Mother's Waste Oil Heater

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CAUTION: Do not make the intake and chimney stack holes any bigger than absolutely necessary (if you cut them too large, they'll leak air and you'll only have to come back later and fill in around the stacks with furnace cement). In fact, it's better to hold the openings a mite on the small side (just to be safe), and then spend a few minutes filing them on out to size. Actually, there's no "wasted" time involved in such a procedure at all ... since you'll want to file and smooth off every sawed or torched metal edge on your finished stove anyway.

Now turn the tank over onto its top and drill the holes in the container's bottom for the pipe stand which will support the furnace's burner assembly. Then form the stove's legs in a vise, position them on the bottom of the stove, drill through the legs and furnace bottom, and bolt the legs in place. The pipe stand should also be bolted in place while the tank is still upside down.

Next, turn the old water heater tank right-side up (so that it's standing on its new "feet") and use standard 3/4-inch pipe plugs to cap all the pipe openings that were in the container when you found it. While you're at it, seal off the heating element holes with 1/8 X 3-inch square steel plates bolted to both sides of the tank's wall to form "sandwiches".

See! We told you this is a bolt-together project!

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

The heart of MOTHER's waste oil space heater is its burner assembly. This consists of a perforated, six-inch, cast-iron frying pan . . . a six-inches-indiameter round piece of perforated 1/4-inch-thick steel plate . . and an eight-inch steel frying pan bolted together into a sandwich (with pipe spacers between the major components). The assembly is supported by a four-inch nipple of 3/4-inch pipe and two 3/4-inch floor flanges.

Every burner, of course, must have a vent. In this case a chimney stack (or flue) of 6-inch stovepipe, which extends at least six inches down into the heating chamber. This flue can be equipped with a damper, if you desire (although we haven't found such an addition necessary).

Once the chimney stack is secured in place (we used bolts and 3/4-inch-wide angle iron tabs), wrap 1/4-inch O.D. soft copper tubing around it three times, lead the lower end of the line over to a position directly above the center of the furnace's burner assembly, and form a feeder spout in the tubing as shown.

When the copper tubing which is wrapped around the vent stack is covered with 12 inches of larger (8-inch) stovepipe and a 90° elbow of 4-inch stovepipe is mounted to the side of the 8-inch pipe so that it fits down over the copper tubing's lower end . . . a pre-heater (one of the reasons that MOTHER's waste oil furnace burns so efficiently and with such a clean flame) is formed.

An 18-inch length of 4-inch stovepipe is then attached to the lower end of the 4-inch elbow and a sheet metal (from the salvaged water heater's "skin") funnel or cone-with a diameter across its bottom opening roughly equal to the diameter of the stove's burner assembly—is attached to the bottom of the pipe.

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