Well winter is setting in so time to have a crack at building a workshop heater. i have always liked the idea of a waste oil burner but have never fancied having it in the workshop, i'm a bit paranoid about burning the place down. so this is all a bit its experimental but what the heck its all made out of scrap so nothing to lose. the plan is for the stove/boiler to be out side and the heat inside!

i saved an old back boiler heat exchanger and the plan is to run the burner to warm up the heat exchanger and pump the hot water round radiators in the workshop. so today i started on the boiler part.

it consists of an old gas bottle, a bit of scrap metal and the scavenged heat exchanger. i tried to find a bigger gas bottle so the heat exchanger would fit completely inside but gave up and went with what i had. eventually i will build a little insulated shelter round the whole thing so it doesn't matter how ugly it is.

still need to find an expansion vessel and a central heating pump then i have everything needed.

As expected here are the pictures

initial cut out of the cylinder to locate the heat exchanger


3mm steel box round the heat exchanger to direct the heat and exhaust gasses round the heat exchanger


top view of the heat exchanger down into the fire chamber


side view of the heat exchanger showing the outlets (not sure how im going to get the pipes in and seal the box backup tet but i will work that out later when the time comes.)


view of it mocked up with the 5mm thick flu pipe.


as for the burner im not sure what im going to use there seems to be lots of designs out there that can burn oil very cleanly so i think i will build a couple and test to see which works best

omg mate lol dont worry, i wont tell your lass that your moveing out in to the man shed haha ash i did post that link up for you pal re roof panels

Please keep the info and photos of this heater coming
It looks a great idea and i will have a back boiler to remove out our house next year
Thank's
Jacko

My mate built one very similar a couple of years back only it had a fabricated heat exchanger using 2" tubes It has a wagon brake drum in the bottom with a vertical burner tube, an old boiler fan blows In horizontally which creates a nice vortex, the oil drips in by gravity, and the copper feed tube is wound round the boiler to thin the oil once running.


We piped 8 radiators up to it and a central heating pump, within 1/2 hr they are red hot.
It was trial and error to get the burner tube the correct size, and there is a slider on the fan to regulate the blow, if the flame is too strong it boils the water.

Within a few minutes it runs clean as a whistle no black smoke just heat vapour, although my mate says it does cover the cars etc in tiny soot particles, so watch out
For the neighbours washing.

The only drawback I can see with using an old gas heat exchanger, is you might have trouble cleaning out the fins, as they are so close together, he has to clean the inside before each use, they get pretty sooty inside.

Al

Just re read your post and noticed the bit about getting an expansion vessel....No don't do it..

You cannot have a sealed system with an uncontrollable heat source, it MUST be open vented with a gravity feed and expansion tank.

You might also consider adding antifreeze if the boiler is outside and the workshop uninsulated.

the idea eventually is to have an electronic controller that measures the temp in the combustion chamber and in the rad pipes and automatically regulates the feed airflow and the oil rate. until i get to that stage your advice is noted and i will run it vented i have experienced hot pressurised water and it wasn't nice

Can you get at your heat exchanger to clean it out as well as it looks like one from a gas boiler and if it soots up it will lose efficiency.

yep flu and lid come off, the plan is to just jetwash it out now and then. scale on the photos may be out a bit but the gap between fins on the heat exchanger is around 10mm so i'm hoping it doesn't block up too fast. flu is 5inch internal diameter. im planning forced induction so the resulting burn should be pretty clean if i can get the air fuel ratio correct. its all experimental but my super technical squint and think calculations say it should work. problem today was finding fittings to go in the heat exchanger, the hunt continues.

I hope there'll be plenty of ventilation - I'd be worried about carbon monoxide emissions due to incomplete burning...

Malleable iron pipe fittings will probably turn something up for the pipework.

quote:

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Originally posted by David Jenkins
I hope there'll be plenty of ventilation - I'd be worried about carbon monoxide emissions due to incomplete burning...

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well thats the weekend over and im onto the mk3 version of the burner. i setup a small drip feed oil supply after i made this video and had it running for 8 hours today not a single bit of smoke. im using a 6inch fan out of a server rack it seems to push enough air to keep a clean burn. as for oil consumption with the new 5inch burner it seems to be around 200ml per hour

here is the vid

Looking good, i suppose it depends on workshop size, how many radiators and levels of insulation, but i reckon you might need a bigger flame than that.

My mates burner drinks between 5 and 10 gallons a day depending on outside temperature and which size burn tube he has fitted.
The workshop is approx 20ft x 40ft x 15ft high at the apex, brick built asbestos roof and no insulation.

Think he has about 8 rads approx 600 x 1200, it takes about 40 mins to get the water up to 70 degrees or so.

Al.

have you looked at babbington burners?

Similar idea, but they drop the oil onto a sphere which has a very small (.5mm) hole in it. Air then pushes through the hole and vaporises the oil which ignites in a tube causing a great deal of heat.

Lots of hits on the internet.