anyone have a good place to start for mixing
fuels for home heating. No deisel to run bio-diesel in, so I'm not looking for the whole processor setup.
I've started to collect WVO from the Chinese res. and have very limited sources as I live out in the country and don't drive to work.
Just trying to offset the cost of not freezeing in MI. this year. I have a 500 gal. buried tank that stays around 50F in winter.
I appreciate any help
Thanx in advance

Hello Woodsman, most of us are mixing some kind of solvent with our WVO to thin it out for burning in a diesel engine. I believe heating oil is considerably more viscous than diesel fuel, so WVO may work just fine without thining; however, since you say your tank stays at 50F (10c) I can see how you may have some problems if your WVO comes with a significant amount of animal fat or hydroginated oil. However, since you wrote that you are getting your oil from a local Asian restaurant, then, from experience, their WVO tends to have little animal fat or hydroginated oil in it, so probably all you will have to do is filter the oil.

I use big-blue water filters to filter my oil, and I would guess that you could probably get away with filtering down only to 50 microns, which is the coarsest pleated cellulose filter one can buy. If you find you have to thin it, then I would guess kerosene might be the best solvent, because gasoline would be too toxic for home heating purposes. You could also try 1% acetone, if you find that 20% kerosene does not adequately thin out your WVO for you.

Best, Jeff

I too have been thinking about burning SVO in our oil burning heater.
My partner says it will only run on biodiesel and he wants to make bio to run in it.
I think we should start off with something like Woodsman wrote.

Does anyone have any experience running SVO in a heater?

Don't do what I did.Put in a kerosene heater.Smoked the house up,and had to buy a wick.

quote:

Originally posted by Jeffrey S. Brooks:
Hello Woodsman, most of us are mixing some kind of solvent with our WVO to thin it out for burning in a diesel engine. I believe heating oil is considerably more viscous than diesel fuel, so WVO may work just fine without thining; however, since you say your tank stays at 50F (10c) I can see how you may have some problems if your WVO comes with a significant amount of animal fat or hydroginated oil. However, since you wrote that you are getting your oil from a local Asian restaurant, then, from experience, their WVO tends to have little animal fat or hydroginated oil in it, so probably all you will have to do is filter the oil.

I use big-blue water filters to filter my oil, and I would guess that you could probably get away with filtering down only to 50 microns, which is the coarsest pleated cellulose filter one can buy. If you find you have to thin it, then I would guess kerosene might be the best solvent, because gasoline would be too toxic for home heating purposes. You could also try 1% acetone, if you find that 20% kerosene does not adequately thin out your WVO for you.

Best, Jeff

Jeffrey,
I have a neighbor that used to pay to have heating oil delivered to his house, he works on a drilling rig out in the middle of NV and while the oil rip off was putting the oil in his tank he noticed that it was red (they use alot of red-dye diesel on the rig) so he asked the oil cartel what type of oil that was and the guy replied "dont tell anyone but its red-dye diesel" shortly after that he said "good bye" to the oil dude FOREVER. He brings home about 250 gallons of red dye every 2 weeks and he is skating all the way to the bank now instead of the local oil company.

heating oil is the EXACT same thing as D2 it just has red dye in it.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodsman:
anyone have a good place to start for mixing
fuels for home heating

Woodsman,

If you are old enough, you might remember the floating vegetable oil candles from back in the 70's? The ones with the big wicks that floated in water - "self extinguishing." The stuff burns as is. I like to press WVO with cardboard or sawdust to make fire logs. When I was processing WVO in Oakland the warehouse was heated this way. Any kind of woodstove will work. My folks hot water/house heater from the late 1800's in New Hampshire burned SVO just fine.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodsman:
I've started to collect WVO from the Chinese res. and have very limited sources as I live out in the country ... Just trying to offset the cost of not freezeing in MI. this year. I have a 500 gal. buried tank that stays around 50F in winter.

How cold does your home heating tank get? Also, what is the quality of the WVO like from your restaurant?

At 50F it will be thick, so you might want a robust pump? I have found that WVO from Chinese restaurants ends up with a lot of lard, tallow, shortenings and other particulates (batters and such). This will burn fine in loge, but adding it to your home heating might be difficult. You might consider a strong solvent like acetone to thin the heavier oils from the fryer. It is expensive stuff, but you shouldn't need much per volume - say 1/10th of a percent to 1%. Otherwise you could simpy blend in refined WVO in small doses - say 10% and see how the heater works. Just like a car, you can also potentially bypass the home heating tank for testing. Just be careful when exposing solvents near open flame - don't do any mixing indoors with volatile solvents!

As for country living, I have found that my dogs LOVE used cooking oil mixed with... well anything: toys, kibble, the floor. SVO they could care less for.

Best,
-Patrick Kennedy

quote:

Originally posted by Tregrad:
heating oil is the EXACT same thing as D2 it just has red dye in it.

Tregard,

While they are both essentially kerosene distillates, I don't think that is entirely true. ULSD has had the sulfur removed (a process which robs the oil of its lubricating properties) and likely contains a different set of aromatics. Home heating oil has not had the sulfur compounds removed. Conversely, I would imagine that fueling with heating oil would drastically increase soot and SOx emissions.

I wish the volume economics worked out in my neck of the woods. The few companies which will sell to individuals don't offer much of a discount below 1,000 gallons.

Best,
-Patrick Kennedy

Tregard posted

quote:

heating oil is the EXACT same thing as D2 it just has red dye in it.

Thanks Tregard, I did not know that. However, I still would not use unleaded gasoline to thin my home heating oil, because it is toxic, and if you burn it for heat you are likely to have medical problems. However, kerosene, acetone or turpentine as a thinner should work fine.

Best, Jeff

I use WVO for heating in my home stove heater. Burns grat when rolled into logs with sawdust or cardboard.

quote:

Originally posted by Tregrad:
heating oil is the EXACT same thing as D2 it just has red dye in it.

Tregard, I don't think this is true. D2 is mostly kerosene and 10w-30. Heating oils and off-road diesels have far more sulfur ppm.

quote:

Originally posted by mixelpix:

quote:

Originally posted by Tregrad:
heating oil is the EXACT same thing as D2 it just has red dye in it.

Tregard,

While they are both essentially kerosene distillates, I don't think that is entirely true. ULSD has had the sulfur removed (a process which robs the oil of its lubricating properties) and likely contains a different set of aromatics. Home heating oil has not had the sulfur compounds removed. Conversely, I would imagine that fueling with heating oil would drastically increase soot and SOx emissions.

I wish the volume economics worked out in my neck of the woods. The few companies which will sell to individuals don't offer much of a discount below 1,000 gallons.

Best,
-Patrick Kennedy

edited by The Trouts to remove personal attack

everyone else, I was just going on what the gas company dude told my neighbor I by no means am the authority on this matter. I do however know that all off road construction vehicles use the same red-dye diesel. I ran it in my truck with no probs at all performance ways or anyother. they use it on his drilling rig in thier generators all the engines at the rig site etc.
people drive to the rig from san diego and have been doing so for years on it.

I do agree that mixing rug may present some probs Jeffrey, I didnt even think about that, good call.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: The Trouts,

I'm kind of new at this but was wondering how you know what amount of what type of solvent to mix in to filtered WVO to match the viscosity of home heating oil at the average tank temp of 50-60 degrees? Also how does home owners insurance look at this? Does it damage or cause any harm to the oil burner? Has anyone ever tried it?

Thank you in advance for any help.
Steve M.

Steve,

What kind of heater do you have?

Aloha!

Not sure. It's my father in-law's and I know it is AT LEAST 10 years old (the burner anyway). I was wondering if I need to get a heat exchanger and small pump to pump hot water through to heat it so that the VO temp is high enough so the viscosity of the VO = home heating oil. I woudn't know where to get the parts for that.

The heater btw also provides all the hot water.

Steve,

If you can bypass the feed to the burner, you could test a small batch and see if it still works. I would imagine the lines are hard fittings?

Aloha!

.

Babington burner

Here ya go....


biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8541078231/m/3891092691

biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/419605551/m/837605951

biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8541078231/m/9201068341

biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8541078231/m/9951035622

biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8541078231/m/9371058281

RichC

You are not going to get any heavy oil like veg, or even veg blends, to burn reliably in a normal high pressure home heating fueloil burner unless you modify it EXTENSIVELY, you will need to at least add LOTS of heat to the vegoil directly prior to the burner nozzle, plus twiddle with the excess air flow til you find the right combination that works. With the mods you can get veg to burn once the flame chamber is hot, the problem is getting the veg to ignite reliably when the burner is cold, no one seems to realy get this to work well enough for the burner to automatically turn on/off reliably.

You can burn BIO-diesel successfully but it still will take a bit of adjustment to the burner plus more regular cleaning of the nozzle and the 50 deg f tank temps are likely to cause gelling of even biodiesel.

Read through the various posts in the "biodiesel for heating" sub-forum in the biodiesel forum (HERE), There are several discussions there about burner designs using straight vegoil as fuel. There is also a link to a yahoo group named "altfuelfurnace" that has extensive info on the modifications needed for a normal fueloil burner to burn veg, or used motor oil, directly.

I have been heating my house and shop over the last two winters using straight veg in a home built somewhat sophisticated drip heater (discussion here). This heater runs unattended most of the time but even it needs a few minutes of attention once every 3 days to swap out the crudded up burner bowl for a clean one.

Fuel tank temp - Unfortunatly, 50 deg f is not warm enough unless you use a large diameter fuel line and reliable pump at the tank, veg temps under 80 deg f will likely clog normal small fueloil lines with gelled or solidified fuel, especially if using used vegoil, used veg has oils and fats that gell at different temps, some animal fats will turn to semisolid lard at temps above 60 deg f. I have a 25 gallon fuel tank setting a couple feet from my veg space heater so the fuel stays at inside-the-house temps.

I don't run the heater in my shop all the time so I had to add a small electric heater to my inside veg tank there to keep the oil liquid for startups, without the heater in the tank globs of solid fats would clog the cold fuel lines and the fuel metering pump when the temps get down to, or below, the 50 deg f point, still have to sometimes use a heat lamp on the inside fuel pump when the temps get down below "0" deg f.

I am pretty sure the US & Canadian regs are the same. The red dyed D2 for home heating oil is the same used for the rigs and farm machines and anything off road. It is dyed red because the road tax is not included in the price per gallon/litre. In Canada you don't want to get caught with dyed fuel ON THE ROAD it is a $4,000.00 fine.
ALL the farmers I know use it in there personal vehicles anyway. I have never heard of anyone getting caught.

quote:

You are not going to get any heavy oil like veg, or even veg blends, to burn reliably in a normal high pressure home heating fueloil burner unless you modify it EXTENSIVELY, you will need to at least add LOTS of heat to the vegoil directly prior to the burner nozzle, plus twiddle with the excess air flow til you find the right combination that works. With the mods you can get veg to burn once the flame chamber is hot, the problem is getting the veg to ignite reliably when the burner is cold, no one seems to realy get this to work well enough for the burner to automatically turn on/off reliably.

I aggree with this. However small amounts of WVO/SVO can be used. A Univ. of Connecticut study showed that blends of 80% HHO and 20%SVO
could be burned reliably in most home furnace burners w/o modification. A couple models did require minor adjustment, either a diffferent nozzle or more air flow.
PM if interested and I can try to locate the study.

Update:
I think this was it:

6. Paul Niznik1*, Gene Bartholomew2, Gus Kellog3 , P and K Industries, Berlin CT 06037 USA. 2Porter and Chester Institute of Branford, Branford, CT 06405 USA. 3Greenleaf Biofuels, Guilford, CT 06437, tel. no. 917-687-3748, E-mail paul@pandkindustries.com
Poster Title: “Introducing a Competitive Biofuel Blend for Oil Furnaces”.
Poster abstract: We present the first comparison of all current liquid biofuels on home heating furnace platforms. A new biofuel blend made with less refined vegetable oil feed stocks is tested on stock equipment and over several years in home furnaces. The new blends are shown to be the first biofuel to be below the cost of petroleum while still producing emission benefits. An analysis of the production of biofuels in Connecticut for the heating fuels market shows that vegetable oils are most economically used in these less refined blends.


iirc, I talked to Paul Niznick. Try emailing him at th eemail address provided above.

i have been using blended wvo oil in a nester marten oil diesel heater i thin oil down with 10 t0 20% kero.the only modifications i made were/ more air holes around burning pot/ then i drilled a small hole in top of the fuel slot in the fuel regulater about 2 mls to alow thiker oil to pass into heating bowl. i have trouble starting oil so i just heat up with small amount of meths i lite this manualy heats cone in heater very quickly i heat my home hot water as well as my house with this heater

i have been burning 30%WVO blended for about 3 years. just be sure its non hydro oil because if it isnt, at 50-60 deg. it gunks up and flames out. my tank is in my basement and it gets down to 50 deg. at times. i blend in a 55gal drum now. i used to blend in my 330 gal tank but had issues due to some hydro oil from a cheap rest. never again!!!
this year i am going to get a nozzle heater and try thicker blends in a day tank [cubie]. i hope to do 50% or better WVO.
fyi my furnace pump is the 2 tube variety