Bob,
Yes, your comment about elements burning out is well noted.
I was thinking it may be necessary to control the ramp-up of the heating time so that the sand has a chance to absorb the heat from the elements.
Something like low frequency Pulse Width Modulation using a relay. (On..off..on..off..on..off).
If the elements cannot shed their heat fast enough (as they would in water) then they may fail.
So I have to do more research on what methods are available to heat sand with electricity.

cheers

Hi Guys, I hate to be a naysayer but what is the point? You are going to have to go through all the effort of filtering, de-watering and centrifuging your waste oil. You are then going to burn it in your Lister to produce electricity, which you are then going to use to heat sand or something similar.
Why not cut out all the effort and inefficiency not to mention wear on your Lister and generator head by building a smudge pot oil burner? They are easy to build, they will burn untreated oil and produce enormous amounts of heat. You could always encase the flue in some sort of thermal mass if you want.

Bob

Hi Bob,

The Lister is already there. It sits idle waiting for a power outage, I don't see using it for garage heating and greenhouse lighting as a bad thing.
There is NO WAY I'm going to build an oil burner to leave in my garage unattended. I don't trust my Oil Burner building skills enough to go down that road which would also require chimney holes and stove pipes cut through the roof.   99% of the DIY oil burners I have seen on YouTube would never pass any kind of safety regulations.

Also, my wiring and cooling system is already in place. All that's needed is a sand reservoir and some electric elements.
The system I am pondering uses my operational machine that all is ready to go.
If I wait for power outages to use my system, it may still be like new 20 years from now     so it could now earn it's keep by offsetting the current heating costs.
And when winter temps here in Canada dip to -25C, it could make a substantial difference according to my calculations.
Using the cooling system, generator (sand heat) and possibly capturing some exhaust heat in a heat exchanger, the system may approach 70% in thermal efficiency.
This project does require further research and it would not be difficult to program a model where different amounts of sand and different bed temperatures can be tried in order to get the optimal reservoir size.
If the res is too big, the Lister has to run too long to get it up to temperature.
If it's too small, the res looses most of it's heat too soon causing excess engine run cycles.
So the goal here is to have the Lister run 4 hrs in the AM and 4 hrs in the late PM.
Who knows, maybe the model will show that the number don't work. But if they do work, I am interested to build it.

Spanner,
Good idea. In addition to the sand thermal heat store, I can also use the exhaust to additionally heat the same sand, or build a sand heat exchanger by running the exhaust pipe with multiple passes through another sand chamber.
If electrical AND exhaust heat can be captured, then the system efficiency will be exceptional, since I am already capturing the coolant heat and using it to heat the area via radiator/fan.

... Was thinking 3 or 4 of these placed at different levels in the media.

They are also made specifically for go-kart racing.
Like this one:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/372319106918?hash=item56aff2b766:g:PZUAAOSwxJNfO7Yu

I could not find one in my price range. That's why I went with the Land Rover version.

Good call spanner !
And it comes with a 190f thermostat inside.
$40 on Amazon

Thanks

mikenash

That starter should work well.
What is the intended use for the Listeroid
Are you going off-grid?

@Sakwatcher,

Thanks for that interesting description of your system.

1] Is your inverted AC modified sine or pure sine?

2] Do you have a Well pump?
    I chose to go Small Changfa Diesel -- > Alternator --> Batteries -- Inverter, because my well pump has an initial draw greater than my generator can tolerate.
    But with the batteries and a 4400 watt Magnum inverter, the momentary in-rush current needed to start the well pump is provided instantaneously by the batteries.

veggie