The Burner in action

Do they smoke and emit fumes into the workshop

The answer to this is NO, there will be some smoke from the flu as the burner is being light and getting up to tempature, once the burner is light and the oil feed correctly set there will be no smoke or any fumes in the workshop and basically no smoke from the flu.
These burners are not like the old Sally Ann burners where you just dumped in 5 gallons of oil and light the top of the oil and the chimney was vented into your workshop, also these were dangerous as you could not shut of the fuel.

Basic Principles of Operation.

 Basic rules of Combustion states that to maintain combustion we need three things present.

(1). Fuel. - .............Our fuel is going to be Sump Oil, hydraulic oil, gear oil etc

(2). Oxygen -......... Provided by the addition of air, 

(3). (Heat. -........... Without sufficient heat the fuel will not attain suficient temperature to further gasify the fuel and the process will become "endothermic"'. Which in laymans's language means it will just "go out". We need our reaction to be "exothermic" meaning that it must give off more heat than is necessary to maintain combustion. It is this surplus of heat that will provide draft to ensure a supply of fresh air to our flame and most importantly it will be radiated into the surrounding air to warm our workshops.

Having provided the three things listed above, we need one further condition. Our flame needs to burn cleanly, which will ensure that we do nor polute up the neighbours with smoke and smell. We can achieve this by making sure we have enough oxygen present to ensure complete combustion, AND  that it is well mixed with the fuel.

Draft.

Because this heater does not have a forced draft fan, it is most important that we have plenty of draft or airfow, generated by the differential in air column density. This is bought about by the vertical column of air within the heater and flue, being far less than the ambient pressure outside the heater body resulting in a strong airflow from outside, into the heater through the air holes.

How much oil does it burn

 This has been measured and tested a few times and typically 4.5 to 5 gallons of waste engine oil is typical consumption in an 8 hour working day.
A typical gallon of waste motor oil contains 153,000 to 180,000 BTU per gallon, which can be more than TWO TIMES the energy potential per gallon of LP gas. LP gas has a potential for 92,000 BTU per gallon.

What Flu

Some waste oil burners have it in excess of 900 degrees while others have stack temperatures of less than 500 degrees. Also, the higher the stack temperature the greater the potential for fire hazard. Some people will try to convince you that single wall exhaust pipe is acceptable. You need to know that single wall exhaust pipe is 100% legal to purchase and 100% legal to install. However, once you turn that waste oil burner on and start to exhaust fumes you are in violation of almost all local fire codes and risk being dropped by your insurance carrier.
We recommended double or triple wall stainless steel insulated flu,s with our burners only.
If you heating an old Tin building with steel rafters a single steel pipe would be ok as long as there is nothing combustible within 3m
always worth checking with any insurance company what their requirements are and any other regulations you may have to adhere to in your area.

For the unit to draw correctly and burn clean we advise installing a flu at least 5m from floor level.

Steel v Stainless Steel

Stainless steel burner chambers v steel burner chamber. Some ask why not make the burners from stainless steel burner. Although it is commonly understood that stainless steel will not rot out due to moisture brought on by condensation, it is not moisture that wears out a waste oil burner combustion chamber / heat exchanger. The waste oil burner combustion chamber eventually wears down from air moving across its surface creating friction. That is why a stainless chamber and a steel chamber will last about the same amount of years. The big difference you should consider is how poorly stainless steel conducts heat. This makes a steel burner chamber incredibly more efficient.

fuel

Waste engine oil, hydraulic oil, chip pan oil, all various grades or gear oil. Many forms of oil can be used and as always the best oil is free :)

Quite often people ask if there are any smells or smoke from the flu and burner. As long as the Flu is correctly installed and you regulate the oil fed the burner is designed to burn clean. It took us quite a while to get the design and the numerous air holes around the burner correct but the end rest is in a burner that burns clean even when using black sump oil.

How to light

To light the unit is a simple process, firstly 150ml or1/3rd a jam jar of oil is placed in the burning chamber.
A firelighter is then placed in the chamber.
Once the oil starts to burn and build up the heat in the chamber, this starts the convection from the flu. The unit is then left for a few minutes until the oil placed inside is burning away,  The flame will reach a peak then start to die down again.
At this point you then turn the regulating valve on approx 1/8 of a turn and in a minuite or so the oil feeds into the burner and ignites. The amount of oil is a bit more than a drip but still a narrow flow through the valve outlet.
It takes approx 30 seconds for the oil to get inside the burning chamber though this will depend on the viscosity of the oil, you need to bear this in mind when settling the burner ie when you increase or decrease the amount of oil it will take 30 seconds or so for the change to take effect inside the oil burner.

Below shows a picture of our oil feed.

Hot

When cranked up these burners can produce tremendous heat, this one is running hard for demonstration purposes, part of the inside chamber with the cover removed.

The burner

Reliable, and easy to use – it's quiet and uses no electricity – it has reliable oil flow and a wide heat range – it's easy to light and easy to clean.

The heat emmitted can be as much as 80 to 100,000BTU

It is a practical design that you can use day in and day out for seriously heating your workshop without costing you a lot apart from the inital setup costs.

We will let the pictures speak for themselves.