I want to take this time to remind everyone who owns a waste oil boiler several things. If you already know the following things consider this a refresher course.
Waste oil burners/ boilers cost way too much money not to maintain them to the best of your ability. If you want to get the maximum savings from them while reducing the chances of having them break down or clog up than it would be wise to take notes.
What Type of Fuel Can I Burn?
Any oil with a flash point of 400 degrees or less and up to 90 weight. Used motor oils, brake fluid, gear lubricants, automatic transmission fluid, industrial oils and diesel fuel are acceptable. Do not add gasoline, paint thinner, chlorinated solvents or antifreeze to your tank.
The majority of the people who owner waste oil boilers/ burners are going to burn used motor oil. Its the most readily available substance out of all the possible substances that you can burn. Having said that you can use any other oil with a flash point of 400 degrees or less and up to 90 weight. Besides used motor oil this can include brake fluid, power steering fluid, gear lubricants (including 75W-90 and 80W-90), various industrial oils, any automatic transmission fluids (Mecron or Dextron), and of course diesel fuel.
You can use vegetable oil in your machine as well. If you know someone who owns a restaurant than he/ she more than likely has tons of this stuff. Please take note of two things if you decide to use vegetable oil! You want to make sure the temperature stays above 50 degrees or it will quickly clog up the filters and it must be mixed 50/50 with either used motor oil, transmission fluid, or diesel. If you have a 55 gallon drum of waste oil and a 55 gallon drum of used vegetable oil than you can combine them to make 110 gallons of usable fuel for your oil burner.
Oil Holding Tanks
Its been a common misconception that you cannot burn any synthetic oil. That’s not true. Like vegetable oil you just need to make sure that its combined with the other type of 100% acceptable oil. The main reason for this, which holds true for vegetable oil as well, is that those oils alone do not burn well when they get ignited.
You do not burn gasoline, paint thinners, or any solvents with chlorine in your boiler. You will mess it up. You also want to make certain that little to no antifreeze or water gets into your oil burner as well.
Why is It So Important to Filter the Oil?
Your oil boiler/ burner works by spraying a fine mist of used oil combined with air through a very small nozzle which is then ignited (by an “ignitor” on top of the nozzle). This creates a mass amount of heat which if its an oil furnace the heat just heats up tubes in which air gets blown across it to make it hot. If its a boiler than it the heat flows through tubes in the boiler chamber which heats up water that’s flowing across it.
Whats my point?
My point is that if your fuel going into your oil boiler is not clean it will quickly clog up the nozzle. The nozzle is smaller than you think and can get clogged up fairly easily. You want a fine mist being sprayed from the nozzle and anything more or less will produce less than efficient results. And this is the reason why most people have problems with this machine after only a short period of time. They forget to filter whatever oil they are putting into their oil burner/ boiler/furnace.
Oil Burner Nozzle
How Do I Filter the Oil?
Most people filter the oil going before it goes into their waste oil holding tank with a stainless steel 30-60 micron filter. Most companies say 140 micron is fine but I like to go above and beyond the minimum with my boiler. A 30 micron filter will plug up faster than a 140 micron filter but those filters are cheap compared with a new boiler or down time costs.
If you want to be an overachiever and go way beyond the recommended standards to provide the very best filtering and make it easy on yourself in the long run you need an oil centrifuge. This is the very best item you can get to complement your oil burner besides a Becket fuel economizer. This machine literally spins all the moisture and dirt out of your used motor oil making it close to fresh motor oil as you can get without re-refining it.
How much Fuel do Oil Boilers use?
A lot of the companies that sell these units will give you set figures. I have found that all the figures are generalizations and not reliable. Your usage will have a lot of variables including how much room it has to heat. The time of the month will also have an effect on your oil usage. In the summertime I barely burn 4 gallons a day. In January I burn a little over 20 gallons per day. Its best to have a spreadsheet and track it to find out your individual oil usage so you can plan accordingly.
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.”
