Before you buy an oil burner one of the first things you should ask yourself is “How am I going to get the Supply of Oil I need to run my oil boiler.”
This is the number one problem I see when people buy one of these machines. It should be the first question you ask yourself. Before you start thinking about the price of your oil burner, before you think about maintenance and upkeep, before you think about where you are going to put it, and before you start to think about how much you are going to save over the course of several years, you need to really think about how you are going to power it.
Otherwise you will spend over $10,000 and very quickly be switching back to natural gas. And you will feel like a fool.
I have an oil burner. I also have a mobile oil change business. I generate tons of oil. So this problem was never going to be a problem for me. I do a couple oil changes on one of my big diesel fleets, and keep in mind that some of these semis hold 42 quarts of oil, and I get 50-60 gallons of oil. I can do 30 rentals cars in the summer and get 2 full totes. So I never was going to have this problem. On the contrary before I got my boiler one of my biggest concerns was getting rid of all the oil. Now its an asset.
I have received calls over the last several years from businesses wanting to know if I had any spare oil I could give them. See, a lot of these places do oil changes. Buts its not their primary business. A mechanic shop does oil changes but its a side note. So they are not going to get enough. A muffler shop called me practically begging for any used waste oil I could spare. They wanted to trade me something. They do oil changes every once and a while but when you have to heat up a 4 car bay shop and an office you have to be bringing in a lot of oil. I mean a lot. You are going to burn at minimum 20 gallons a day sometimes especially in the winter.
Oil boilers have become popular in the last several years. Now everyone especially businesses want an oil burner. But they never thought about supply. Several companies I know are getting rid of theirs because they just do not have the supply. Its going to be impossible to keep up with 20 plus gallons a day. And that’s if your oil boiler runs efficient.
There is a guy who owns a Shell gas station not too far from me who heats his station and car wash with an oil burner. He called me for some oil. I wanted to trade oil for free car washes. He said no. I had brought him several hundred gallons before and this guy acted he was doing me a favor. I stopped and will never do it again.
I thought I was not going to have enough oil for the winter so I secured a deal from Johnson Tire who produce tons of oil and get at least 200 gallons from them every month. Another shop that fixes airplanes calls me every other month with 200 gallons.
Whats my point. I am not bragging. I’m not saying “I’m so smart look at me I can get oil”. I went through that long elaborate story to tell you that getting oil can be a job even for me so please make sure you are going to be generating at least 10 gallons a day if you want to heat your oil burner. In the summer you will be able to bank oil.
Tags: oil boiler, Oil Burner
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[...] being honest I have found that the majority of the people who purchase waste oil burners are always in need of oil. Like I have said I own a mobile oil change company so I get more waste oil than I could ever [...]