New home... VERY VERY SMALL. Just less than 200sq feet. Yep 200 total. Its a tiny log cabin.

I want to add an economical, thermostaticaly controlled waste oil heater preferably WVO. I'm gone for 14+ hours a day M-Th so thermostat would save buko buks.

Would someday rather it's small amount of electrcity needed to opperate it come from off the grid power but maybe that is asking for to much?

I've read in here and other places off and on about the technology for using WVO fuel and continually see that it is moving so fast that what was recommended as a heater or how to convert or make a heater for WVO fuels has evolved alot quickly. Asking this question a year or two ago would get different answers than today will so Im not seeing that a search thru old threads on this topic of "WHAT IS BEST HEATER TO GET" would help. If Im wrong on that please point it out.

I wish someone had figured out how to auto feed logs into a fire box and put thermostats on them then I could just make sawdust/WVO logs. Perfect fitting for a log cabin.

Wish someone had figured out how to make pellets for wood pellet stoves. Wood pellet stoves have thermostates and 12v elements and motors. Then I could make WVO/sawdust pellots.. but so far my search on this is finding no pellet making stuff.

So..... with all that in mind and since I am starting fresh with no heater at all... what do you folk suggest for a log cabin permanent home WVO and/or other waste fuel heater?

Heck... if such an animal exist.... waste fuel heater AND air conditioner would be great. Don't have AC in this little cabin either.

THANX IN ADVANCED!!!

I live in a climate much colder than N.Texas [it's been below zero F for the past month] and I heat my house entirely with a woodstove and a small electric heater for back-up freeze protection. I build a fire in the morning that keeps the house warm till I get home in the evening, sometimes quite late. If it cools to 60°F I toss an oil/sawdust brick on the fire to warm up faster. Why heat the house to a 'comfortable' temperature while you're not there?

quote:

Originally posted by john galt:
Why do you need the house heated to a 'comfortable' temperature while you're not there?

I dont that is my point. Was wanting a thermostate so I could turn it way down while gone. There is only me unfortunately so there is no one to maintain a wood stove while Im gone. My cat is smart... but. with no thumb he is not much help. My dog is too dumb

It gets into the upper 20's to mid 30's here in N.Tx at night and mornings.

With a wood stove do you have to push it up to overly hot in the morning for it to be ready to quickly warm up the house when you get home in the cold of the night? (10-12pm)

Besides with an indoor cat and it does have plumbing I do not want to freeze. Cats have to be indoor around here. Coyote's love them for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

If a log box will do it.. whew... I'ld be loving that so Im fully open to that idea.

quote:

With a wood stove do you have to push it up to overly hot in the morning for it to be ready to quickly warm up the house when you get home in the cold of the night? (10-12pm)

No, 70° to 73° is adequate. I've stacked about 400 lbs of concrete blocks around the stove to reduce overheating and to 'hold' the heat. I've also sealed all the air leaks in the ceiling and around window frames so I'm not heating the great outdoors.

quote:

Originally posted by john galt:
... I've stacked about 400 lbs of concrete blocks around the stove to reduce overheating and to 'hold' the heat...

ok so sounds like your saying you feel safe to leave the fire unattended for 10+ hour stretches?

If Im totaly new install what kind of brick would you recomend to work as fire brick to like you say "hold the heat". Cinder blocks are too big in this tiny home and little too fugly Might could build a fake brick fireplace in the home out of regular bricks? making up the "fire place" and fake ones as the chimney?

I have a controlled combustion airtight woodstove, so I have no safety issues leaving the fire unattended. If the firebox is not airtight with a combustion air control, then the fire will 'run-away' and overheat the room. For thermal mass concrete blocks come in different sizes and stack easily; I'm not concerned about 'fugly'. Eventually they will be mortared together and clad with tile. Any thermal mass will help to reduce overheating and to hold the heat. Water is excellent, but masonry [bricks, blocks, rock, etc] is easier to work with. Because masonry is non-combustible, it can be placed close to the stove to absorb heat effectively. A heavy steel stove with firebrick lining the firebox is better than a lightweight stove.

Well does everyone agree with J Galt? Any nay sayers who say something waste oil fired (WVO) is better? If so what heater would you recomend for that?

I would like to find a dependable WVO heater also. A couple of people I know have WVO heaters, but they are constantly tinkering with them to get them to work. Not bad for them, because they are there during the day when it stops working. As long as you follow the directions for the woodstoves that is the best way to go for now.

Just be sure to get a good woodstove, must be airtight, fire needs air to burn if you can control the air it will smolder all day long without going out. Don't skimp out on the heater though, no place to save money. If it isn't airtight and installed properly you run the risk of overheating and buring the house down while you are sleeping or away.

I've lived with a lot of different woodstoves over the years. Pacific Energy is by far the best I've seen. I've been using one to heat my house for 5 years and I recommend it above all others. [no I don't sell them]
http://www.adamsstove.com/wood/pacific/pacific.htm

Well its time to get this done. Problem I am running into is all the heaters are too damn big for my under 200 sq foot cabin.

Looking for suggestions.

Don't know if you want to build a WVO heater or buy one? This links to a discussion describing the development of my home WVO drip space heater over the last couple years. It does use a small amount of 12 volt DC power to run the pump and safty devices, needs 2-3 amps/hr at 12 volts DC to operate. A normal car battery would operate it continuously for something like 3 days, I have a couple 12 volt 12 amp gell cells that will power it for most of a day during a power outage, power outages happen about once a month here in the winter but haven't lasted for more than a few hours in recent years.

I have been heating my 750 SQ FT house over the last two winters with this home built WVO drip heater, it runs 24 - 7 unattended and I am only usually there to sleep and it needs no attention for 3-4 days, then the carboned up burner bowl need changing to a clean one, takes maybe 5 minutes. The carboned-up burner bowl does not pose a fire hazard but the crud will cause the fire to go out and the optical flameout safty shuts down the fuel pump. The burner is simply a one quart SS dog food bowl, they make smaller ones and Walmart has muffin cups, SS candy dishes, etc. that could be used for a realy tiny stove burner. It has an optical flameout safty and an overtemp safty could easily be added (heater bonnet thermal snap switch like turns the circulation fan on on a furnace or space heater). the heat can be adjusted electronically using a $30.00 12 volt PWM motor speed control to set the fuel metering pump speed from around a half pint/hr ((5,500 btu/hr) up to over a gallon/hr (120,000 btu/hr), probably more, just never needed that much heat, rarely burn more than a quart/hr. The feed pump speed could be linked to a custom electronic thermostat but I have not really seen the need for it, just set the fuel pump speed to a predeturmined speed, the pump speed relates directly to the heat being produced. I haven't gotten around to doing the electronics for the thermostat yet, maybe this winter.

This stove is made from a 100 pound propane tank but I have been considering scaling one down to a 20 pound propane tank size, maybe even a fire extinguisher size. From testing a couple different initial approaches It looks like this concept is scalable both up and down. I need a small heater like you are considering for my old 24 ft motor home.

Small wood pellet making machines are available for around $2500.00, they can make around 200 pounds of pellets/HR. Look over the pelletpros.com website, I think there are a couple other places selling these now also.

If a pellet stove is rated as a corn burner it will burn wood pellets, corn, soybeans, wheat etc, (grain burners need a stirrer in the burner box due to starch making clinkers). Two year old unsalable seed corn can sometimes be bought cheap if you check around a bit, it gets dumped in landfills normally but is now finding a market as heater fuel, even commercial power and heating plants are burning it now so it is not available everywhere.

Might also consider an outdoor wood burning furnace and use a few hundred gallons of water as heat storage, fill the burner with logs every few days and have a thermostat turn on a hot water circulation pump as required.

What temperature is your ground water, I have used a 1000 gallon cistern to store cool water during the summer and circulate it through a car radiator inside the house, same thing should work for heating, especially if you have a well that is deep enough to be in warm water, or a solar heated pond, even plain old solar heated hot water panels might work in TX.

quote:

Originally posted by Tim c cook:
Don't know if you want to build a WVO heater or buy one?

My home is brand new... I dont trust myself to make something I can leave on all day w/out burning my house and the forrest around me down. Im a better thinker than I am a Tinker.

Someone with experience like yourself Tim I would trust could make one for me. I have followed your thread off and on as it developed.

Granted it would still be a risk to have someone such as yourself make me one. And I would not hold someone responsible for things if it caught fire and burned my house down (unless buildier/seller was company with warentee etc) but at least it would not be ME burning my own house down LOL

I have a military heater that could be used as a heater unit but there does not yet seem to be someone who has all the bugs worked out using these with WVO to consider it for anything but an only while at home use heater.

I am also limited in space in the home. This makes the outside water boiler heater type very appealing. BUTTT... they are +300% more expensive than basic wood stove and out of my price range so far as I've been able to determine.

I got a portalbe Mr. Buddy LP heater I thought I might use for while Im away heating and was considering either the Military heater or a wood stove using paper/WVO soaked fire bricks made from waste paper towels from my business (kids washing hands)when Im at the cabin. Simular idea to J.Galts Sawdust WVO bricks.)

Ground water. I do not have a well yet. I haul in water from my biz half hour away. Heat my shower in a hand pump LP tent shower can that cost way too much money LOL.

Kuma Stoves. They will reliably run on B100, or so the reputation goes.

Waste Oil Heat will burn anything that is called "oil".

Hi Coach.

They say that Murphy burners are cheap, safe and effective.

A great way to get you WVO life rolling.

www.murphysmachines.com

I figure that your local steel fab shop could build one of these things about the same cost as a woodstove. Maybe cheaper.

Consider it.

quote:

Originally posted by welder:
Hi Coach.

They say that Murphy burners are cheap, safe and effective. ...

and about 47000 too many BTU's for my small place and the size would take up my whole bedroom/living room leaving only a small 8 foot long kitchen and bathroom to live in.

Ill email them about suggestions on shrinking it down.

quote:

Originally posted by jeepin, moggin Jessup (coachgeo):
...Ill email them about suggestions on shrinking it down.

wow that was quick. Murphy says no go. ONE, he can't reccomend their unit for heating homes cause its not UL approved (legal stuff) but admits he knows folk ignore his sugggestions and do use it to heat homes (another words ?others feel it safe; could do it if you want, but it's at your own risk)

TWO; he does says his are too big for something like the size of my home... uh ... I mean my little shop. He is presently working on plans for smaller units; he's just "not there yet".

quote:

Originally posted by Legal Eagle:
Kuma Stoves. They will reliably run on B100, or so the reputation goes.

Waste Oil Heat will burn anything that is called "oil".

Don't make bio-d. Wonder if they would run on a Shur Blend??

waiting for a reply from wasteoilheat. I don't see any models small enough on their website though.

quote:

Originally posted by jeepin, moggin Jessup (coachgeo):
Well its time to get this done. Problem I am running into is all the heaters are too damn big for my under 200 sq foot cabin.

Looking for suggestions.

George,

Your safe and reliable options are simple:

* a small woodstove with bricks or other thermal mass to hold the heat

* a small RV space heater with LPG fuel

Do you have adequate wood to use for heating during the evening and are you connected to the grid for electricity? In the near term, a modern sealed wood stove would surely be adequate while you are at home, many of these come lined with either fire brick or have fire clay lined walls to increase there thermal mass.

During the day the simplest and safest small heater would likely be a simple small thermostatically controlled 1500 watt electric space heater with an internal fan to move the warm air, cheap to buy and need not be big as you indicate you only need minimal heat while away, the cat could sleep up close to it. I use one to take the chill off a single 200 SQ FT room during the fall and spring with temps that dip below freezing over night, this heater is only on about half the time even when the outside temps are around freezing so is not all that expensive to operate even with my 10 cents/KW electric rates. You may not even need the wood stove for such a small space in your climate.

Still another idea for future long term heating consideration.. You might read about what are referred to as "scandanavian, or Russian, wood stoves. These are wood burning stoves that use a LOT of thermal mass to hold and release heat over many hours, the wood is burned very fast and hot with the combustion air intake wide open, the fire only burns for maybe an hour and all the initial heat is absorbed into the masonry to be released slowly over the next many hours. You could fire the stove in the evening when you are around and it should heat your small space probably until the next evening without having anything actually burning when you are not present.

You could design and build one of these yourself or there are commercial designs that are liscenced and are installed by local contractors on your site. these stoves are designed to have the exhaust flue gasses flow up and down several times through the brick masonry to extract as much heat as possible so they can be designed to run the full height of the room and thus they take up a minimum of square footage in the room. They can have there firebox accessed from either inside or outside the house if placed on an outside wall. They weigh literaly TONS so usually are installed through the floor and set on a concrete pad poured directly into the ground unless your house has a concrete floor.

Don't know how much sun you get during the winter but I still like solar, heat a few hundred gallons of oil during the day and use the stored heat for several things over the full 24 hours. I am looking at using this for heating, evaporative cooling, ethanol distillation, and organic renkine cycle (low temp steam) electrical generation for my place in AZ.