Mother's Waste Oil Heater

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Furthermore, as nearly as MOTHER's environmentally oriented researchers can determine, even the planet benefits when old motor oil is burned in the furnace you see here . . . for at least two reasons: [1] Every gallon of used drain oil that gets recycled "one more once" as a fuel roughly equals just one less gallon of fresh petroleum which must be pumped out of the ground and processed, and [2] recycling the spent motor oil this way creates far less pollution than—as is customarily done—"disposing of" the liquid by pouring it into a landfill, river, lake, or ocean.

HOW TO BUILD A $500 OIL BURNER . . . FOR $36!

MOTHER's waste oil stove (which throws out more heat than some $500 oil furnaces we've seen) can be constructed so inexpensively (for around $36) largely because its major "raw materials" are scavenged from a junked electric water heater. Such heaters are available "free for the hauling" from the alleys behind appliance or plumbing and heating stores all over the U.S. and Canada all the time. Or, it you want a real selection of the units to choose from, take a short "shopping" trip out to your friendly neighborhood or small town dump.

Just make certain that the discarded water heater you pick up is an electrically fired model (a gas-burning heater has a vent running up through its middle that makes it too difficult to convert). And take care NOT to choose a heater with a galvanized tank (very easily identified by its silver-colored coating) since galvanized metal gives off toxic fumes when heated. (Water heater manufacturers tell us that only about 10% of the units ever made here in the United States have galvanized tanks. So look a little. The odds are nine-to-one in your favor.)

Above all, do NOT try to substitute a 55-gallon drum for the electric water heater tank shown here. The tank we've specified is the only way to go for at least four reasons:

[1] The metal walls of a junked water heater reservoir are at least twice as thick as the walls of a 55-gallon barrel. And that heavier mass of metal will [a] store and radiate heat more efficiently and [b] withstand burnout far more effectively than the lighterweight skin of a drum. Our experiments, in fact, indicate that the life expectancy of a stove or furnace made from a good junked water heater tank can be up to five times as long as a comparable stove or furnace constructed. from a 55-gallon drum. With care, the water heater tank should even last a lifetime.

[2] Standard 55-gallon barrels have "girth ribs" . .. which are ugly and do nothing but get in the way when the drums are drilled and cut during their conversion into stoves. Water heater tanks have no ribs ... hence, none of the problems associated with them.

[3] Thanks to its thin skin and ribs, it's almost impossible to turn a 55-gallon drum into an airtight, "controlled combustion" stove. The heavy walls and superior construction of a water heater tank, on the other hand, practically guarantee an airtight finished product.

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