Archive for July, 2009

Oil Boilers Create Self Sufficiency

Friday, July 17th, 2009
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My Gas Bill February 2009

My Heating Bill For February 2009

As you can see from my natural gas bill statement for February 2009, the coldest month in Anchorage, I paid just $10 to heat my home and business (which is just as big as my home and attached to it) with the help of my waste oil boiler.

I love the feeling of self sufficiency!  In our society we are so dependent upon large companies to supply our basic needs.  And they are fully aware of this.  Its for this exact reason they are able to jack up their prices whenever they feel like it, give us an explanation that makes no sense at all, and fully expect us to accept it and send them a check.  If you look closely at my heating bill you can see that they raised everyone’s cost by 22% the previous month.  Various people did the numbers and their costs did not go up by 22%.  We are working through a recession, people have lost their jobs, and their solution to helping out families is raising their prices by 22%.  Gotta love it!

Front View of My Oil Burner


As long as you have a decent supply of used motor oil you can heat your entire house, business, or garage for next to nothing.  The most you will have to pay is a couple bucks plus some change in taxes for the hook up fee.  This is to ensure that if something were to malfunction and your waste oil burner were to go down for several days you would have the ability switch back over to natural gas.  But $8-$10 is nothing compared to the $250-$300 (very conservative number considering the area I have to heat) I would have to pay if I did not have a waste oil boiler.  I saved over $2000 just this last winter.  I have had my machine since 2007.  That translates into $6,000 saved just calculating what I would have spent in heat for the last three winters.  That figure does not include the rest of the year.  Has my investment paid off for me?  I’ll let you decide.

I am showing these numbers to impress upon the people reading this that the savings waste oil burners produce is amazing.  I am surprised that more people do not have them.  You are guaranteed to get back whatever you spend of them in 1-2 years.  As long as you clean your boiler out when you are supposed to and make a concerted effort to filter your used motor or vegetable oil I can  promise you that your device will be problem free (as long as it was not made on a Monday).

There are several companies that manufacture these machines for you to chose from.  The model you will need will depend on how much you want to spend and how much area you need to heat.  The basic concept is the same for all of them.  Do yourself and your “pockets” a favor by checking them out.  If you live on the East Coast or close by  there is a company called Alternative Heating Systems, based in PA,  that not only has some more information about oil burners but have several used and refurbished used boilers in a lot of models you can take a look at.

The idea of turning a material that is considered waste into something valuable should be a really fascinating concept for a lot of people.  There are millions of gallons of waste oil generated every week and a lot of it is discarded and thrown out.  A lot of it is turned into asphalt but not nearly enough of it is recycled or re-refined the way it should be.  This is what makes the whole concept behind owning an oil burner so appealing to me.  There is all this so called “waste” that’s literally an afterthought to everyone or business who produces it and with this machine you can turn it into an asset.

Oil Burner Annual Cleaning

Monday, July 6th, 2009
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I just bought a 10 year old oil burner from one of the busiest quick lubes in town.  They have had it since they went into business a decade ago and felt like it was time to get a newer more efficient one.  The owner gave me a screaming deal on it which came out to be 95% bellow market rate even for a boiler this old.  I was a Buderus with a Wetzlar motor.

What Are you Going to Need to Clean Your Waste Oil Burner

You are going to need just a few things.  They are the following a) masks b) chimney brushes c) broom d)shop vac (optional but nice if you have it) e) large piece of cardboard f) brake parts cleaner

Items You Will Need

Items You Will Need

Step 1- Cleaning the Oil Boiler Chamber and Door

You are going to need to lay the large piece of cardboard by the entrance of the boiler.   If you do not than ash is going to get all over the place and believe me its extremely hard to clean up.

Waste Oil Burner Before Cleaning

Waste Oil Burner Before Cleaning

We always like to start off with the door.  These oil burner doors usually have an asbestos gasket on them so you want to use a brush with softer thistles like a broom and not the chimney brush which would be way to hard on it.  Please wear a mask while doing this.  Remember that this machine burns waste oil and you have no earthly idea what was actually in it.

You want to brush the door off really well.  Ash is going to be flying all over the place. Inspect the opening of the chamber where the actual burner assembly goes.  Look for buildup and burn marks.  If there is a lot of build up than the boiler has probably not been shutting off like its supposed to.

Oil Burner Door Being Cleaned

Oil Burner Door Being Cleaned

You are then doing to want to clean the actual chamber.  Again, I respect, make certain you have your mask on.  Take the chimney brush and start scrapping away all the ash and debris out.  This is going to take a good 20-30 minutes alone.  You want to brush out as much ash and soot as you possibly can.  A tenth of a millimeter of of extra ash or soot can reduce of efficiency of your oil burner by alot.

Take the shop vac at this period of time and vacuum up all the other loose dust that you missed.

The goal is really to get the chamber as clean as you can.  The boiler chamber is what transfers the heat to the water and if its dirty its not going to do a good job of this.

Cleaning Oil Burner Chamber

Cleaning Oil Burner Chamber

Step 2- Cleaning the Actual Oil Boiler Assembly

Okay so here is the hard part.  Up to this point we have just cleaned the chamber.  Now we are actually going to clean and adjust the device that ignites that oil and produces heat.

So I like to start off with the burner gun.  Its usually coasted with ash.  Clean off with a brush.

Oil Burner

Oil Burner

Continue to the flame retention head.  Brush off what you can.  You are going to have to use a flathead screwdriver to scrap off the excess ash.

Scaping ash from burner gun and flame retention head

Scraping ash from burner gun and flame retention head

Disassemble the whole assembly.  You can start anywhere but you are going to have to wipe off and clean all the major components within the oil burner.  You want to get them as clean as possible.  You may want to start by removing the pre-eheater and shroud off.

Burner Ignitor

Burner Ignitor

When you start to take the shroud off you are going to see the nozzle with the two ignitors right above it.  This is the heart of the boiler.  The way it works is that the waste oil comes out the nozzle mixed with air and is then ignited to produce a mass amount of heat.  You can clean the ignitor and nozzle off with brake part cleaner.  It usually melts the ash and soot away.  Honestly there is most likely going to be a lot of grime that is going to be caked on so you are going to have to use gasoline to melt it away.  You can see from the picture that we were forced to go this route.

Cleaning oil boiler with gas

Cleaning oil boiler with gas

Gas Melts Ash and Dirt Off Waste Oil Boiler

Gas Melts Ash and Dirt Off Waste Oil Boiler

After you do this you can put everything back together.  Your burner is now clean and ready to run.  You fill find that it runs a lot more efficient and better than when its filled with dirt.