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Thread: Anyone Doing Co gen or alternative home heating?

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    Default Anyone Doing Co gen or alternative home heating?

    As this is a Technology forum, I'm wondering if anyone here does any sort of Co gen/ Tri gen or alternative home heating?

    I'm in the process ( a bit late) of setting up a home heating system which will use waste Oil, mostly Veg, as the fuel source. I have done a lot of Veg oil burners but I am having a bit of trouble building something that will go down to about 10Kwh or 1L of oil an hour which is about all I will need. I can build Burners that do 600 Kw and 1000 Kw all day long, they are easy, but something small is far more of a challenge.

    I am thinking to heat a gas water heater so I have some heat energy storage so I can shut the thing down at night and then be able to have heat of a morning when we get up without having to go fire the burner again. I'd use a small pump to circulate the water through a car heater core and duct the hot air into the house.
    If I attached a 400L water heater to the gas heater as a storage I could easily have 30Kwh of heat capacity which would be decent.

    Waste oil is very energy dense. 10Kwh is only 1 Litre of Oil an hour. 10Kwh of electricity is a lot and with the 22 KWh of solar panels I have now I'm flat out generating that in winter. it's also a pretty decent generator setup and one would want a 20Hp engine to provide that to put it into perspective.
    I forget the comparison of wood to Oil but from memory it's about half of that of Liquid fuels.
    My father has a medium size slow combustion heater and that is only rated to 12 Kwh flat out.

    I have been looking at a Co gen setup as well. An engine that drives a generator and the normally wasted heat is used to warm the house. I have a couple of watercooled small Diesels but I think The Single Cylinder 12 Hp Kubota would be too Noisy and my 6 Hp Lister clone has a bad balance problem that makes it pull anchor bolts out of concrete. Fixing that is going to be a major job even though I have read up on it. If I could find another genuine Lister or even a small 3 Cyl Kubota at the right price, I'd jump on it.

    I have a couple of 3 Phase induction motors I could grid connect and backfeed which would also allow me to run more free heating and complement the solar Dropoff.
    I could hook an engine up to them in the shed and just back feed the power without using the heat and use that to run the AC. Not as efficient but may be more practical. When using free, waste fuel, efficiency isn't as important as when one pays for fuel.

    Does anyone else use any alternative generation or heating methods?



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    I am curious, where do you get all the veggie waste oil from?
    Even with a minimal system, 24 litre every day is still a lot of chips to fry.

    You would need something that controls the oil flow like this:

    They come in higher ratings too:


    I used oil heaters in the 70's and 80's in Europe that had these controllers.
    A side tank, gravity fed with 10 litre of oil could run for 24 hours on a lower setting.

    These heaters are rare these days so the part is hard to find and expensive even second hand
    Never seen anything like them in Australia.
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    I wonder if one of those old Vulcan built in oil heaters would work on vegetable oil? I guess you’d need to remove any suspended gunk, or it would build up in the heater over time.

    The oil heaters were very popular in Tasmania in the late 60s and the early 70s and seem to last forever. A friend still has one and uses it every Winter, They throw out heaps of radiant heat as well as hot air and are very quiet. The only reason people seem to get rid of them is “oil has gotten too expensive”.

    Google “Vulcan Oil Heater” and you’ll see heaps of photos and articles.

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    Get it from Pubs, clubs, Restaurants, takeaways.
    I used to have a supply that gave it to me in 1000L IBC's that came from the cruise ships. Best oil I ever got. They forked it into my trailer and I pumped it straight out into my processor to Clean and dry it ( was using that to run my vehicle on) and then into my storage IBC's.

    For burner use I just give it a strain though some felt to get all the crumbs out or pump it straight from one of my settling tanks and that's plenty clean enough. Just don't want it to block the pump I use to feed the burners. I use the worst oil for the burners and the good oil in the engines.
    I Picked up about 200L in tins this morning from a take away. Not my favourite way to get it as the drums are never full and then you have to crush and get rid of them but it gives me a chance to go visit the scrappy to get rid of them and see if they have any solar panels or other goodies they give me in return.

    I have a setup with a Pump I made myself using a small Block Chev oil pump and a 300W scooter motor. Does about 80L Min which is faster than any electric pump I have seen on oil. I use the pump to suck the oil out of the 200L drums or tanks a lot of places put their oil in. That is attached to a drum I have in the back of the 4WD or ute. Take it home, reverse the pump polarity and pump it out into the Ibc I settle the oil in. Also have a couple of 200L Drums plumbed together for when I go see some of my suppliers farther afield so I don't have to come back.

    It's a good lazy mans sport because the longer you leave the oil the more the crap and water settles out and the less work you have to do filtering and drying it. I like to leave it about 6 months minimum. I then pump it out into the Processor I made which filters and Dries the oil at the same time. Does about 200L in about 30 Min on average depending on when you do it and the quality of the oil. I usually do about 3 batches a year of around 1500-2000L at a time. I can do 2000L in a weekend pretty easy while I'm doing other things. Just load the processor, let it go, come back, pump out the clean oil and reload and set going again. Last time I calculated cost me less than 1C per litre to process. Might cost 2C a litre now but given I make power with the solar for nothing, it's real cost is probably less. Only other expense is change the 5 Um filter about every 2500-3500L depending on what I have put through it that presently costs me $8 ea.

    It was some years ago now, but one year when a Mate and I were making Biodiesel, I picked up 14,000L of oil in total. Sounds a lot but between all his, kids, and my vehicles and engines, it wasn't enough and mate was putting in a fair bit too. We would spend a Saturday about every 4-5 weeks and make 1500L of Bio and 1000L of straight oil for him about every 2nd Cook up.

    I run my generators and Tractor on oil as well. It's a fantastic energy source but only enough for a few ( relatively) nutters like me. Most people don't want to get their hands dirty with it though or put in the bit of work processing it. It will be 19 Years I have been running things on Veg this year.
    Been told a million times it will wreck your engine but the only engine failure I have ever had was clearly mechanical and the irony was after a big trip interstate, I had run out of processed oil and had a tank of Diesel in the thing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by shred View Post
    I wonder if one of those old Vulcan built in oil heaters would work on vegetable oil?
    I know what you are talking about exactly. Had one when I was a kid.
    They don't actually run on oil as such, they run on Diesel. It's not road taxed or at least wasn't, don't know if you can even still get it now. Truck would come round and top up a tank on the side of the house.

    In answer to the question, No, they wont run on Veg or engine oil.
    A simple test to see the difference is get a spoon or whatever, fill it with Diesel, petrol, kero, turps etc and put it over a blow torch. It will burn away with zero Residue and do it easily. If you do that with Veg, you get a crusty sludge at first which will turn to a hard carbon and then if you keep the heat on you get a fine ash much like wood burns to charcoal and then ash. I guess Veg does about 2-3% by volume in the first phase where it stops burning. Waste engine oil leaves far more deposits and I'd guess that's more like 8-10%. People have tried veg and WMO in these heaters even thinning it with various solvents like Diesel and kero but they block up and die too quick to make them Viable.

    The reason Veg works in Vehicles is I believe because the oil is sprayed in and burnt and the ahs is exhausted. One does have to be careful though. If one over fuels the engine on WVO or WMO, they will sludge up over time with the main thing being sticking rings that get coked up and the engine loses compression and it's an escalating effect. Learnt the hard way on that with a little 405 Peugeot I dialed right up and modified the Turbo with. Thing was a sling shot BUT, started going down Hill. Lucky I caught it in time and fitted a DIY water injection system. This cleaned the thing out over Driving it several months ( and turning the fuelling down for a while) and the thing ended up better by far than when I got it.

    Ever since then I have had water injection on every vehicle I have had. I can fuel the things up wherever I want and it lets me get away with it where an engine without the WI could coke up in months. I also can add up to 50% Methanol/ ethanol and that at the rate I inject it is worth a good 20HP which on my old truck you can really feel and makes the thing a riot to drive. It also seems to greatly help in the cleaning process even beyond what the water does. I have not reached a conclusion as to why as yet but I know as sure as sunrise it does make a big contribution to the cleaning and performance of the engine even after the WI is switchd off.

    On my stationary engines I have a simple drip or pulsed pump feed to them . As this is for cleaning purposes mainly, even on the truck the WI does not need to be pumped in at 200PSI in a microfine mist like all the $1000 Commercial systems go on about. I use a Caravan type water pumps and a bit of flattened copper tube for a restriction more than a nozzle to give me the water flow I want ( around 3-400Ml min on a 3-4L engine) and the air flow and running past hot valves in the engine does the rest.

    There are a newish type of diesel heater on the market now based on the formerly priced to Kill Webasto type heaters for caravans and RV's.
    I have been looking at them as a fall back as they offer a lot of advantages in their functionality. Even running on Diesel, They are still much more economical for the amount of heat they put out than electricity. I pay around .30C for a KWH of power. a litre of Diesel, lets call it $1.20 although it's cheaper of late, puts out 10Kwh of heat. Call it 8 as these heaters are pretty efficient but not totally and that's what the numbers add up to.

    $1.20 for diesel / 8 Kwh is .15C Kwh. Half my electricity cost. If I break that down with some oil to 50%, then I'm down to 7.5C Kwh. I could also make some low conversion Biodiesel which I think would come out at around .40L a litre atm so would be cheaper still and I could break that down at least another 25% with some straight oil . They will run straight oil after start and warm up on Diesel but I do believe long term they will clag. A guy I have been talking to in Ireland that is testing them has so found the water injection is a bit difficult with the way these things are set up as you can't really feed it in the air intake as it does not end up where you want it and putting water in the fuel/ oil is problematic with the blending and requires a surfactant that leaves residue itself when burnt.
    Guy has also been doing petrol Blends and although I have used that for years in engines, It's pretty much taboo with burners for me.

    I'm always wary putting an aromatic in a burner can evaporate out and go bang where as that just can't happen with an oil.

    It should be possible to get a season out of running oil in these heaters but I would start at 50% or make some Bio to start with and go from there.

    The other thing I'm thinking is to see if I can get a higher enough pressure Fish tank or septic blower/ Comnpressor and use a stray system. Definately my least favoured burner style but may work.
    I have some pipe I'm going to weld up a small burner from and see if I can make that work. The key with the blown air type is heat retention so maybe using some pearlite or vemiculite around it as insulation may help it stay hot. Air preheat ( everyone does oil preheat which is useless) would also be a big help.

    I have done a design that works on this principal but I got carried away and it will be much better at 200 Kw than it will be at 2. I'll test it and if the big one works I can downsize it. For reference, the boiler in the average council 50M Olympic pool uses a 200kw heater. Your home spa would do about 3KW on single phase, same as your water heater.

    Burning a litre of oil a minute , 600Kw, is a cinch. Burning 1L of oil an hour isn't so easy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by shred View Post
    I wonder if one of those old Vulcan built in oil heaters would work on vegetable oil? I guess you’d need to remove any suspended gunk, or it would build up in the heater over time.

    The oil heaters were very popular in Tasmania in the late 60s and the early 70s and seem to last forever. A friend still has one and uses it every Winter, They throw out heaps of radiant heat as well as hot air and are very quiet. The only reason people seem to get rid of them is “oil has gotten too expensive”.

    Google “Vulcan Oil Heater” and you’ll see heaps of photos and articles.
    god i hated those vulcan heaters when i was a kid when we got a gas heater it was the best.

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    Quote Originally Posted by george65 View Post
    Burning 1L of oil an hour isn't so easy.


    Ok, I will try to explain how those low combustion oil heaters work I mentioned above but it is well over 30 years since I have used and seen them so I can't remember exact details.

    This is just to give you maybe an idea for a different approach.
    There are no blowers, pumps and injectors to clog up.

    Basically you are burning oil like on a frying pan that was heated up too high, only regulated.
    The burner is just a cylinder (but I have also seen rectangular) with a metal plate on the bottom and has second plate formed like a ring that is held up with a cylindrical separator at a certain distance(maybe 10-20cm) higher, that has holes on the sides for the airflow.
    The air flows down from the top along the sides inside the burner(I don't know it it had guides) and back up with the flames through the ring. The flue is horizontal out the back.
    The oil just trickles through the regulator that ensures constant precise oil flow onto the centre of bottom plate. It may be slightly tilted for that as the oil seem to come from one side that was covered.
    To start it you need something like a charcoal barbecue starter block(maybe cut in flat pieces) that you throw in from the top after the plate is a bit wet from the oil, it must not be flooding. There is no opening in the side of the oven. Everything is accessed from the top. We had something like flat wax sticks that you would ignite and throw in.
    The oil just burns on this plate and will eventually soot up, but this does not matter much as a sooty plate actually provides more surface for the oil to evaporate and burn, maybe a bit like a wick, I don't know.
    Only when it is sooted up so bad that the flames are always yellow, even when turned down, we would chuck in a burner cleaner sachet that would burn out the soot, so you would never have to turn off the oven. They take a while to start and you should never restart a hot oven.

    As they were designed for diesel oil they might be a lot harder to start with veg oil with it's higher flame point but once the plate is hot enough I don't see why it can not work.

    Despite the simplicity of the system, getting this right might take a lot of experimentation and engineering.
    Building your own oil flow regulator might be tricky. They are talking about 3-8 millilitres a minute, shouldn't be too hard maybe by keep filling a small volume of oil that is gravity fed onto the burner plate using an old carbi with float and an adjustable valve after that.

    As said this just an idea.
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    That sort of burner I am not familiar with but the concept is interesting.

    Thinking about this gave me an idea last night so I did a rough sketch of a design I had in my head so I wouldn't forget it time I got up and went out and built the thing this morning.
    I Call it the L burner because that's that it is. Got a length on 40MM Sq tube, cut a V out with the plasma, bent it back together at a Right angle and stitched it up with the MIG.
    Plated off the open end, cut a 3/4 Hole in the top and roughed out some holes in the upright section for secondary air.

    For Draft for Testing I got a bit of 40mm round tube about 1.5M Long and tacked that on the top of the upright of the sq tube. Bit of scrap sq tube tacked on the bottom for stability and Done. Put in a bit of diesel, bit of soaked rag in the hole, lit it, off it went like a champion. Little fine tuning with the air inlet and the flue for dampening and good as gold. Once it got a bit warmed up I pumped in some veg and it went seamlessly. Thing burns clean once tuned with little to no smoke at all.

    Only problem is.,... It works Too Well. Thing kicks out some awesome heat! Seriously thinking to use it for a Heater for the back verandah and build another smaller burner for the water heater. I think this one is going to be too powerful as well but I'll see how it goes when I stick the gas water heater on top. The vent through that is a far bit smaller than the one I'm using now so that should slow it a bit. Taking down the Primary air inlet will slow it as well. It throws off a lot of heat now so should retain enough with the water heater and less air. I can also slow it down by reducing the draft. I can also put a sealed flue on the heater to draw more air though if it needs it and I was also thinking I could put another heater on top of the first one so I double my heating ability and get max efficiency. Reverse Flow so the coldest water gets the Coldest gas from the top and plumb that down into the top of the bottom heater and the water out from the bottom where the highest heat from the burner will be.

    Only ran the thing a few hours this afternoon but I'm really pleased with this design. With a metered oil supply it could be left alone to run all day. Only mod I'm thinking so far is a small hole at the back on the bottom piece to allow the flame to carry through to the vertical section better. I was also going to add more secondary air holes but i'll wait till I get it under the heater as I predict a lower burn rate and therefore the air requirement won't be as much.

    I'm thinking to upsize one of these for a spa heater. I could do a tube in tube piece for a HE and build that on as one piece to the burner. I'll test this one I have done and see what sort of power I can get from it flat out. The proper Finned HE I have may be more efficient but if I put some disruptors in the one I built to break up the boundary gas layers might be OK anyhow.

    Other option I am thinking about for the home heater is rather than a steady burn, I could do batch Burns. Run the thing at say 100Kw as I have a couple of proper 200Kw heat exchangers, heat up a couple of large water heaters to store the energy and shut down after they are up to temp.
    If I take the water to 80oC and bring it down to 20, that's 55kwh of heat energy in 400L of water. Should be more than enough for a day.

    This may be the better long term solution actually. I have just got a spa that holds about 2000L of water. I can heat that up nice and quick with a 100Kw burner which I will set up anyway and could use that as heat storage although I'm not sure how hot I can take it without damage to the structure.
    2000L from 60oC to 20oC is about 90 Kwh but not sure how well insulated the spa is. Could probably wrap the whole thing in a couple of layers of tarp which would help to trap the surrounding air.

    Think Ill go bring the L burner down and set it up on the back verandah and see how well it works at night.

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    Just came in from a few hours out on the verandah with the new Burner. Luvvverly! Runs perfect and puts out loads of heat or is happy to be dialed Down. I think this thing will do what I want with the water heater Very well but I think the design could be applied to a lot more things. Mrs came out and saw it going and seemed impressed apart from the looks of the rusty Flue Pipe. Said I could get some other pipe and paint it with stove black and seemed happy with that. Went inside then brought out a nice stew for Dinner and we sat there in front of the fire on the verandah Quite cosy enjoying ourselves.

    She wants one now for the verandah and suggested making it like a pot belly to Radiate the heat better. Excellent Idea!
    I can get a 9 KG BBQ bottle and do a reverse flow flu into that with the heat directed to the front to make that glow red and radiate the warmth. Could also use some rectangular section thick wall I have up the back and use that for a hotplate for putting a kettle on or cooking on.

    I have done these draft heaters before out of old pots but this works fantastic. The oil consumption appears to be in the ball park although the output could be cranked up significantly even from this fairly compact design.

    Tomorrow I'll see if I have time to fit the burner to the water heater and see how that goes.

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    Interesting thread - I just paid my gas heating bill.. Gas is meant to be cheap.. My arse!!

    I have access to megalitres of veg oil, a mate drives a truck picking up veg/waste Oil in Melbourne suburbs..

    Time to have a chat with him about dropping a barrel off to me so I can build something to heat up the verandah.. Do you have a pic George ?

    Lets see if I can heat up the verandah without blowing something up... Nah, I can't blow shit up. it's only oil. lol

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    There is a LOT of energy in Liquid fuels. Any liquid pretty much, not a lot of difference between them. Little less in Veg against Diesel, little more in WMO.
    I prefer Veg because it does not stink and is easy to clean up compared to engine oil. If you spill enough on the grass it will kill it by suffocation but then it will break down and you get a greener spot.

    Amazing the Fktards that go off their tits the second you mention burning oil. Must be the same as BLM protestors whom haven't a clue about the facts

    Oil is very safe in comparison. the only thing you have to worry about is the smoke/ Vapor. That is in fact gas and it will light with a satisfying pop. Most people don't realise an explosion has to be a containment. When you have something with holes in it, You are going to need something like Dynamite or C4 to get anything more than a pop out of it. That said, You wouldn't catch me with petrol within 20M of any burners. It can still only pop but it pops well enough to require a change of shorts and an explanation to the cops of fire brigade.

    The key to oil burners like this or any non spray type ( which I think are a wank) it retained heat. Liquid oil will NOT burn. You have to heat it to induce a phase change so it turns to a Vapour/ gas which is what does burn. That is the whole key to burning oil and it is what spray burners do by atomising the droplets so they phase change in the atmosphere.

    I used thick wall pipe in this design on purpose so it radiates heat from the surfaces the flame impinges on back down into the oil pool. If you can see red somewhere on the burner you are doing well although that is not necessarily needed but a good sign. Also if you have any metal glowing red, it's past the point where the carbon will burn off so the thing will be clean and not clag up. that said there may still be some ash deposits so I will build these burners so they can be removed from the flue for clean out.
    A hand full of gravel thrown in and shaken about does a good job.

    For a Verandah heater I thought of Getting a 44 and cutting one side out so the Drum acts like a reflector and throws more heat forward. Could also put a small fan behind the burner to push warm air.
    For people heating I would put the secondary air holes to the back because the incoming air pushes the flame the opposite Direction and the back is the hotter side in this setup.

    Won't matter for what I want this for but if I do another I'll make that change.






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    george65, thoroughly enjoyed the posts
    Plasma cutter, mig welder, i wish
    Last edited by allover; 10-06-20 at 07:24 PM.
    There is a fine line between "Hobby" and "Madness"

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    Quote Originally Posted by allover View Post
    Plasma cutter, mig welder, i wish
    They aren't that expensive these days. I just bought Dad a new MIG couple of weeks ago for $400 and it's a Good Italian Made Unimig, same as my Plasma. It was a discontinued model but the new one will be in 18 Months too. :0)

    Mates have some Chinese MIGs and Plasma's and the times I have used them they seem OK. I also noticed there are a fair few on Gumtree and market place that go pretty cheap as well.

    Next think I want is a metal band saw. I have a metal cut off saw but it's a pain. Other thing I have wanted for a long time is a drill press but it's one of those things I wouldn't use enough to really forking out for a new one and all the cheap ones I have seen are tiny weak things that look like they would be best used for Jewellery or something.

    If you want a MIG or a Plasma, keep your eye out on the classifieds. There seem to be plenty around.

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    Just came in from another fire up. Geez I'm impressed with this thing!
    I haven't put the water heater on it but I set up the timer for the pulse pump. Took next to no dialling in. Got the thing going and purposefully overfueled it a bit to get it hot. This makes it smoke which is a Visual indication the thing is rich and you know where it is at instead of Guessing. Sometimes it can be hard to know where you are at with the things but if you have them smoking you can just dial back the fuel till they run clean and then make sure they sustain and that is it.

    I set the timer to 1 second on every 15. That was fine, plenty of heat. Ran it at 2 sec every 20 and had it going for a couple of hours like that. Purred like a Kitten. In fact when I went back out the cats were sitting round the thing watching it very contented.
    I then dialled it back to 1 sec on every 20 and it ran at that for an hour as well. At that rate, I reckon I'm in the 10 KW ball park.

    The other thought with this was using it for keeping the Soon to be arriving frost off some of my plants. If I sat it in the garden, it may radiate well enough, especially if I put a fan blowing on it, to keep the frost off. I don't think it would need to do a lot of heat actually, any warmth will probably be enough. If I could run the thing all night on 10-15L of oil, that would be good.

    The Mrs came home and came out knowing where to find me. She sat with me out the back and we had a nice conversation with a cat each cosied up. Something to be said for this just the last couple of nights. I dragged the thing right under the verandah. It's ventilated at the top and about 12 Ft at the peak so the exhaust gasses could get away but the timer makes it easy to dial the thing to run perfectly clean. From years of experience burning Veg, I know when the combustion is right. you can get a wiff of the flue gas and all you get is that nice warm air aroma. No smell at all. One reason I like Veg over WMO, that always smells like Chemicals no matter how well dialled in or excess air you are running. Burns a bit hotter but just not my favourite although I'll use it in a burner at a pinch.... or when someone arrives with a 60L drum of the Muck.

    I'm in a pickle now. Do I keep this one and do some mods to make it an outdoor heater or do I build another one for that and use this one for the water heater?
    Spose I could do a few refinements for the outdoor heater. I could set it up to do more heat output. Could also put a couple of touches on it like a Copper wetback with a tap to boil water for a Cuppa. Bend up some plate for a reflector at the back....

    Was also thinking today, this would make an excellent basis for a BBQ. I could either weld some channel along the bottom of some plate or do the flame coming straight up like a target top stove.

    Maybe I need to start producing these things? I see a guy on YT in the states seems to be flat out making his spray designs and from what I have seen on his website, he's charging a fortune.

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    Sorry if I've skipped over some points.
    I recently bought one of the cheap chinese diesel heaters.
    They claim 2-8kW, but reality is they are about 3kW output.
    A lot of people rave on about them and given them good reviews.
    They're ok, but I wouldn't believe half of the stuff people are saying.

    If you crank them full ball, they sound like a jet engine and will chew threw about 5 Litres of diesel in 12 hours and are capable of heating a caravan or a single room.

    Waste oil, It used to be easy to get hold of, people would pay you to take it away. Now it's the other way around, so if you can get oil for free, then that's a win.
    The problem with waste oil is that it isn't just oil. It's all the other shit that is floating in it.

    I first learned that you could use oil as a substitute for diesel when I was in East Timor. I didn't think it was possible but we had an old diesel generator which I could experiment on.
    I also had a friend who owned a restaurant so there was a good supply of oil. It was pretty obvious from the go that all the shit floating in it wasn't going to make it through the injectors let alone the fuel filter.

    So the first thing we did was try various filters. Old car and truck filters just clogged up. In the end we found that fly screen and ordinary paper towel were cheap and simple.
    That oil was then put into it's own fuel tank. Trying to run the generator on oil, yeah... that shit don't work real well. It took some mucking around to get it right.
    We used the exhaust from the generator and piped it through the oil fuel tank. When it's hot it flows a lot better and we would then switch from diesel to the oil and it would run ok.
    When the wanted to stop, we'd switch back to diesel and purge the injectors of oil and then shut it down. Not doing that would clog them and the fuel lines which sucked.

    So if I was going to try and use oil as a heater, I'd consider finding an old putt putt diesel preferably with a water jacket and I'd pipe the exhaust through the water if you were trying to heat it. Or if you wanted to heat air, put it all in it's own box and use the motor to power a fan which circulates air through the box while venting exhaust outside.

    I'm doing this with a slow combustion wood heater. It has it's own room with a flue and circulate air through that room to heat the bus.
    I have plenty of free wood so using that is clearly a heating cost advantage. The diesel heater is a convenience thing.
    Yes I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.

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    Quote Originally Posted by trash View Post

    If you crank them full ball, they sound like a jet engine and will chew threw about 5 Litres of diesel in 12 hours and are capable of heating a caravan or a single room.
    Interesting. I have watched a lot of vids and tests on these. Lot of different models and ratings even on the exact same units. What I have seen says they are all close to 5 KW if they are rated, 4,5 or 8kw.

    5L in 12 hours would work out at about 3KW output on one of these so your numbers add up.


    Waste oil, It used to be easy to get hold of, people would pay you to take it away. Now it's the other way around, so if you can get oil for free, then that's a win.
    Going back almost 20 years I have been in the greasy game, some people can get oil, some people can't, even in the same area's. I have never had much problem myself, even got supply's when traveling. I think tenacity and well used sales skills have served me well in my oily endeavors. I believe if you are serious enough, you will find it. I have been with a few people who complained they couldn't get oil, went out with them for an hour or 2 or 15 Min and got them a plentiful supply. The only time I found oil was in short supply was around the time of the China Olympics. Biodiesel was all the rage and the price of fuel went up and the cowboy collectors were out in force and telling lies and making threats to make sure they got it all. 3 Months later when the price dropped on the commodities market, restaurants couldn't get them to come for it. Man did I get some oil that year!


    The problem with waste oil is that it isn't just oil. It's all the other shit that is floating in it.
    Yep! I think a lot of diservice was done in the early days by the media. I have seen a number of news articles where people just pour as collected oil in their tanks through a Chux Cloth or an old T shirt. That is a recipie for endless problems and failure. Just as you wouldn't put fuel from a rusty old drum in your Vehicle or engine, pouring dirty oil in your tank is just asking for the same trouble.

    I have built oil " Processors" that filter and DRY the oil at the same time. Circulate the oil through a filter at the same time it dries the oil. generally does about 200L in about 30 Min. Commercial Diesel is filtered down to 10 Micron ( Um). I use household water filters to filter to either 5 or 1 Um, depending what I can get. 1's can be a bit hard to get but when I can I buy a box. Obviously 5 Is more than OK but if I can get 10X cleaner than commercial fuel, why not?
    Make the onboard filter last forever.

    I normally settle the oil I collect for a min of 6 Months. This drops all the major crap out to the bottom along with any water, free and dissolved. Water attaches itself to the particles and tends to sink them. Fat which comes from Processed foods ( Chicko rolls, Dim sims etc) also sinks when it is cold enough to congeal and this too holds the majority of the water. The oil usually settles in quite clearly defined layers so I take the very clear and clean oil off the top and run that through the processor. This is about 90% clean to start.

    The other thing which the majority of people ignore is the water content. Veg oil WILL hold dissolved water unlike Diesel or engine oil which is non hygroscopic. I get rid of the water by aeration. I have a nozzle in the processor which just squirts the oil back into itself causing it to bubble. I got the idea from watching the kids in the swimming pool with the hose. They would squirt the hose into the water which made it bubble like a spa. some people use fish tank bubblers which takes days. My method pumps hundereds of liters of air through a minute and just uses the pump that is circulating the oil through the filter anyway. This takes the water out of the oil and dries it.

    There is a test for this called the Hot pan test. You get a pot/ frypan and put a little oil in it and heat it till the oil is smoking. You then put a SMALL amount ( less than teaspoon) of oil in the heated surface and watch it. If there are no bubbles, it's dry. If its like lemonade, it's wet. If it sizzles and spatters, it's water logged. Now being a smartarse, I can get the oil so dry I can get a cup full, use an eyedropper to put in 3 drops of water, stir it up and it will still pass the majority of the time.

    Water takes energy out of the burning process and reduces engine performance as well as causes corrosion problems and fuels growth of various organisms and problems. Take the water out and these things CANNOT exist.

    PROPER treatment of the oil is important and it needs to be at least as clean and dry as commercial Diesel fuel to have the proper reliability and performance in engine output and starting.


    When the wanted to stop, we'd switch back to diesel and purge the injectors of oil and then shut it down. Not doing that would clog them and the fuel lines which sucked.
    This is called the 2 tank system. I used this in my early days of vegging and a lot of people swore by it. The truth of the matter was they mainly did it out of fear as like anything, there are still to this day a load of parroted mantras pushed by the pedantic that are just completely false.
    If your fuel lines clogged, it was because you had too much fat in the oil. Settling would have dropped the fats out. You have to do that at the temp or below you will run the oil becuse fats start congealing at about 20) depending on what sort of fats they are and if the oil is dried or not. It takes about 30oC to melt all the fats.
    The other problem is fats clog filters. In winter, I used to sit the metal fuel Filters on the exhaust manifold to arm it up and melt the dissolved fats. In summer I could actually run pure fat because leaving it in the sun melted it then once the vehicle was running the hot return fuel kept it liquid. Fat has a reasonably higher energy content than oil so is in fact a really good fuel.


    So if I was going to try and use oil as a heater, I'd consider finding an old putt putt diesel preferably with a water jacket and I'd pipe the exhaust through the water if you were trying to heat it.
    The approved method of doing this on dual Fuel ( 2 tanks systems) was to run a FPHE ( flat plate heat exchanger) which had the oil going through one side and coolant from the heater circuit which is the hottest coming from the head, as the working fluid heating the oil. Much was made of this but it is one of the great flawed ideals of the veg fuels game. Once you get over 30oC the fats are melted and the idea of the oil thinning to get through the injectors and IP is complete and utter bunk... although the most popular fairy tale in veg fuels.

    Of course the other approach I prefer is just to process the fuel correctly in the first place and take the fats ( and water and particles) in the first place.

    [/QUOTE] I have plenty of free wood so using that is clearly a heating cost advantage. The diesel heater is a convenience thing.[QUOTE]

    It's horses for Courses.
    I'm up here at my fathers again. Arrived and had to push him off the wood splitter and chainsaw. Not what I want an 82 Yo doing. I'll sweat my guts out for at least 3 days cutting and slitting wood for him to last him however long. Probably not enough to get him through winter.
    The idiots at the heater joint had again sent the wrong diffuser plate for the slow combustion stove so he's falling back to the AC. Does a perfectly good job BUT, he gets a lot of contentment and satisfaction out of the fire which is why I frig around with the wood for him. He has 5 Fking chainsaws, a BIG wood splitter and a tipper RTV for bringing the stuff up from the back. Would be far cheaper to just use sell it all and use the AC!

    If I could convert his heater so he could use it ( trust it) would be a heap easier! Bring him up an IBC of oil and that would be it. That's Kinda what I'm trying to do myself. The ac in my house cools well but does not warm nearly as well. You can have the place hot but it somehow doesn't penetrate like a fire does with it's radiant heat. Apart from that, even with all the solar I have, still takes a LOT of power to heat a house the size I have.

    If I used 30Kwh a day of power to heat the joint, that's nearly all the power I'm making a day atm. OTOH, that's a measly 3L of oil. If I used 10L of oil a day, 100Kwh, thats about 1 IBC of oil per winter if that! Chicken feed! 20L of oil a week. Don't have to get it just over winter, I can get more in summer when people eat out a lot more and the supply is much better. Oil is thin and easy to pump, crap settles easier.... much better time to collect.
    And most of the time, I'm pumping from 200L drums so get a good 150-180L depending on how much crap has settled to the bottom in one pickup.

    As far as filtering goes, for burner fuel I bought a 50M roll of 2M wide felt about 10 years ago for $50. I'm still using it. Just pour the oil through it and it cleans the oil plenty good enough for burner fuel. Usually don't even do that as settling is easier but if I don't have a lot of settled oil, this is a quick and dirty method. Works well for engine fuel as well. Once the felt gets a layer of crud and fat, it blocks and the oil drips through and is as clean as the oil that goes through the filtering. I put it through the filter just to be sure. For burner fuel, it's more than clean enough.

    Looks like I may have to do some more research on specific diesel heaters although I much rather get my own up and running.

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    Spent the day today mucking round with wood for heating. Oil really would be so much easier.
    Had to take the heater baffle plate back again after they sent another wrong one. Had to get a new bar for one of the saws and some more Oil. I use veg for bar oil but Dad insists on the right stuff. Bought a file for doing sharpening touch ups. Came back and gave the chain a once over. Cut some wood then Fueled up the splitter and ran it though that.
    Stacked the wood wagon, brought that down and unpacked it onto the verandah again.

    Let the fire, went up the back to close up and time got back, house was like an oven... or at least the Dining room, kitchen was. Bring in some more wood for the night.
    Discovered air control has come loose again so will have to fix that again in the morning when the thing has died down.

    Probably won't be able to get all the wood off the front lawn from the tree that was dropped last week. With the rain it's way too soft for the tractor or the tipper.

    I'm not really sure how cheap wood is even if you do have your own supply. It's a hell of a lot of work and not without expense and investment.
    I know it's as expensive as hell if you have to buy it that's for sure. Given the time and investment in it, not surprising.

    Noticed Dads heater is rated at 12.5 Kw on hardwood. Plenty for a decent sized house but it does need to be circulated. I have offered a few times to put in a fan and some ducting to spread the warms around but he's not keen. Might just git the bits and hack a hole in the ceiling and then he can't say No! :0)

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    Today I fitted the L Burner up underneath the gas water heater tank and gave it a fire up.

    First thing was it was a bitch to start. last times I used it, Fired right up. Couldn't figure out what was making it so hard to start for a while. I wondered if the smaller flue through the heater was too Restrictive and wouldn't let the thing get up to heat properly? I had put a short piece of large ( 200mm) pipe on top to help with the draw but putting my hand over the top showed the gas exit speed was very low. I went and fetched the original longer and smaller piece of Flue I originally tested with and precariously sat it on top. Straight away the thing started roaring and took off.

    Lesson 1 one learned.
    No problem, I will need to duct the flue anyway.

    It was pretty cold and windy here today and the wind did upset the flame Consistency somewhat so the thing will need to be at least semi enclosed. No problem there either, was thinking of that for aesthetics and fire protection as well.

    I am thinking that the amount of heat going into the water and the efficiency is a lot less than I thought. I believe I am burning at around 10Kwh but getting about half or less of that energy into the water. Haven't measured yet but going on the heat up time and the temp rise I am estimating, seems this thing isn't as over built for the job as I thought. Tomorrow I'll give it another fire up with a measured amount of fuel and time the thing. If I can find my good digital thermometer I'll do a temp rise check on the thing too but that may be iffy due to the stratification in the tank. I'm quite amazed what the difference can be in a couple of feet of water. Can be boiling or near it at the top and just past lukewarm at the bottom even though the heat is greatest lower down where the burner is and the gasses hottest.

    Other lesson learned was that my Pulse Fuel pump does not cut off the fuel in the off Cycle. I left the thing running at a previous setting and went out and found the burner near full of oil!
    A productive accident as it turned out. I had put the fuel drum up on a retaining wall which was only about 600mm higher than the burner and thought I could see fuel trickling in on the off Cycle but thought it was draining out the pipe as it did on the other setup.

    Lesson 3 is that this thing works really well in batch Mode! The burner was about 90% full of oil and continued to burn. I took the pump out all together and it kept going along quite happily on what was in there. It was running very clean which surprised me. As the oil burnt out and got hotter it ran a bit richer as it was doing earlier but the amount of smoke was minimal and you have to have the right background to even see it. For the most part all I can see is heat haze. To cure the smoke, all it needs is another couple of secondary air holes which I was going to do but got distracted with the water heater setup and forgot. Adding those will probably give the thing a bit more power with a more efficient burn. I certainly wasn't far off the mark with the Eyeballing I did when I built the thing!

    My initial thought of stacking another heater on top of this one seems creditable. I'm a bit surprised how much heat is coming out into the flue and how hot it's getting. Having another tank on top to capture some of this heat and provide additional needed flue length would be worthwhile I think. There seems to be enough heat escaping to make capture worth while and if that provides the required additional draft as well, then double bonus. The other big benefit would be more heat storage. The way the thing is running now though, I'd be happy to leave it run all night.

    This is a commercial heater I'm using so I thought the efficiency might be better. That said, I am possibly blowing a lot more heat through it than it was designed for so it may just be unable to transfer all the energy at the rate it's getting it. If the cold water was fed in the top heater where the gas may be cooler but the temp difference with the water would be the greatest, that might make some worthwhile gains.

    Other thing this has shown me is my welding is good, no leaks on the thing anywhere even with the burner full. I was going to fill it with water when I finished it but I wanted to fire it up and was more concerned about having to wait for the thing to dry than the time to test it.

    The batch burn feature could be very useful. If one wanted this as a primary water heater, all one would have to do would be put in a measured amount of oil, set the thing going and that would be it. I am planning on running the heating setup with a header tank A la stationary engine thermosyphon style with no pressurisation so in a stand alone heating setup , this would be fine. If one gave the thing a bit too much fuel batch heating and the water boiled, no big deal . Might also be good for other heating applications where you set it going and it will burn for whatever time then go out when the fuel is depleted. I was watching the thing out my office window for hours and it ran perfectly. I topped it up a couple of times as I know it works on the pump but wanted to test just dumping the oil in. It runs Long enough to make this viable with the capacity of the burner. I was thinking that if a sump was added to the bottom of the burner under the air inlet, it may give an even longer burn between refills.

    Now I have tested the setup and learned plenty from it, next thing will be to couple up a water Pump and a heater core and start pushing the heat into the house. I Pulled out a heater core and AC evaporator the other day from a car but left it at dads place. I think I have another heater core here so I'll try and find that tomorrow and put it in front of a Tube fan I have which should pull more than adequate air though anyway. I also have a solar Circulator pump somewhere I couldn't find today. Typical. I saw the thing the other day and put it somewhere easy to find thinking I would want it soon and of course now can't find the bastard. I have a small QB China Turbo type pump so I might use that with a PWM controller to slow it down a bit for testing.

    The output/ temp rise of the water is lower than I expected but as I'm intending to use this setup as a pretty constant running heater, I'm still unsure as to how much heat I'm actually going to need. I think 5 KW should be plenty of heat when supplied constantly and once the house is really heat soaked, should not take that much too keep it warm enough. I don't run the heat a lot during the day anyhow, it's mainly night when it is needed. Having 2 Water tanks @90L ea will give me a about 12Kwh of heat reserve so should be OK.

    After all this, I got my power bill today. My all electric house is costing me a whopping $3.17 a day to run ATM being the worst solar time of winter. Over a dollar of that is " connection fees" rather than usage. That's heating, cooking, hot water etc and this is the worst generation solar months here. What's more, while I was away, one of the solar inverters tripped out and I wasn't getting any power from that but I'm still in front with my over all consumption. Only just and we are drawing more than supplying atm but I anticipate this will only go another month then I'll be back to over production and will catch up again. Just waiting on the tractor I bought to arrive and I'll use that to lift up another 6Kw of panels on the ideal side of the house which should help a lot next winter.



    I have changed my mind on using the L burner for a patio heater. I need something that's going to look the part and I won't be able to make a silk purse out of this sow's ear. I'd like to convert a wood heater but they are hard to get and expensive here even when worn out. I'd like to get a wood heater to test and convert for indoor use as well . I just spent 10 days up at my fathers place cutting wood and that's more than enough effort.
    Did a couple of trees that were up my Thigh lying flat on the ground and turning timber that large into little blocks you can put in a stove is a lot of damn work! I'm hoping it will be enough to see him through till I get back up there in about 3-4 weeks but I know how he goes through it. The energy density of wood is a lot less than of oil for a start.
    So much easier to get oil and run that through a bit of screen to get the crap out and burn that.

    For the verandah heater I am going to go back to a design I fabbed up some time back which is a longer, wider burner. This works on a pre heat design where the burner is a piece of Sq Tube with another piece over the top where the air and fuel comes in so it is preheated and should hopefully be pretty much a gas by the time it gets to the bottom. This will give more of a wood or gas fire effect and I can put a stainless steel facade on it and build it into a wall like a fire place so it looks right. The oil tank, and blower can go behind and be out of site and the thing should throw good heat.


    For the purpose intended for the water heater, I think this design is a winner. I don't think I'll need to go any lower in power output other than just damping this one down a bit If need be. With another heater on top to increase efficiency and energy storage, this should be a practical and very workable setup. Should get the power bill much lower next winter as well and recoup it's cost which will be minimal as it's made from 80% Junk.With a couple of extra air holes and moving the fuel tank back tot he same level as the burner, I'd be happy to set this thing going and let it run all day or night on it's own. As long as the fuel isn't set to where it can over flow, there really isn't anything that can go wrong with the burner. I could sit the whole arrangement in a tray of water so if any burning fuel did escape it would extinguish when it hit the water which would cool it and stop the vapor which is what burns when the oil is hot enough.

    The other way this could be done would be to make and air to air HE and do away with the water. A couple of longish, 6ft or so, Pieces of Pipe welded up for a tube in tube type setup and blowing forced air in the top and out the bottom out a bit of AC duct and into the house would also work will I think. Would simplify the setup but have no heat reserve. I'm thinking that's probably not a big deal now seeing how stable the thing runs.

    Other than tidying up the construction into something more permanent, not really a lot this needs from the test setup.
    Worked better than I anticipated really.

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    George, I monitor your project with interest, have you looked at using an el-cheapo processor, scada maybe and just some instrumentation for your project?

    My still can produce any thing from 40 to 93% in vast quantities, from corn and some sugar with some good quality instrumentation and interpretation of the data. I can almost calc calories into drunken oblivion with it, possibly your heater can be qualified along the same lines?
    There is a lot of wasted energy in dumped fuels, it just how to exploit it and account it and be sure you can bring it back to BTU or some other useful measure which we can gain from?

    What I mean is if you can measure it you can maximize it and thats the aim.
    Last edited by hca; 24-06-20 at 02:30 AM.

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    No, I haven't thought of instrumentation much. I was thinking of some different things for safety/ Fire control but with the burns I have done with this I'm not convinced I need them.
    Maybe some thermostats would be helpful and possibly a flame sensor but other than that.....
    I was thinking to run a control panel inside so the thing can be turned up or down or shut off without going outside. A thermometer on the tank may also be helpful to see where it's running at.

    Everyone always says with these things they want to keep them bulletproof and simple but often they loose functionality and benefits in that. I'm not against making the thing as complex as it needs to be to give me the benefits I want. There are so many Cheap little control board and sensors one can get these days that are incredibly reliable it's silly not to take advantage of them. I would like to learn a bit about PLC's but they are all different in the language, can't find anything cheap and I can do everything I want with the little boards even if they are not the most elegant or straightforward way of doing something.

    I get what you are saying but in this setup I think the inefficiency's are such that the gains that could be made By " Tuning " are small and not worth while. My original plan was to use a commercial Spa heater which I believe would have a much more efficient HE. The thing is a small one would do 50-100Kw which is complete over kill and there were challenges in making the burner to fit. I'd either have to do one to suit the original housing and the few I have aren't easy to do ( though far from impossible) or build another housing for the HE. As the heaters are insulated with a type of refractory, I'd have to put something back that was similar to avoid heat loss through the cabinet. I have a 200Kwh Spa heater up the back ATM but it got some water in it and the Fire panel turned to Mush. Trying to get some more or another heater from a mate whom replaces them.
    I want one for my Spa as the idea of waiting a day for the thing to heat up electrically is not appealing when I could heat it in an hour on oil.

    I believe as long as I am getting a clean flame with the current burner I'm going to be pretty close to reasonable efficiency. Stacking another tank on the top to increase the heat transfer area would be a good step in the right Direction. These water heaters are very inefficient by design. With a tube running up the centre they create a natural draft that cools the tank when it's not being fired. To combat this in normal use they have a Pilot flame. It may not look much but those little Pilot lights use something like 5-10 Kwh worth of gas a day if memory serves. This combats the cooling effect but obviously uses a crap load of gas for nothing.
    Obviously they need an automatic Damper on the flue and electronic ignition for the burner every time it needs to fire which would make a huge difference to their consumption. Probably why these instant Type heaters are becoming more popular.

    I'll pull the Burner out today and add the secondary air holes to clean the burn up. I think that will be important to stop buildup on the diffuser that runs down the middle of the heater. I have got a couple of 3L Milk jugs so I'll fill one up and set the pump going and get an idea of what sort of fuel consumption I'm getting.

    I have to do some running around today so I'll also try to get down to see the guy at the scrap yard and see if he has any gas heaters there and leave him a list of what I'm after if he'll contact me when things come in. Might pick up some more gas bottles while I'm there to make some more Burners.

    I once tried a car radiator and a fan but to get any good heat transfer again is difficult. It seems they work a LOT better as Fluid to air than air to fluid for whatever reason. I think the flue gas is just too hot and and I tried cooling it but that was not easy to find the balance where the water heated up but things didn't melt or boil. Seems easy but I had a lot of difficulty with it.
    On the proper gas to fluid HE's, no such problems.

    I can see a lot of improvements that could be made like doing a tube in tube HE but adding a lot of Pieces in the gas tube to add turbulence and break up the boundary layer of gas which cools and then prevents good heat transfer. This would require sectioning the tube and welding in the disturbers and then welding it all back together. At the end of the day one has to remember this is using free fuel which is the purpose of the whole exercise so efficiency as much as one automatically wants to default to that isn't the main goal. I can get heaps of oil and if I get this up and running I can collect all year to use through the winter.

    I have been thinking about thermostatic control and there are a few ways I can go about it. I was thinking of a 2 step control. 2 Timers on a DPDT relay driven by a thermostat. On one side of the relay a timer will run at the minimum heat I can get the thing to run at. when the thermostat wants heat the Relay will switch to another timer that is feeding more fuel and up the fuel flow and output. The other thought was the thing should have at least a 3:1 turn down ratio so adjusting the fuel delivery may be enough as well given I want to heat the whole house which will provide and amount of thermal mass in itself and a measure of stability.

    Right now I'm wondering if fuel control will be needed? I'm thinking that the heater core will probably be able to pull a lot more heat than the burner is delivering and the on/ off cycling from a thermo will allow the heat to be stored for the next heating call. I'm thinking of my ducted AC which does not heat constantly ( although the newer inverter types may) but rather cycles. The thing with this is, rather than heat specific parts of the house I'm in, I want to heat the WHOLE house as I'm sick of walking into cold rooms and I want to heat soak the whole house so everything is warm not just the air which soon cools. I'll run the AC just on the fan and spread the warmth through the house. I'm thinking to duct the heat from the oil fired arrangement in through a window initially into the bathroom which is directly opposite the return air grille on the AC. The next stage would be to pipe the HE into the return air duct itself so the air is warmed as it's pulled through.

    Given this is only going to be needed about 3 Months of the year, just setting the thing up when it's needed inside and out wouldn't be a lot of work and might be the most practical from the POV of having the space outside and aesthetics. Don't do much entertaining in the winter but we do in the summer so just making the thing moveable/ removable might be best in the end to get it out the way when we are outside the most.

    Lot to be worked through with all this and see what happens when it's put into practice. I have learnt a lot already and I know there will be a lot more that does not work in practice the way I imagined it would in theroy. So far a lot of that has been better than I expected!
    I'll take it one step at a time and then add on as I go and as required.

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