of various nozzles, 3 Beckett burners, 2 pumps, an old  electric hot plate, valves, filters, well my list was kind of long I'll eliminate a bunch of it for you. Here we go.

What I wound up with is a mixing and small storage system (that will be increased some day) that I have a 50/50 blend of waste veggie oil/home heating oil in. This feeds a modified Beckett burner, that fires my forced hot air furnace. The system still needs a little tuning to make sure it fires all the time, every time, but after more than a year and collectivly many smoke-filled moments, it works, most of the time. I will be posting the details and some reports on progress in my diary. Right now I just had to tell someone of my landmark development ;~). Future goals are two fold I hope to further modify a burner to handle 100% WVO. I also want to perfect this one so I know I can leave for a few day without worry. Hopefully in addition to that increase (possibly to 75%wvo) mixture. These mods are not that difficult and most can be done with common hand tools. I haven't figured out the total cost yet(I will) but it's well justified to be able to pay about $1.50 a gallon or lees than $3.25 a gallon or more to heat ones home.

Well gotta go, speaking of adjustment it just tried to fire and didn't, time for a little fine tuning.

Wildbill

   

[electronbaby]

I have a couple close friends that have been doing this for years. The secret is in the heating of the WVO prior to the nozzle. He custom machines the heat cavities and couplings also. I think hes had good luck with DC cartrige heaters and keeping the thermal mass of the heater and nozzle attachment to a minimum. This way he keeps a more constant temp and the nozzle takes much less time to come up to the optimal operating temp. Im sure he has indoor tanks also. This helps to keep the WVO slightly warm. I think hes using crap oil too LOL (lots of fat content). The stuff Ive been getting for the past couple years is much better. Soy canola blend. After settling, and filtered to 5 micron, it looks new when its done. This is what ive been running my vehicles on (also runs in the listeroid well, but thats not saying much).

[TAH]

It is easier to get a diesel run well on the stuff than a burner. I have been heating with one for a while. I get about 80000 BTU and 5KWH of electricity from a gallon. If I needed more electricity or had the gris to push some into I could run a bigger one and get all my heat from it. I vent the engine through the wall of my shed with a PVC pipe and the exhaust is cooler than my high efficiency LP water heater.

[TAH]

typo, that is grid to push power to..

[electronbaby]

yes, i dont do it but friends of mine have been for years with very good success.

[mikeyny]

 This yr I am running about 30 percent in my burner. I turned up the pressure a bit till it burned better. I experimented last yr with 50/50 and found that to be right on the edge of working or not. Too unreliable for me. With a nozzle heater and warmer fuel it would probably work better. You could buy a waste oil burner for your boiler but most of them are not designed for your average combustion chamber.

                                         Mike

[wildbill hickup]

Roy, next time you see your friend could you ask what temp they heat their feedpipe and nozzle to. There seems to be quite a lot of contraversy in this area. Most standard nozzle heaters work at a constant 140º+-. Many say this is not hot enough thet it should be 200º+. Guess I would just like another point of view, one more can't hurt.

Thanks Wildbill

Still tunin!!!!!