On 8 Sep 2005 19:34:53 -0700, "HC" wrote:

Wayne, about your stove...it looks like you've coupled a commercial
used oil burner with a piece of 20" pipe and then done a heat
exchanger. I've been struggling for 2 years (just piddlin' now and
then) to make a homemade waste oil burner using a babington burner and
had no real success. Where did you get your commercial unit (assuming
I'm correct that that is what it is), how much did it cost, how well
does it work, what maintenance do you have to do on it, and how hard
was it to plumb the oil and power to it?


That burner cost me nothing. It came out of a old oil fired forced
air furnace. The kind that is suspended from the ceiling and used to
heat a shop. The fire box was corroded to the point of no return when
it was given to me. I did have to buy the tank and pump which feed the
burner or rather trade for it.

The burner works ok as long as you keep the filter changed and don't
let any water get to it. Water is the big killer and will cause me to
have to clean the nozzle at least a dozen time in a week to keep it
running after I let it get to that point. My big problem currently
with the burner is that it doesn't put out enough heat to really heat
the shop completely warm. I have to add wood or other materials to
keep the shop really warm (I must be getting soft since I got by with
lower temperatures when I started).

The burner is rather simple but yet complex at the same time. The
actually nozzle is the exactly the same siphon type as is used in a
major brand kerosene "torpedo" heater (I don't remember the brand
right now). But it needs higher air pressure to work. There's a
preheat tank with electric heating elements in it that preheat the oil
before going to the nozzle. There's also a preheat for the air going
to the nozzle (I'm not positive that this is working on mine). The
high voltage transformer, flame sensing, and safety control are all
standard oil burner components. It has a small draft blower like is
used on a standard oil burner but I currently have it disconnected
since my new stove draws well enough to do without it (and the
bearings are starting to go in the blower). One main feature of the
burner/stove is that there is a float tank which has a float switch to
activate the pump from the main tank. This is placed above the burner
and uses gravity to feed the burner (I made this tank height
adjustable on my new stove so I can control the pressure to the
burner). The pump from the main tank pushes the oil through a fairly
standard oil filter before getting to the float tank. This gets rid of
most of the crud which would stop up the nozzle (as long as I don't
let it get to dirty and start to bypass).

Since I already had the main components it wasn't hard to plumb. I
don't think I would of ever made a burner exactly like this if I was
building it from scratch. There's a lot of complications in the design
which while good from a total safety stand point aren't all really
needed for a supervised burner. If unsupervised burning is needed then
all the safeties are needed. I can tell instantly when it's not
working right as long as I'm in the shop. The sound it makes is
somewhat on the loud side and definitely missed when the flame isn't
doing right.

If I ever get a chance I plan on trying to build a babbington type
burner to replace this burner. But at the current rate don't look for
that till about 2030 or so. :-)

Wayne Cook
Shamrock, TX
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/waynecook/index.htm