Waste oil heating can be a great solution for those who have an easy supply of free waste oil available, but if you are going to have to pay for transportation costs or have to purchase the waste oil it may not be as economical as some other heating sources, such as wood.

A survey of a lot of waste oil heater owners about how much waste oil they really use shows that a waste oil heater can burn through quite a bit of oil on a daily basis. One customer who uses a 260 BTU unit at his shop stated that it goes through about 40 gallons a day. For him, the oil was free, and he stated that it was quite easy and free and that the main consideration was making sure that the filters were kept clean and that he kept an eye on all the gauges to make sure nothing was out of order.

Another user of a Lenair waste oil heater who had a 300K BTU unit in his shop stated that his waste oil heater burned on average 2-4 gallons an hour. In the end, he decided that natural gas was an easier heating source. For him, the costs involved in acquiring waste oil actually exceeded natural gas in his area.

Of course, how much waste oil you burn through is largely dependent on how cold it is your area and how much you need to use your heater. Another owner stated that he used a waste oil furnace to heat a shop of 80×250 ft, and although he agreed that a unit “can” use up to 20-30 gallons of oil a day if you are using it consistently, his company rarely needed to use it more than 20 minutes at a time to heat the work space. In the end, he estimates it saves his company nearly $8,000 a year in heating costs.

In our survey, we found that many business that had oil surplus benefited the most from having a waste oil heater in their work shop space. A lot of these businesses were car repair shops and similar, where oil from oil changes and engine repairs were stored in a tank throughout the year, and then burned during the colder months. We found far fewer people using these units for residential heating costs.

If you are interested in purchasing the Eliminator, you can find the current models at a very reasonable price at Amazon.com:

Current models burn about 4/5 of a gallon of waste oil per hour and are very easy to maintain. It weighs about 250 pounds, and the units dimensions are 30 x 23 x 42. Currently it costs under $2500. Given what you can save annually compared to standard heating costs, this unit can easily pay for itself in under a year.

Thank you for visiting the Waste Oil Heaters site!

How many times have you seriously thought that you were going to end up with something that is much worse in terms of cost and maintenance then if you had not purchased it? The main thing that you need to realize when it comes to waste oil burners is that you are likely going to need to clean out this heating unit a bit more often than you would do with a normal furnace. The only way that it would not be that safe is if you do not bother to have the unit cleaned regularly.

If you are thinking that you are going to have a huge fire hazard on your hand because you have decided to switch to used oil heaters instead of the conventional clean oil furnaces that everyone else around you seems to have. What you might not yet realize is that the used oil that you are getting and using has to be cleaned in certain ways so that it meets with certain environmental standards wherever you happen to live.

The fact that you are able to use used vegetable and motor oils in used oil heaters is actually a blessing in more ways than just one. Not only is that used oil getting used for a second time which is the ultimate form of recycling but you are also benefiting by the fact that you are paying little to nothing for your fuel supply. The only thing that you will be paying a good chunk of change for here is the purchase of the waste oil heating unit itself. This is something that is actually going to pay for itself in the amount of money that you will be saving compared to having to buy regular clean oil that is so blasted expensive these days.

This has been getting a little bit away from the original topic concerning the question about the true safety of waste oil heaters though. You might be thinking that because of the fact that the oil that it is using is used may cause some additional hazard in terms of burning or smoking. If this is your concern, you might want to speak with those in charge at oil recyclers in your local area. They can give you all of the information that you need so that you can make the decision that is right for you.

The types of used oil that can be used in waste oil heaters varies, but used automotive oil or food oil are two popular sources. If you are talking about the heat that these heaters will project, it is about 140,000 BTU. This is the same heating value as new oil.

So you can see right off the bat why waste oil heaters would be a big benefit. Depending on what you are looking for, waste oil heaters can be a bit expensive, but you can generally recoup the cost of your waste oil heater in under two years. Another options it to try building your own, but this may be a bit risky. The EPA has strict rules about these types of heaters and it is probably best to purchase one that conforms to those standards.

Waste oil heaters are not new, but they have grown in popularity over the last several years.  It goes without saying that in this day of high heating prices, using a waste oil heater for all of your heating needs is a smart choice.