Quick Change Oil Fiasco

Well maybe, but this guy is just himself and two or three
mechanics/assistants. It is hardly a big operation.

 

Well, my independent mechanic doesn't add a charge to my bill for it
so it isn't required by law. It may cost him money to comply with
various environmental laws but it also costs him money for lights and
water and those aren't add-on items on the bill either.

 

I would question why they use a tool to mount the filter. I've been hand
tightening filters for many years, and hundreds of thousands of miles, with
no problems. Hand tightening also means you can loosen the filter by hand
when the time comes to change the oil.

 

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_586_586
$2199 for 120,000 BTU. That's probably not "home use". ;-)

I recall the local garage having a 55 gallon drum on its side, with a layer
of sand in the bottom. Waste oil dripped into the sand from a crimped
piece of copper tubing. That burned a slow flame. The whole drum was hot.
There was a 4" vent pipe attached to the drum.


http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me4.html
$36.14, 21,000 BTU, using an old electric water heater.

 

The problem with this design is that it doesn't have a safety valve, to shut
off the oil flow in the event that the flame goes out. Where I live there
are seasonal winds, March usually, that are strong enough to suck the pilot
light out on my gas furnace and parlor stove. This is going down a two
story brick chimney too. This stove is basically the equivalent of those
gravity fed kerosene space heaters, that used to be all over the Northeast
U. S. of A. Most of them were replaced after the burners rusted out, but a
good number were responsible for houses burning down, trailers exploding,
suffocation, third degree burns and other mayhem.

There aren't that many of these Mother Earth stoves, not nearly as many as
there were kerosene fed space heaters in this country. That and the laws of
statistics are the only things explaining why no one has been blown off the
face of the planet with one. Do you really want to be the first? No matter
how hot that flame looks, it can go out. People didn't think that gravity
feed kerosene space heaters could go out either. Many suffered an excessive
flow of oil, that simply drowned the flame. Think about it.

It needs an overheat cutoff too.

Earle

 

Blown off the face of the earth by an extinguished flame, and a continuing
flow of 1GPM of oil? A mess perhaps, but where's the explosion?

 

"I recall the local garage having a 55 gallon drum on its side, with a
layer
of sand in the bottom. Waste oil dripped into the sand from a crimped
piece of copper tubing. That burned a slow flame. The whole drum was
hot.
There was a 4" vent pipe attached to the drum."

Really old oil stoves were called "pot burners" cause the oil dripped
into a pot like container in the middle of the stove and burned.
Supposedly very efficient - nice to hear some enterprising mechanics
have come up with this design. Way cheaper than burning natural or
propane gas.

 

Another one who doesn't believe in statistics. This is all unlikely, but
tell that to one of the families that was incinerated, suffocated or blown
to kingdom come in the northeast, during the fifties, by an old pot burner
stove. Unlikely is not the same as "does not happen". Imagine that the oil
valve controlling 1 gpm is somehow disturbed, enough to deliver, say, 2 gpm.
This has the eventual effect of drowning the fire, while the oil still keeps
dripping. Everyone is asleep, and 12 gallons goes all over the furnace
room, living room, or kitchen while the family enjoys six hours of
well-deserved sleep. A gas pilot light, other wood or oil source of heat,
electric spark, or anything really can ignite it. If it happens during the
first hour or so, while the burner is still hot, you are dealing with a
roomful of flammable oil vapor, something more sinister than a "mess".

It needs a high temperature cutoff, too, to shut off the oil flow in case
the room is engulfed in flames. That is a little easier to design than the
shutoff for the flame going out. I didn't see either in the Mother Earth
plans. There is more than one reason that the commercial burner costs more
than $36.

Earle

 

I asked where the explosion would come from.
I didn't think of used motor oil as being explosively ignitable in the same
sense as other fuels, but I'll take your word for it. I thought that was
one of the attractions of waste oil, or the diesel heater that I used to
have at home, gravity fed from an above ground tank outside.

Of course there were a lot of dangerous things done in the past, and the
statistics are what let people feel safe enough to keep doing it. Or
maybe the cost causes them to put up with the danger.

A guy I know has no qualms about extinguishing a cigarette in an open pan
of gasoline... he hasn't blown up yet, so that must be safe... ;-)