Oil drip heater question

Just curious as to how many of you had ever set up an oil drip type heater and what secrets you used to make it work. Currently I"ve got a big square stove that is about 3x3x3 built out of 5/16 plate with sch80 tubes running through the top of it with a blower manifold in the rear feeding them. It heats great with wood but that also means having to constantly feed it to keep the heat up. Over the years I"ve tried a couple of ideas with it trying to get it to work on the "drip oil" principle without any real luck. So far I"ve tried letting it drip in a bed of sand, to letting it drip onto the bare brick, to letting the drip go onto a "puddle" of water along with a water drip to make up for the flash off. I"ve heard all these things from one source or another as being workable ways to set one of these set up and that all worked pretty good. For me each worked somewhat but unfortunately I haven"t had any real luck with any of them working like I"ve heard they do. Problem is I"ve just heard about the setups but never actually seen one so I don"t know whether it was the actual setup type or just an improper execution of said setup. Any tips, pointers, etc would be greatly appreciated as I have alot of oil to utilize for this purpose and insufficient funds at the moment to either build or buy an actual waste oil heater. Thanks. Wayne

I don't know much about them, but thought the oil needed to either drip on hot wood so you need to keep adding wood, or set up to drip on a hot cast iron skillet? Gotta get the skillet hot hot to begin with?

--->Paul

here is a link to mother earths website, they have plans for a couple different home made waste oil heaters. pretty interesting.
poke here

I just talked to someone about a commercial built drip unit..he stated it burns super clean and never smokes..the key is to get the burner pot warm..his start procedure is to use a cup of diesel in the burner..personally I would think it would take a bit to get it hot but it should burn clean when it is hot. The Mother Earth plans look good. 1 quart of oil per hour seems pretty decent to me! Good Luck and make sure you post back with pics and info!!

The ones that I have seen dripped on a plate set at an angle with about three sixteenth inche holes that caused a splatter.

Thanks for the link and the tips. The Mother Earth designs look really simple to make and, given a little more technology in their engineering, could be made to heat alot more than just my shop.

Had a home-built stove much like you've described (made out of 'diamond' plate) way back when.......there were several of us and we worked in the shop most days after feeding. We had a 4 foot wide storage shelf up near the roof that ran alongside one wall of the shop; had a 30 gallon barrel on it.......above the stove with a valve to regulate the oil flow and a salvaged squirrel cage fan to move the air. Kept the used oil in a 500 gallon tank out back; we did as Paul suggested........started a wood fire and never let the stove run completely out of wood; the oil just dripped onto the burning wood. When I retired, gave the stove to a fellow who once worked for my dad; he's since died and I'm sure the stove went for scrap iron..........

I have a friend who burns waste oil in his converted wood stove. It's a drip situation - makes a lot of heat, but it's spooky. He burns 1 load of wood per winter, supplemented with the oil drip. It does a good job of heating his shop, but he won't leave it unattended - even shuts off the drip when he steps outside to take a leak.

I don't think I'd want to fool with the uncertainty of it.

Paul

I drip oil on wood and works good. Just don't go off and leave it. Oil gets warm and run's faster and the hotter it gets. But works good starting wood fire and used as a supplement to the wood. I know it will run me out of the shop if I let it get going too much. Just watch it! Can be a danger if not looked after.

In the 1920's, my grandfather had a setup that used waste oil to help heat his shop. He had several barrels in the attic, where they stored oil that they saved when they changed oil through the year. In the stove, they burned wood and lignite coal (this was in Eastern Montana). When the stove was hot, they would turn on the valve that allowed a little bit of oil to be piped into the stove, where it ran down a chain. The oil was vaporized on the chain and burned quite well.

My Dad said it would heat the shop so well that you sometimes had to open the door to cool it down. I don't know how bad it might have smoked, and I can't ask my Dad or grandfather--they have both been gone for years.

I suppose it was pretty important to turn off the oil valve when the stove was not being monitored. If the fire went out and the valve was on, the oil would continue to gravity feed until that barrel was empty. That might have made an awful mess!