Hi guys
I recognise this is a topic in which few people are interested. However there has been some conversation around it, I have a goal and I am working towards/maybe getting close to achieving it – so I continue to witter on about it as I play with it
What I want is a clean-as-possible oil-burning space-heater
If it will work efficiently adapted to the front of my wood-stove - with the added benefits of heating the top-plate and putting some energy into the wetback – then all the better
What I don’t want is the complexity of fans, solenoids, controllers etc. I accept that that way lies efficiency. It’s just not what I’m after
One of my motivations is the availability of large quantities of a “clean” oil without combustion by-product or garage workshop contaminants – just a heavy oil somewhere in the 180-240 range, maybe, with occasional contamination by metal fragments and sometimes small amounts of water
I have many 200-litre drums of it. I figure if I let it stand for a year or two then use the top 150 litres of each drum without disturbing the rest – it should be effectively “clean”
Our small country is back in a Covid lockdown so I was isolated at that site for a few days and took the opportunity to refit the unit to the wood-stove and do a test burn for the first time since fitting a needle-valve into the drip tube (see pics and vid?)
It’s easy to get a consistent rate of feed with the new valve
The 1.2-litre top tank provides a margian of safety in that its capacity is quite a bit less than that of the burn chamber at the bottom. So it’d be pretty near impossible to flood the place with burning oil or anything like that
I’m using that aforementioned oil 66%/33% with diesel. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lesser dilution would work well too – and if it was pre-warmed, I think that stuff would burn just fine at 100%. After all, it just has to drip and vapourise. We’ll see. One thing at a time
I burned a 5.5-litre container of oil mix in four and one half hours. That’s burning at “full throttle” and understanding that the engine of the unit is the flue; and that once the burner is red-hot and burning quietly and steadily – there’s nothing to gain by trying to feed it more oil than it will vapourise
The tube with holes in it is 125mm and the bend is 150mm
See the “clear blue sky” pic? That’s my flue, mid-burn, and there’s no visible smoke at all
Equally there’s no smoke, vapour or smell (apart from a small hot smell) in the shed
The top plate of the stove doesn’t get as hot as it does with a fire in the firebox, of course. But it’ll cook eggs-and-beans OK, or boil the kettle . . .
Please see a couple of images and very low-tech video attached. Cheers
See link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1ZWFcQo6CI
