If you live in a cold climate and you have collected enough "oil to burn" so to speak, consider doing so and reducing your home heating bills.
Have a look at a few of these designs and get thinking about how you'd like to heat your home or workspace this winter.
Designs
Oil heater design is simple in that a small pool of oil burns, that is fed by a pipe from above. Air is drawn in from below the heater to feed the flames. Energy stored in the oil is transformed into heat energy and is expelled out of the walls of the heater and up through the heater flue.
So check these links out and start reaping the benefits of WVO powered heating.
Bruce Woodford's forced-air waste oil heater
Journey to Forever's forced-air biofuel heater
Roger Sanders' Waste Oil Heater
Waste Oil Heater Plans
Turk Burner - Runs on biodiesel bi-product - Glycerine
Journey to Forever's Waste Oil Heater
All of these designs are from the Journey to Forever website. If you have any others or if you'd like to include your own
.
Heating System Combustion Efficiency
Heating systems said to be measured for efficiency in 3 seperate ways.
The first is Combustion Efficiency and is like the "MPG" or "Ltrs per 100km" we use to measure our cars efficiency.
Typically on high you could expect to use up to 4 litres (1 Gallon) per hour or anywhere from 200 to 400 litres (50 - 100 Gallons) a month to heat an area of around 120 metres square (1250 Ft sq).
Another measurement, which takes start up and cool down into consideration is the Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency or AFUE. This rating is averaged out over a year.
The Steady-State Efficiency rating, measures efficiency when the heater is full heated and running at a "steady state". The rating does not measure start up and cool down losses/gains, but will be more efficient than the Combustion Efficiency. The measurement is more scientifically calculated and considers the energy content (measured in kilojoules) available in the oil and heat/gas loses up the flue. Typically a regular wood combustion stove may be approx. 50% efficient. You might expect that a oil burner is somewhere in this region. The heating capability of a heater is measure in BTU's or British Thermal Units.
The typical internal combustion engine (normal car engine) is only 30 - 40% efficient. IE only 30-40% of "Chemical energy" is converted from your fuel to POWER "Kinetic Energy". What happens to the rest of the energy? Heat, sound and exhaust heat loses.
How can I improve the heating efficiency of my heater? Try capturing the escaping heat that going up the flue. Consider running a water pipe through the heater flue and heating water for your bath or washing.
My thanks go to Energy Right for providing valueable infomation through their website.
http://www.energyright.com/
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Diesel-Tech