I have a recommendation for anyone who owns a waste oil burner. You need to invest in a programmable thermostat. Purchasing one of these items can really reduce the amount of energy your waste boiler has to produce.
In the essence of 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 need for a lifetime. I heat a huge house and gigantic garage with my oil burner with 100% of the fuel being waste oil that I produce from my business and I still am forced to give a lot of it away because I take in so much. I am really happy for you if you have that luxury too. You have an optimal set up. But for the majority of the oil boiler owners you need to find ways to cut your energy needs where you can so that the supply of waste oil you can receive will be enough to heat your home, garage, or shop all year round. I have already mentioned purchasing an economizer to reduce consumption and a programmable thermostat is another great way to achieve energy savings.
They range anywhere from $30 for the basic model to $110 for the premium top of the line programmable thermostat.
Your savings in energy will result from the setback. It is the reduction in temperature from the typical occupied setting. Studies by the US Department of Energy have shown that the energy required to raise a home or garage/shop’s temperature to its normal level pretty much equals the energy saved as the temperature falls to the lower setting.
For each degree of setback over an eight-hour period you will approximately be able to reduce your energy consumption by 1%, and the longer you have your setback on the more energy savings you will have.
If it is your house you can program the setback to start when you leave your house and have your oil burner start back at five o’clock when people are getting home. If you have your oil burner heating a shop than you can have the setback start when you close.
You want to check and make sure that your thermostat will work and be compatible with your current HVAC system. It may not always work depending how it was installed. This is especially true if you have heat pumps or radiant floors. They are just much too slow to lose and gain heat. You would have to time it totally different. You also want to check the Energy Star rating which tells you that it is capable of four daily temperature settings and is already programed for efficient operation.
If you have a waste oil burner you really need to be thinking about this. If you are able to install this complemented by your fuel economizer than you might be able to realize a substantially energy savings. Waste oil will not come easy to everyone so you have to adapt and learn to think outside the box. I love tinkering with things and trying new items out so I bought one for my oil burner even though I did not even need it. It works great. I am a huge fan of this thermostats.
If you have a waste oil boiler you do have to watch and make sure that the temperature does not go too low because your baseboards could freeze up. The potential is there. I used to let the heat go down at my house to 50 at nighttime but I came to find out that the thermostat in my house would think that the temperature would think that it was 50 degrees but the baseboards would be more like at 30-40 degrees. Just a note of caution. Most people actually have waste oil furnaces so this is not even an issue.
