Glort

Thanks very much twodiffs. That is incredibly nice of you. Unfortunately I'll be up the other end in Auckland. Might just do the north Island as I'm not sure how long I can be there yet. I have also been asked to do an event in Brisbane the following weekend and then I scored another big job here today which I have booked to start that week after Bris. I am then booked solid, every single day till well into December. I'm going to need the Holiday after not before! I'd welcome any tips on what to see up there and not to bother with though. I have a lot to look up and educate myself on before we go. I'll definitely be buying a new cam and lens to take with me! Thanks again for the offer though. I do appreciate it greatly.

I wouldn't thin it at all mate. It shouldn't need it. Thinning is for when you want to put it through injector pumps and injectors, there is nothing in these things that would require it to be thinned. I have been using mine where the oil is so cold and thick It takes minutes to pour it out the old kettle I use but it burns just fine. The only thinning you would need is to heat it a bit, even just in the sun to help any water drop out. Geez I hope we aren't boring the chit out of everyone else with all this! It'a all good and well to say if you don't like it don't read it but when it's the same thing popping up all the time it can be annoying.

OK, I think the water should drop out pretty easy with wmo and will drain out a lot easier than I described than with the veg. Might pay to paint half the drum black so you can put it facing the sun to warm the oil up a bit to help the water settle. I'm a bit surprised you are getting water in WMO. Shouldn't be n the sump of the vehicle so maybe it's getting in through the tank its put into. Perhaps you could get your supplier ( or guys at work) to drain it directly into your drums so you wouldn't have to worry about settling the water out?

Just for me to be clear, What oil are we talking about now? ( I'm easily confounded!) Did you manage to get some veg or are you going with the Used engine oil? For veg You will see a creamy, lighter thicker stuff in the bottom once the water and fats drop out like mayonnaise. The good oil will sit on the top and be darker and look shiny when you pump it out. And I think you are better to pump than drain because the wet layer doesn't come out nice and all together. Draining will tend to pull a hole in it a lot of the time and then the clear oil comes through with trace lines of the wet fats as they come in from the sides. You could waste a lot of good oil by contaminating it in the draining process. People who drain tend to use cone bottom tanks for this reason. If you are just going to drain bulk of the slops off, then that should be OK. You can do it morning and night. Tilt the tank to the outlet side and just slowly take off a little till you see good oil and let it reset itself. You wont get much at a time ( hopefully) but you should get it regularly on most oils. If you wanted to speed up the process real well, What you would do is get an old hot water tank, put a bit of pipe like off your burner right through the middle and seal it up and then stick the whole lot over a burner to warm the oil. You could easy take it up to 100 Then let it sit. Warming and thinning the oil makes it much easier for the water to drop out and you'll get the bulk of it in one go. If you insulated the top of the tank so the water wouldn't condense there, You could heat the oil up again with a wide open vent at the top and dry a lot of the rest of the oil off. If you are using Veg, any slops you get can be dug into the garden or put on the compost pile. Don't put it on plants direct ( unless they are weeds) but it does break down well over time For engine oil, Refer to bog. I believe the water should readily drop out when you heat the stuff. As for what to do with it, take it to the recycle place or where ever you take used engine oil in your town for disposal. I'd never say anything like dump it in an out of the way spot on the weeds or something like that because then I'd have all the environmentalists making a fuss so dispose of it in the approved, correct, no doubt pain in the arse way.

Well Done. Looks like a big improvement. I think you need to put more holes in the secondary section. It's roaring which is good but I think needs more constant draft through the flue. ne thing I picked up on straight away is the crackling sound of boiling water in the oil. Be real careful of that. If the water drops out and coagulates as it will tend to do in hot oil, If can flash to steam and create BIG flareups and like throwing water into a pan of burning oil, can spray everywhere as well. I did this the other week. Got Some old oil slops and was burning that for a bit. I think I pumped into the water layer and when I put it in th lit burner, I heard it start to spit straight away. It hissed and bitched for about 10 Min then I heard the pops getting louder and more intense although it slowed for a bit like an animal getting ready to strike. And strike it did. A few thuds I felt through the concrete and some eruptions that pumped about a litre of half burnt veg out of the holes in the burner. The fire completely blew itself out into a still hissing but smoking, stinking mess. Wet oil will also nor burn properly I think the energy required for the evaporation combined with the escaping steam interupt the burning process and throw everything off. Seems to in all my burners be they forced air or passive. Here's one of my simple forced air burners. This is another one that pushes out a bit more heat. till have to do a vid of the rocket Burner. That one is scary!

On poly, I'd go for a 5UM filter. They will filter to 1 Um soon enough as they block up and anything under 10 UM will pass through the Vehicle's filters and the fuel system anyway

Filter or electrical. Bad Ignition coil, leads, Plugs, Dizzy Cap etc.

And people will think you are a nut and say why do you bother mucking round with that? You'll know the feeling of satisfaction of a bit of independence and self sufficiency will be reward enough. One of the most satisfying comments I ever heard about my veg adventures was from my well heeled and stuck up brother in law some years back. He laughed his arse off the first time took my old merc over there. A couple of years later he was looking to sell his Merc Antidote for mid life Crisis because it was costing him too much in fuel for his daily commute to the city and running round. It was around family dinner someone asked how the merc was going and if it was still on oil. In a tone completely devoid of his typical self appreciation he said " When you first showed me that and told me it ran on Cooking oil I laughed at you having this old Diesel merc when I had just got my new petrol one. I'm selling mine because the fuel cost is nearly sending me broke. You're keeping yours and it's barely cost you a cent. Who's laughing now?" Even other family members later remarked on the gravity of that comment!

How much you will get through a poly or any filter is really bit of a how long is a bit of string question. The variable are endless. Suffice to say you should get a worthwhile amount, If you prefilter through the bags I reckon 500L wouldn't be a problem. The only real answer I could give you is you won't get as much as much with a poly filter as you will with a string wound. I have bot well over 2500 L through a string wound of well settled oil that had no pre filtering. Going from the bag to a %um filter should be fine. I think intermediate filters are rather silly myself. Once the flow slows, how do you know which filter is blocked if you have 2 different sizes? Plus it's more likley to be the 5-15Um particles that actually block a 5Um filter, Not so much the larger bits that the oil can get round better. I have only used 10" filters so if you have a 20" you should logically get more than double though it before you have to change it.

Umm, You have the notches the wrong way mate. the way you have done them is so neat and should be so effective but you have them going the wrong direction I believe. You should have them Upside down to what they are now. As it is, as the flame comes up, the protrusion of the metal wants to take the flame to the outside of the flue, not the air to the inside. You could just cut that section off, turn it round and stitch it back on again. Regardless of anything else, this would be a lot better. That said, I'm not sure this is your problem all together. It's certainly not helping IMHO but the fix may not be enough to get things working. I think the air needs to come down onto the oil rather than just entering from the side. You're kind of doubling up now. The air through the valve and the holes in the top of the tank are supposed to do the same thing. I think the holes in the top are too high above the fuel, the air is probably coming in the holes and for the most part going straight up the flue. I'd try cutting the tank in half, or 2/3rds down, put a plate on the top and just bore some holes like I have. I think the air needs to be close to the fuel. I haven't done much testing on this mind you, I cobbled mine together, lit the thing and it worked. I just added some more holes to get the thing to burn a bit faster and harder and that was it. When i run it though I do see the air sucking the flame back to the oil so i'm guessing that's how it works. it's not the whole amount of oil that it at vapor point because I can pour in 2L of cold oil to top it up and it barely makes a difference. To me the back burning is a sign of not enough draft but I'm not sure why. the Flue you have is plenty long enough, it may be the fact the petrol is an aromatic ( so to speak) and as it gets hot it releases more flameable vapor than can be burnt easily with the available airflow. I think you need a shallower burning chamber and to turn those notches round so the air is drawn in, not the flame pulled out. From there you might get away with the side entry air but I would put a 90o on it and face it down. You could then block the holes in the top of the cylinder and see how it goes. For a test you could just drop some bolts in like I do and go from there with how that works out.

that's a point. When I have bought them before both types have been similarly ( over) priced. If you pre filter your oil in a recycled carry bag as I described, You'll get the majority of the rubbish out anyway and it will only be the fine stuff left behind. Considering you'd be so far in front even if you used one filter per tankful, I spose I'm just being a tightarse.

Give it a go as is. Nothing to loose that's for sure. If the flue is long enough you may get enough draw to make it work. If you can get hold of a blower or a reversed vac to attach to the valve air inlet, that burner could work to put out some major heat. Forced air ups the Ante by magnitudes. If it dosen't work, just cut the bottle in half, add in the right angled bit of pipe inside and stitch it back up. As for the secondary chamber, I don't think there is a formula for the holes. You can add a lot though and when the thing has a section with more holes than a swiss cheese, it seems about right. I drilled some holes in mine which were pathetically inadequate. the thing smoked like that truck in the vid you linked. I just kept adding holes till the thing got to a reasonably clean output. It could do with some more holes but it's burning with a light haze now which quickly dissapates so good enough. One thing I would like to try is to use some mesh ( expanded I think they call it) for the secondary chamber. This Would be similar to the flame holder in a gas turbine. I know it's more air than metal but I think it would be the go. the potential problem I see is having too long a section and killing the draft in the primary chamber but I think " tuning " it would be as simple as starting with about 200mm or so and cutting it down a little at a time till the thing ran the way you want. maybe with this you'd only end up with 5 cm of mesh but I'm sure it would work and work well. For the holes in the flue you have, If you can notch them, I'd be doing them at an angle to get some swirl and better mixing with the air and vapor. For a man with everything at his disposal for the job, I'd also be cutting some slots into the pipe here and there and inserting a bit of flat bar again at an angle and having that go through the tube from inside to out. this will add swirl into the flue and break up the air stream so you don't just get cool gasses on the outside and hot ones on the inside. I did my holes in a V shape and tried to get some angle and for the second lot I pushed the tabs in. The thought was this would create a negative pressure above the tabs as the flame came up from the primary chamber and this would help draw the air in. I also thought the turbulance created behind them would aid in the mixing of the gasses. It seems my idea was on the money. I noticed that on teh first tabs I pulled out, there gets to be a lot of carbon build up around the holes. On the ones which I later added with the above idea, the chamber stays perfectly clean. Like as in when the thing is out you can wipe your finger there and there is no black. Also if you welded a bunch of small bits of metal to the outside of the flue, it would do a lot I think to increase the surface area and heat the air. Sure wish I had a metal shop and the gear to play with this stuff. I have been facinated with it for a long time and there are so many things I'd like to try but have neither the skills or the equipment to put them into practice. I might try and finish my mega heater this week. It's a forced air burner that -can- kick out 400KW ( but I'll throttle back to an idle) in a 44 with a car radiator sitting over the top to catch the heat. The water is circulated with a pump to another radiator and a fan attached to pull the heat out and into the house. I think this design would be a lot more efficent and the amount of heat potential would be just stupid. You should knock one of these up if your factory gets a bit cold in winter. It wouldn't be cold for long I can gaurantee you that! Then again, you wouldn't need the radiators in a factory. Just do a long run of flue horozontaly with a fan or several blowing on it before sending the gasses up and you'd get a lot of heat out that way. With 400 kw coming out of the thing, you'd probably glow the first 6 feet of pipe bright red even with teh fan on it. Pulling 40L of oil an hour, your company would never have to have it taken away again. Save it up all year round in IBC's to use in winter.

I heard a GQ a while back in the carpark at bunnings that sounded exactly like that. Was freaking awesome. The poly spun filters are the ones I was refering to as foam filters. Sorry for the poor description. They work fine, they just don't work near as long as the string wound ones.

Nice Weld! Where does the pipe go inside the bottle? It will need to be aimed down at the pool of oil so the flame goes back on itself and heats the surface of the oil to vaporise it. I think if it's straight in the side, the air will mainly be drawn up the flue instead of towards the oil to support combustion. You might also want to distance the valve from the bottle a bit because I think it's going to get awfully hot where it is. How are you going to set up the secondary air inlet?

Bummer! Could you get engine oil or tranny fluid? that has been described elsewhere here and if it can run in a ZD, it will run in a 4.2 for sure. If you can't get veg and want to save some $$, this would seem to be a possible option for you. I have only tried it on a few occasions but tranny fluid worked well when I did use it and it's a lot thinner than used engine oil and I think a lot less messy to deal with. If you have a transmission place in town you could hit them up for some of what they are throwing out or ask some local mechanics to keep it aside for you. You could just filter it the same as anything else and use it straight off. It blends readily with Dino and won't seperate and in summer you could use it on it's own quite easily. The one major draw back with veg is what you have encountered. Getting hold of the stuff sometimes. Sometimes it's a matter of perseverance. It took me ages to get my first 1000L stored up, once I got it though it seems I had 3000 before I knew and then shot through to 6000 before I put the brakes on. I offloaded a lot and then winter came and it got tough to find again and I realised you can never have too much put away! My son got his P's this afternoon ( 105 points out of 106) So he's already stolen his mothers car tonight. He's got himself a nice little Subaru but I can see already he's going to be taking one of the Diesels to save on fuel. As a consequence I expect to be going through a lot more oil from now on. Looks like I will be converting that 500L tank I got to a processor to keep up with demand. If you want to do Veg, ( and I think tranny fluid or black diesel are valid options) don't write it off just yet. Go back to some of the places and say you are still interested in getting some oil and maybe leave a card with your name and number " In case anything changes". I think if you go backl a 2nd or 3rd time, you'll find different results. and ask if you can have some of the oil if they say they have a collector getting it. That's worked for me real well. Some is undefined, the goal is to get access in the first place. I'm surprised there are not some drums around you can access after hours. Just don't get put off though. This isn't about veg, it's about human behaviour. Yesterday I scored a HUGE deal for my business. One of the biggest 3 places in the country. Initially when I rang, they told me they were perfectly happy with the competitor but I was " welcome to drop my stuff in for them to have a look at. " Well to cut a short story shorter, I did that and walked out 20 min later with the deal. It's worth a min of $80K to me over the next year and I think there is a good chance I can pull $100K out of the place in the next 12 months. Had I not pushed a bit and asked some questions and been easily blown off, I would have got no where. It's what you do after they say NO that's the important bit. And you have to realise that's a conditioned response to anything people don't understand or are surprised with. The rule of sales is it takes 2-3 contacts to get people talking and asking questions. Once they do that, you're 75% of the way there. Go back and hit the potentials, in person, again and see how you go. Even if you don't get anything this time, you will the next. I'll gaurantee though that 2nd time round You'll get people asking you questions and with a bit of a push asking if you could get " some" of the oil as " you are finding it hard to get because the collectors get it all and there is none left for anyone else" You'll get a lot more doors opening up. Sometimes you just have to play the game to get what you want.

The Mrs went today to get the passport applications. Last night she was very in 2 minds. She didn't tell me she decided to go, just she got the Applications. That's her way of saying yes. At this stage we are thinking of going and doing the event and spending a week there and having a look around. I'll have to see what accommodation etc is worth over there. I have never been anywhere before so it will be a learning curve.

Must be a danger of using Different Fuels. I filled my tank once with some oil that was so wet it was like mayonnaise . Dopey me should have known better. I saw it but being last winter I thought it was just very fatty and didn't worry about it. Down the road where I was struggling to get the car and trailer over 80 I pulled over and changed the filter. No better. At the event I was doing I had some time so checked it out again and then realised when I changed the filter before, the filter was hot but the oil was still creamy. If it were fats, they would have melted and gone clear and shiny. I crawled the thing back home, dropped the gunk, filled it with good oil and eventually burnt it all off. Been a lot more careful with where I put clean and dirty drums ever since so I only ever pick them up from one place and know they are OK. I did noticed the thing run better than normal with good fuel. I think it got the best water injection clean out ever with the wet oil.

The oil is likley to have dissolved water in it. 95% of people don't worry about that. Of course I do. That said, if you are going to put it in infrequently or for a test, I wouldn't worry about it. As long as there is no free water, You'll be fine. Never heard of painters filters so I don't Know what Micron rating they are either. There is no such thing as overkill in veg oil filtering. This is what I would do. Just a hold of one of those green/ enviro/ reuseable shopping bags that every place has now for .99 cents. If it has a plastic bottom remove and chuck that. Suspent the bag open by the handles, you a suitably sized container under it and pour the oil from your tins into the bag. These bags are great corse filters for removing the crunchy bits and fats etc. I would put it through a couple of times because if and when you get a coating of fat in the bag, they filter real well. The first lot of 20 L or so should nearly fall through, after that it will slow down. A lot of veggers have multiple bags and fill them in the morning before they go to work and again in the evening. it can take 24 hours to go through when the bags get loaded but slow filtering is good filtering. For a start off, what I would then do is get some of those $3 disposeable filters from supercheap or the like and do the final filtering through those. If you can get hold of a 25L plastic drum that the restaurants get detergent, floor cleaner etc it, you can cut the top out of one of those to go under your shopping bag then put a fitting in the bung hole of the drum and connect your filter than into another ( washed and dried) plastic drum ready to go. A better, Higher volume alternative is one of those ( generally Blue colour) house water filters. You can get the cartridges down to .5 micron but 5 and under is good. I use one of these as a final filter. Get the string wound types rather than the expanded foam type. They both come in the same ratings but the string seems to hold loads more dirt than the foam one for some reason. If foam is all you can get, that s fine, you just won't get as much though before it clags. The other alternative is proper industrial filter bags. They are absolute rated and have the best dirt holding to cost ration IMHO. Some people actually wash them out when the clag up and then use them as pre filters. Messy damn things to deal with when they are dirty so I just chuck 'em, They come with a handle like the shopping bags but I made a fitting out of a 6" PVC pipe end cap and clamp the bag to that. I put a hose fitting in the cap so I pump the oil through the bag in my drying/ filtering processor multiple times to make sure it's well cleaned. I'll see if I can remember to go get some more filter bags next week and when I get them I'll PM you for your address and send you one. Those or the water filters are the way to go but for a cheap start off, the disposables will be fine once you prefilter through a Shopping bag. For a water check, the best one is called the Hot pan test. as self explanatory as it is, heat up a pan and put a drop of oil in it as an indicator. When the oil is smoking, put a small ( non critical) amount of oil in and watch and listen. If it crackles and spits, it's too wet for my liking. If you see some bubbles form and come to the top with no popping, you are good to go and its dry enough. For this time of year, I'd also add 5% petrol to the amount of oil you are blending with to thin it out and keep the starting easy. Do this after you have done all your filtering.

The difference in Viscosity by adding even a litre per tank would be Immeasurable. I confirmed this with a mate who has the proper testing equipment and does this kind of testing for the aerospace industry. His comment the diesel itself would likley vary more between summer and winter blends. Castor is pretty unique stuff. I used to love the whiff when I used to go to the speedway with my cousin. Methanol AND castor. Now there is a fragrance they should botle and sell as mens Aftershave. They'd sell it by the 20L drum!

Have a look at the MSDS for the Chemtech. It's mainly Naptha. You can buy that for $12 a Litre at Bunnings. It's a cleaner primarily so it would not help the way the 2T does. For lube value, you could put New veg oil in your tank and it would have the same if not better lubrication properties as the 2T and smell like a BBQ to boot!

I had that arse up then. Thanks for that. Might be worth getting them anyway. Landed a huge deal today and things have been going well so I was thinking about taking the family to Disneyland next year. Or we could stay home and I could buy myself a really nice Gq!

I have been asked to go to NZ for a weekend to shoot an event there. I don't have a current passport atm ( and believe I don't need one) but do I have to have a visa ? If so, how long would it take to get? The job is at the end of October so I'd need it by then. I looked on the Nz travel website but It wasn't clear to me what the requirements are so hoping some of the well travelled can tell me.

That's what I was originally going to use the burner and the flue for. For a shed heater, I wouldn't bother with the tins to enclose it. You could have an old fan blowing across the Flue to take the heat off. In a shed you could have the burner inside. I didn't want to be cutting flue ducts in the roof or walls of the house. As long as it was away from anything flameable, in a shed it would be fine. All you need to do is duct the flue out through a wall or roof. Easier through the wall. I would probably put a bit of Corrougated iron around the burner or some metal to controll the radiated heat. I have an old washing machine I'm going to fix or wreck and I thought with a door cut in the cabinet, it would make a nice, neat burner enclosure, All you need to do is duct the flue out through a wall or roof. Easier through the wall. You don't want to be breathing the fumes and the bits of carbon black that will come out on occasion. If you did something like an enclosure with a cabinet, What would also help efficiency would be to put a duct in the bottom to the outside air. One inefficiency with fire places is when the air goes through the fire and up the flue, it creates a negative pressure in the room and that causes cold outside air to be sucked in under doors, through windows and in your shed, every nook and cranny. If you have a duct from the outside providing the air for the fire, it's not sucking cold air in towards the fire and pulling the hot air nearest the fire out. While I know you don't need a fire to be super efficient. it's best to make them as efficient as you can because they are still going to be low and you don't want to be spending all day putting more fuel in the things or constantly collecting it. To get more heat out of the thing, I'd also do a long run if practical Horizontally with the flue. Blow a fan along that and you'll get a lot of heat out of it. All you would need to do is put some rise on it once it goes out to make sure there is plenty of Draft.

Blowers were a find on evilbay. Bought one and because I was telling the guy what I had them in mind for ( another oil burner project) he gave me another for nothing as his late father also was into to building waste oil burners. got them for $16. I thnk the guy has more, Might go back and pick up some more. For the butterfly valve I was thinking remote from inside the house. If it had a stepper motor attached to the shaft you could just turn a dial inside and it would open the thing to whatever amount. With the fuel level control, you could put a solenoid on it and with the air and fuel shut off you could shut the thing down remotely as well. Lighting is done normally by rolling up some newspaper in tight balls and sticking it in the top of the burner with a bit of oil and lighting it. Previously the flue hasn't had a heap of tins attached so what I'm going to do is knock up a stand to sit the tins on then get an old car jack and put the pot on that so I can raise and lower the pot for cleaning and lighting. ATM I'm using a little petrol, as apprehensive as even I am about that, but given I light it real quick and its cool so I don't allow any vapor buildup, it's lighting with just a puff and taking off well. It's not the method I reccomend even to myself! Once I put the jack underneath, I'll go back to the balled up newspaper. It takes longer to get going as there is less heat to draw the air in. There are some things I will go against the grain on all day and don't give a rats but petrol I have a LOT of respect for and try to avoid using it like this where possible. Kero would be the Ideal starting fluid or the fire lighters you mentioned. After a while the burner does get some carbon buildup but I think that is a result of the poor primary burner design and I can improve that on the next one. The burner was a " I wonder??" effort while eyeing off the old pot and thinking about the way I thought an old style " Smudge pot" burner worked. Pretty happy with that effort but it too can be improved. The inline fan a mate gave me years ago as a hair blower for my glamour Photography work. Awesome thing, could blow their hair straight back and level from 8Ft away. The one I have is the Rolls Royce version worth a fortune. They are made to be put in buildings and run 24/7 for 10 years non stop. I think my mate said it was worth about $1200 10 years ago. You can get a lot cheaper though and I have been doing the menal arithmetic on using a car radiator fan in a plastic drum and attaching the ducting to that. I was also thinking about mounting a radiator fan to the side of the drums and using it to pressurise the air through. I know there is a difference in fans that will do volume and those that will do pressure, even in a duct. I'll have to test the car fans. The duct is just std 8" aircon flexible duct. You can get that at any air con wholesalers and you could get the spigots and ducts for it as well. All that stuff is cheap as chips. The duct I have I pulled out of a house when I was helping my mate put in a ducted system. The people had extended the house and wanted a bigger unit so I salvaged some of the old, not so old at all ducting. You could also see the air con place about the inlines. You can get cheaper ones that would be more than up to this job. So now you can start looking for a source of used engine or tranny oil Westy! BTW Westy, I'm also working on another contraption that will "crack" or Pyrolise Used engine oil, tranny fluid, plastic bags and Bottles etc and turn it into Diesel. So far I have got it a bit further up the fraction chain, something between diesel and petrol. I know the trick to getting one or the other, just have to adjust the design to get what I want. I'll post up info when I have some repeatable results and finalise the reactor design.

Some pics of the contraption. Now while you are laughing, Remember this was built entirely from crap around the house save for 1 $4 clamp! As can be seen, it's really nothing more than a Pipe running through a bunch of tins that are used to catch the air being blown into them. Amazingly it works and works pretty well. I started with 3 tins but then noticed how hot the flue above them still was so added the top 2. It made quite a difference to the temp of the output air with the burner running at the same heat. The bottom ones work on pressure from the blower, the top 2 have air drawn through them by another more powerful fan I have boosting the bottom blower. I was going to fit another blower on the top but I have to see if I have a run capacitor for the motor. The Burner is non powered and relys only on draft to pull air into it which heats the oil and burns it. The Primary air comes in the holes in the top of the pot lid and the secondary air where the real heat happens in in the chamber with the V's cut it it. The burner itself is generating about 20-25Kw of heat energy. There are 4 holes in the lid of the pot. I put bolts in them to block them off to throttle the thing. The next one I do I'll use a bit of 2" Pipe and make up a simple butterfly valve for it so the thing can be throttled a little more practicably. This would also allow me to fit a stepper motor and control the thing remotely. I was also thinking of using a remote resviour with a float and needle and seat like a car carby for fuel level control. I would pipe it to the side of the burner so as the level of oil in the burner dropped, so it would in the cold float chamber and the thing would keep the fuel level constant. Atm I just pour the oil in the burner with an old kettle. about 2L lasts for about 90 min with the thing set at half power where I am running it. I haven't measured the air output temp, I'm guessing its around 50o but I have a couple of air bleeds past the hot areas to keep the output temp down. Don't want to melt the duct tape holding it all together! I'd like to get an old gas water heater and take the burner assembly out and put one of these in it's place. The work exactly the same as this heater. A burner on the bottom and a flue right through the middle of the tank. I could have free hot water or pipe it round the house and pull the heat out through a radiator(s). I'll leave this bogan looking thing for this winter as we don't have that long to go now and I'll build something a little more reasonable and efficient for next year. Better heat exchanger, remote burner control, auto fuel level and shutoff and I'll have a very cheap to build and free to run burner that could be scaled to pump out as much free heat as required. Also wouldn't be hard to run a branch pipe through another larger pipe that was sealed and use that to heat water at the same time. Anyway, it's freezing here this afternoon, I'm going out to fire the thing up and have the whole house and a nice 25o for the night and not have it cost me a cent!