Have we talked about this already?
With the icy grasp of Jack Frost growing nearer every day, my thoughts go back to heating my small garage for the season. The Madhatr fleet generates plenty of used dinosaur drippings and it seems silly not to use fuel you already have. But, is there a GRM way to do this? Anyone have any experience to share?
there used to be plans out there in the wilds of teh internets for an oil burner that used a couple of cast iron pans (a smaller one with holes drilled in it inside of a larger one) inside an old water heater tank.
There are about a billion ways to do this. You can build a naturally drafted drip pot of some sort in an old woodstove or water heater tank, or modify a used oil furnace (some combination of mods to the burner gun and preheating the oil). Personally I'd much rather go for a modded furnace, takes up less space since you need to keep a strict safety zone (including wall clearances) clear around a radiant heater.
Interested...
Years ago I started gathering parts to build the one novaderrik described above, then I came to the realization I don't necessarily trust my life with some flaming contraption I cobbled together from junk, nor did I want to deal with the denied insurance claim if I did have a problem. So I got a free kerosene heater from a friend instead.
I built one last year. Used electric water heater, misc. plumbing parts, stove chimney, etc. For the burner I used an aluminum sauce pot. I put it in the 20 ton press upside down and mashed a bowl in the bottom. Works well. I have two feeds, one #2 diesel and one used motor oil. Start it on #2 diesel, then slow drip of the diesel with the used oil. Most of my oil is full synthetic, which doesn't burn as well as regular oil, thus the #2 helps it along.
The old "$20" from the 70's works out to about $200 today in plumbing fittings and misc. pieces.
Wow, didn't realize it has been that long since I started this thread... Thanks for the input guys! I will have to go do more research. I actually have a nice little ceramic LP heater that works pretty well for my tiny garage, but the 'tip over safety' cutoff has failed and will not keep the pilot lit
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