Waste oil burner

[oil pan 4]

I've got a carlin 3 to 7gph 150 to 200psi oil burner. It has a 2.75gph 80degree semi solid (aka W) spray pattern which probably puts out more like 4gph at 175psi through that nozzle. Oh and it has a cad cell and 180psi fuel shutoff solenoids.
The price was right at my price point, free ninety nine.
It does not have a burner control, which I would have to buy and wire up which isn't a problem as I've been working on fuel oil burners since I was about 14 years old.

I'll need a burner control and I don't want to run 4gph of fuel or even 3gph but it is what it is. So I'd probably swap in a smaller nozzle to get the fire rate closer to 3gph. Probably a 2.25gph 60degree semi solid.
Maybe add a burner line heater.

I've never tried to run more than a percent of waste motor oil in a fuel oil burner. When I lived in Maine I would put some used oil in with the fuel oil. I'd dump in a few gallons of used oil when the fuel oil guy would fill up our tanks so the oil would get mixed up really good. Most of the time I was well under 1% oil, never more than 2%.
Now I'm looking at burning as much waste oil as possible and as little fuel oil as possible, say 30% to 90% used oil.

For filtration I was going to use a 2 micron water separation filter and set the pump up to circulate the oil as the plan is to run the pump out of fuel.

Has anyone ran a fuel oil burner on waste oil like this?
How much used oil could be ran?

 

[bullwinkle]

Free ninety-nine, I'm so stealing that. I actually considered doing this with filtered WVO from my McDonald's customers, but didn't want to have to install an oil furnace to do it.

 

[oil pan 4]

Free ninety-nine, I'm so stealing that. I actually considered doing this with filtered WVO from my McDonald's customers, but didn't want to have to install an oil furnace to do it.

I could use wvo too. Just wouldn't be very much for me.

 

[Jetronic]

3gph that works out to about 100 kWh of heat I think?

But when you increase viscosity by running oil in stead of fuel the gph will naturally drop.

I don't think I've ever run more than 10% or so.

 

[oil pan 4]

3gph that works out to about 100 kWh of heat I think?

But when you increase viscosity by running oil in stead of fuel the gph will naturally drop.

I don't think I've ever run more than 10% or so.

So 10% definitely work.
Burner nozzles are weird like that. The higher viscosity doesn't slow down the burn rate very much if any. Current burner nozzle tech is based on what was developed around a hundred years ago to deal with fuels at various viscosities and not radically change the burn rate.
The swirl tip design limits the feed rate. Thin fuel swirls around faster and resists being pushed to the nozzle tip, thick fuels swirl slower and gets to the nozzle orifice easier but it's thick so it doesn't t flow through the nozzle as easy as the thin fuel. So you could go from say 3cSt to 20cSt fuel and only have the fire rate change by a few % and it may not necessary slow down with thick fuel it may speed up depending on the nozzle and pressure.

 

[Sumboodie]

You need a heated block by the nozzle as well as air to help.

Ckburners makes kits to convert Beckett burners to burn used oil.

3gph would be a huge furnace, like 350,000+ btu.

 

[Jetronic]

yes mine has a 0.85 gph nozzle. 30 kW. that's never even close to stressed to heat the house.

 

[CDX825]

Need a siphon nozzle setup. Waste oil is too viscous for a regular fuel oil nozzle.

 

[oil pan 4]

You need a heated block by the nozzle as well as air to help.

Ckburners makes kits to convert Beckett burners to burn used oil.

3gph would be a huge furnace, like 350,000+ btu.

Yeah. Not ideal but it's what I got.
I might try closer to a 2gph while at 175psi and see what happens.
I never tired going outside of the OEM recommendations for burner nozzle size.

 

[oil pan 4]

Need a siphon nozzle setup. Waste oil is too viscous for a regular fuel oil nozzle.

All the siphon type nozzles I find appear to be for some property burner setup.
That's why I was going to cut it with fuel oil and heat it up.

 

[Sumboodie]

What are you putting the burner in even?

What are you heating?

The used oil burners I've looked into are usually like .85-1 gph. And even that can melt down a burn chamber if not dialed in well.

 

[oil pan 4]

What are you putting the burner in even?

What are you heating?

The used oil burners I've looked into are usually like .85-1 gph. And even that can melt down a burn chamber if not dialed in well.

I worked on little half to 1gph ones too.
I may just use it as a mobile flame thrower to melt snow, may install it in place of my coal furnace door to burn off waste oil once or twice a year. The coal furnace burn chamber is larger in every way than what this burner came out of and this burner waa set up to run about 4gph in it's original application. The coal furnace has fire brick inside the burn chamber. I was already planning to put smaller nozzle with narrower narrower flame and test fire the burner in open air.

 

[oil pan 4]

The original burner chamber is a cylinder 28 inches deep and 17 inches around.
The coal furnace burn chamber is 21 inches wide and 31 inches deep.

On the 50200 burner control, the one I'm not familiar with. The tb 1 and 2 go to the cad cell, 3 and 4 are the thermostat 5 and 6 are the burner fail alarm. The orange wire provides power to the the motor, solenoids and heater. Black is the power and sits on normally closed switches that set the hard limits. Blue sends power to the ignition transformer. White wire is just neutral.

I found a burner line heater, some almost new electrodes and a 1gph 60 degree A nozzle for $50. I can try it and see what happens.

 

[oil pan 4]

Maybe, just maybe I can test fire this weekend.

 

[oil pan 4]

In the picture some may have noticed there's no fuel pump on that burner. Fixed that today I got a working but leaking Carlin 100psi 7gph to 200psi 3gph fuel pump. Fixed the leak with a $15 rebuild kit. Carlin recommens a 50 micron filter, so of course I got a 2 micron wix 533582 fuel filter to filter used motor oil fuel oil, I had a fuel filter head and that filter was the smallest micron that would fit. I figure used motor oil is going to be way dirtier than clean clear fuel oil so better filter it real good. No need to have the 2 micron fuel filter to test fire it on clean and clear fuel oil. I should be able to test fire it probably this weekend.
I'm just going to crank it up to 200psi and not run the solenoid and see what happens. I've never lit one off in open air before.

 

[A310]

I've often thought of doing the same, but my 1948 Duo Therm has been heating my shop for 8 years now. I originally used wmo, but the neighbors called the city on me about the smell. I switched it over to wvo and now they're hungry all the time. I don't leave the stove overnight, so I have to light it every morning, which is a bit of a pain.

 

[oil pan 4]

Oh yeah this thing is lit.
I'll post pics after dark or as it gets dark.

 

[oil pan 4]

It looks pretty cool. Like someone is getting puffed by the magic dragon.

 

[oil pan 4]

You need a heated block by the nozzle as well as air to help.

Ckburners makes kits to convert Beckett burners to burn used oil.

3gph would be a huge furnace, like 350,000+ btu.

I got a heat block for the nozzle line. Used for cheap. New ones are surprisingly not that cheap.

 

[oil pan 4]

What are you putting the burner in even?

What are you heating?

The used oil burners I've looked into are usually like .85-1 gph. And even that can melt down a burn chamber if not dialed in well.

Carlin is recommending up to a 9 to 10gph fire rate for an unlined burner chamber the size of my coal furnace. The coal furnace is half lined with fire brick.
I'm thinking do 2 gph or less.