Oil Burners

[Fla._Deadheader]

  Guy on the Biodiesel Forum, has installed and just reported on his Kuma Oil Burner. Says he gets 6 hours on 1 gallon of fuel. Wants to use Bio fuels and will update reports, if anyone is interested.

  It's a 35000 BTU Model, I believe.

[Beweller]

He is for sure not getting 35,000 Btu/hr from 1 gallon per six hours.  At 100 percent efficiency, more like half of that.

[farmerdoug]

That seems like getting heat from nothing.  I will have to check it out. 

Farmerdoug

[Fla._Deadheader]

If ya wanna split hairs, FINE.  I'm not posting anything else

[Radar67]

The particular stove listed is rated at .25 gallons per hour for 35,000 btu (81% efficiency). Here is the site http://www.kumastoves.com/oil_stoves check out the arctic 8. So, at 6 hours, the fuel consumption would be 1.5 gallons at maximum.

FDH, keep on posting, you have never steered any of us wrong.  8)

[farmerdoug]

FD,

I was not doubting you, just the guy's claims.  6*35000=210000 BTUs.  Just do not see how he can get that much heat from a gallon of fuel oil.  Maybe there was something else added to the fuel. ???  Just because he run a 35000 BTU heater for an 6 hours on a gallon of fuel does not mean he was getting 35000 btus/hour out of the furnace.  It is kind of like the claims that a guy invented a carb that would get an 100 MPG on a common car of days of old.  There is not enough energy in a simple burning reaction to do it.

Farmerdoug

[Deadwood]

I agree with FarmerDoug on this, there are only 139,000 BTU's in a gallon of #2 Fuel Oil so I am not sure how he can obtain 210,000 BTU's from his boiler or furnace or whatever? I was under the assumption that biofuel had less BTU's, but I may be wrong on that.

The only thing I can think of is that this guy is not factoring in the cycle times of his boiler. For the last two days my boiler has been churning out steady to try and heat my radiant floor heating system, but while it has been running steady, the boiler has been modulating in and out. In other words, its been heating my fllor steady, but it has not been burning steady for the last two days.

To be perfectly honest with you, oil burners are not the best way to maximize the most BTU's for the money. The problem with oil burners is that the flame level can only be turned down so low before the injector starts sooting up. Propane or natural gas do better because you turn the flame down to next to nothing without soot build up. Its one of the reasons I went with propane instead of an oil burner for what its worth.

[D._Frederick]

Propane here in the NW is much more costly than than No. 2 diesel, it must be cheaper where you are.

[OneWithWood]

I fire our Central boiler using B100.  It is true that there are slightly less BTUs than #2 diesel.  I am using a standard Suntec burner.  I had to up the air pressure slightly and increase the jet size to get the proper atomization for a good clean burn.  Also needed to heat the tank and fuel lines due to the higher gel point.  We accomplished that by winding a hot water line around the tank and insulating it (the tank sits in the smaller greenhouse), running hose-on-hose to the boiler and then putting a ceramic heater in the gun.
Heats up the water just fine.

Harold, check out altfuelfurnace.com