Oil Burners Wave of the Future

If you have not already guessed it I am a huge fan of waste oil burners. I love them to death. These things have literally saved me a bunch of money.

Beaucoup d'argent as the French would say.

I remember not fully knowing if this investment would pay off in the end. After all there had been a lot of quick lubes (ie. some of the Jiffy Lubes up here) who had purchased a waste oil furnace for their shops and ended up taking them down because they just gave them so many problems.

Here is a picture of one of them.

Now you have to fully understand why I was so concerned. These businesses are generating at least 100 gallons of used waste oil per day. They have huge shops to heat. Every time the bay doors open up and down a lot of heat is escaping so you know these types of businesses are harder to heat than most. How much money does a franchise owner of Jiffy Lube stand to gain by totally eliminating his monthly heating expenses and yet he got rid of one of his waste oil furnaces within several months at one his busiest locations from what I hear.


This was not the first time I had heard of this. A couple other businesses who were not oil change businesses had purchased a boiler or furnace equipped with waste oil burners instead of your traditional set up and they ended up a) having nothing but problem after problem with them or b) unable to get an adequate supply of oil to run their system year round.

No matter what system you get they are not going to be cheap (although you can save a lot by buying a used waste oil burner) and if it was not going to pay off I would stand to loose at least $10,000.

My oil change business does nothing near the volume of one of the major quick lubes in town and despite that I bring in 30 gallons per day during the summer time and roughly 30 gallons every two weeks during the winter time depending on how hard I am working.

The point I am trying to get across is that I was in a position to potential save thousands of dollars in natural gas bills over a lifetime and all I had to risk was several thousand dollars.

It seemed like a worthwhile risk to take.

Fast forward two and a half years into the future I am cannot say enough about this alternative energy technology. It has grown a lot in the last ten years and these devices are a lot more reliable than they were back in the 90s when people and businesses were first really starting to buy them.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I have not only recouped all my initial investment but I am up at least a thousand dollars by now.

I have a friend who owns the distribution rights for Energy Logic products for the entire northwest and Alaska and he says he has been getting tons of calls lately. My business partner John Vogt just helped him do an install for the railroad company up here because they were generating so much used waste oil they did not know what to do with it. One train can generate 100s of gallons of used motor oil on just one oil change. Amazing! They heat their whole shop and office building with their waste oil furnace.

This technology is really exciting to talk about and I want everyone to give it some thought as to whether they can generate enough oil to be able to run one of it. The thought of being able to remove heating expenses be it heating oil, natural gas, or electricity from their monthly bills should be too tempting to pass up.

It will take several years for most people to get a return of their investments but once you do every month you are putting an extra several hundred in your pocket. If you were to get an average of how much you spend heating your house, shop, or office building per month before you got your waste oil furnace or boiler and put that money into a separate account you would be surprised after a year the amount of extra money you would have. You could invest that into something else that generates more revenue.

Here is a copy of natural gas heating bill from October to November.


The average temperature for Anchorage in October is 34.6 degrees and the average temperature in November is 21.2 degrees. To all the skeptics out there I would like to pose this question: doesn't it seem odd that in this type of weather my total bill for heating my huge house and huge garage is less than $10.00.

This technology is really a no brainier. Its a type of system that will not only run off used motor oil but used brake fluid, any of the gear lubricants out there, used automatic transmission fluid, and pretty much any and all industrial oils and dirty diesel fuel. You can throw these substances into your waste oil boiler or furnace and out comes clean free heat.

All you have to make certain is that you filter whatever oil you do put into your holding tank before it goes into your machine.

How Does this Technology Actually Work

Once your oil pump sucks the oil from your tank into your actual burner it is then brought into a pre-heater which then heats it to 160 degrees so it can easily be sprayed through the nozzles.

As it goes through the nozzles as a really fine mist it is then ignited by two electrodes generated by a transformer. This is what makes heat. Its really not as complex as it seems.

That heat travels and goes through a combustion chamber and heats a heat exchanger which is usually stainless steel.

For a furnace a blower usually pulls in cold air over the heat exchanger which significantly heats it and is then exhausted by a fan into the duct work of a house, office, or shop.

Waste oil boilers work the same way except the flame heats up water which is then ran throughout a building.

Oil Burner Maintenance

I have found from professionals and my own personal experience that all one needs to do to maintain his investment is a) filter the oil as best you can and b) get an annual tune up by a trained professional or do it yourself(it will take several hours though)

If you do these things then you will have a product that lasts a long time. We even went as far as to buy a waste oil centrifuge to make sure I am getting all the moisture and dirt out.

End result is I have gotten a bunch of e-mails asking if this device is really worth the price.

I will let you answer that question. If you are talking about oil filled radiators, I would more than likely no, but, with these things I'm sure you can see that its very hard NOT to get your money back.

Hopefully this question has been answered and if you are not the phone to the nearest distributor of these awesome gadgets then you are missing out.

Centrifuges Can Save Your Oil Burner

The best way to ensure that your waste oil burner will last a long time is to not only clean it quarterly and annually but to filter all the used motor oil going into it.

Keep in mind that this type of boiler is made to burn waste oil for fuel but you want the best quality motor oil going into it as you possibly can. This seems to be the major obstacle of most quick lubes purchasing these machines. Their employees never seem to care about filtering the oil, at all, and seem to have no qualm about adding oil with coolant and water (an absolute "no no") to this really expensive boiler.

The best way to ensure that the purest oil is going into your waste oil burner is to put the used motor oil through a centrifuge. You can suck the oil from a tank, put it through several different filters which take forever, than put it into the final holding tank to be used but this method takes an incredible amount of time. If something gets plugged, the filter or the hose, it can create a huge mess. I have done this many times!

A centrifuge is a round device that uses the sedimentation principal, where the centripetal acceleration causes the heavier particles in any fluid or substance to move out along the radial direction (to the bottom) and allows the lighter particles to move to the top or center. Basically a waste oil centrifuge will spin all the crap out leaving you will almost pure motor oil without any garage in it. This is the absolute best way to clean any waste oil you receive. It will guarantee that you are putting the very best fuel in your several thousand dollar piece of machinery.

Fueling Your Oil Burner

Before you ever purchase any waste oil burner you need to make certain that you are going to have the proper supply to fuel it. This machine can only save you thousands if its actually running.

Like I have stated I own a mobile fleet maintenance company. I actually generated way more waste oil than I need throughout the year. During the winter I put my garage at 80 degrees just so I can burn more oil and free up some space.

I was able to get a lot of nice 250 gallon totes from Craigslist, Ebay, and various tire shops. You can usually get for $50-$100 a piece. Depending on who you get them for you can get them for free half the time.


Oil is never an issue with me. I can go out at 9AM in the morning and when I get back at 4PM in the afternoon I can have several fifteen gallon containers filled with waste oil.




Honestly my point is really not to brag here. That is really far from what I am trying to accomplish. I am trying to drive home a point that unless you own or run an oil change establishment or business you need to have your waste oil needs in mind so you can actually have something to fuel and run your oil burner.

I would highly suggest you talking with a tire shop or several mechanic shops and asking if you could pick up their used oil. Many of them will readily say yes. You can even offer to supply them with a 250 gallon tote and tell them that you will come monthly to suck it out. There are also transmission shops that you can talk to. Transmission oil is actually the best type of substance you can put into your oil burner but its hard to get a hold of. Vegetable oil will work as well.

So the moral of this story is...have your supply firmly in place before you actually purchase your machine. Believe me when I say that this will save you a lot of headaches.

Waste Oil Burner Can Save You Thousands

If you want to eliminate a utility bill from your budget I would highly recommend getting a waste oil burner. They have the potential to save you thousands of dollars per month.

Since I have purchased my black gold waste oil boiler I have saved on average $300 per month in heating costs. Keep in mind two things as well. Before I bought that machine I used to put the house at 65 during the winter sometimes lower to conserve heat. In addition, that $300 a month average was before I built a two story 1,500 square foot garage adjacent to my home to keep my mobile oil change business, my carpet cleaning business, and my boy's lawn care equipment.

Currently I keep my garage at 74 degrees and I keep my home at 72 degrees respectively. The only thing I pay Enstar is a $9 hook-up fee to have natural gas in case something goes wrong with my oil burner and I need to revert back momentarily.

I have had my oil burner since August 2007. That's approximately 22 months of ownership. At the savings per month that I just stated my savings have been $6600. Keep in mind like I said that number was not factoring in how much my monthly bill would have been after you factor in my huge garage that ended up costing me $90,000 to build (never go with the cheapest contractors, but that's another story). My average month natural gas heating bill could have easily been $450 per month. So in reality I have saved $9900. That's astounding!

Its funny how it came to me one day. I have a mobile oil change company that I do with my partner. We generate tons of waste oil and usually had Emerald Alaska come by and pick it up once we had acquired 200 gallons or more. Anything less and we actually had to pay for the pick up. Every time they came they had this huge truck in my neighborhood and had to test each barrel for chlorine. It was a hassle because I was so paranoid my neighbors would complain because their truck was huge and made a lot of noise. Then I remembered a company called Ditch Witch, an equipment rental company, that had a waste "oil burner" they used to heat their entire shop. I then realized the I had the ability to eliminate my whole heating bill using a fuel source that I was getting for virtually nothing.

It was one of the best purchases that I had ever made. To this day I am pleased that I purchased an oil boiler. Its something that people in the right situation should highly think about.

As long as you filter the oil going into your waste oil boiler or furnace, change the burner nozzles, change the boiler or furnace filters, filter the oil going into it, then you will have a long lasting machine that will definitely pay you your money back plus a lot more.

Filtering Your Waste Oil

Filtering your waste oil is one of the biggest steps you can take to make sure your oil burner stays running properly. This aspect to owning one of these machines cannot be emphasized enough.

There are several quick lubes in my town alone that has bought a waste oil boiler and after several months had to get it removed and switch back to natural gas because it broke down so much. The reason why is simple. The managers and employees did not care at all about maintaining the equipment. And it all started with not filtering the oil.

You have to make certain that there is no water, antifreeze, chlorine, or much sludge in the oil. You cannot just dump oil that you got out of someone's car or truck into your tank. You have to have a process in place. Its not hard at all.

First, whenever you get a batch of oil you want to make sure you let it sit for several days. Two days is sufficient. The goal is to let all the contaminants settle to the bottom. After this "settling period" you can to take some sort of suction wand and suck the oil into a holding tank of some sort.

Now I have two holding tanks. I have several 250 gallon holding tanks in my garage that I house the oil in and I have the 200 gallon holding tank that is connected to the actual waste oil burner that came with it. When the holding tank connected to the actual boiler starts to get low than I suck more oil into it from my holding tanks in my garage.

The reason why I stated this is because when I transfer the waste oil from my two holding tanks I filter the oil through a 30 micron Dahl or Baldwin filter. This further cleans out my oil.

The quality of oil going into my boiler is as clean as it can possibly be for what it is. I go way beyond the call of duty when it comes to filtering. But it has paid off. It has never broken down once since I have owned it.

When you only put filtered clean waste oil into your boiler, regularly maintain it, do an annual cleaning on it you will have a smooth running machine that will not give you any problems at all.

The Search for Waste Oil

One of the most challenging aspects to owning a waste oil boiler is finding oil for it. Not everyone is going to have the luxury of owning a business that generates a lot of waste oil so being creative and resourceful is going to be necessary.

I have actually found that the challenge of finding oil is a fun one to have. That may sound funny but I love the challenge of solving problems. I would suggest looking at this problem the same way.

Here are some ideas on some waste oil fuel sources you will want to look at. I personally supplement my supply (we have 7 month winters where I live) by getting oil from a large local super tire store that also does oil changes. I also went to several aviation shops that work on small aircraft. Its hard at times to pump out that 50 weight oil but it works in the oil boiler just fine.

You can try going to several small but busy restaurants in the area and get a supply of vegetable oil. That fuel source works just fine in any waste oil burner. Its actually cleaner but you want to make sure that you filter it just the same. Its going to have a lot of debris in it that can really clog up your machine.

Transmission shops are another great place to get fuel for your boiler or waste oil furnace. That is actually the best type of fluid you can get. Its like gold! As long as you filtered it you could put transmission fluid in any diesel vehicle you own for fuel.

Any small to large mechanic shop will be more than happy to give you their oil. Its a pain to get rid of if you do not own a machine to burn it. They usually will get it picked up. A lot of companies pay for it but its not a lot. Talk to any foreman and I guarantee he will give you a 55 gallon drum of waste oil for $5 or most likely for nothing to take it off his hands.

There are tons of places to get a good supply. You just have to look for it. The possibilities are endless. All our cars, trucks, generators, construction equipment, and general machines are being lubricated by oil. That oil has to be changed sometime. And its going to be stored somewhere. You just have to find out where it is and get it.