Free heat this winter

[Quattromike]

What's everyone got for heating their shed/workshop during the cold dark months of the year?
Does anyone recycle the spent engine oil. I've a big wooden fence that's coming down round the place was thinking of rigging up a stove to produce a bit of heat in the shed.
Not quite cold enough yet but still needs to be thought about

 

[Komatsu]

What's everyone got for heating their shed/workshop during the cold dark months of the year?
Does anyone recycle the spent engine oil. I've a big wooden fence that's coming down round the place was thinking of rigging up a stove to produce a bit of heat in the shed.
Not quite cold enough yet but still needs to be thought about

Firm I used to work for a long time ago did that with the waste oil, it knocked some serious heat out

 

[Regy53]

We drain machines of red diesel when the come in. If they have it which some if not most are full. Some machines yeild 120 litres.

We have a pump with hose that we generally stick down the fuel filler neck

We keep circa 1000 liters most of the time

It does not work all the time, some machines arrive empty, we go through a lot of diesel in the steam cleaner too

 

[V8Druid]

What's everyone got for heating their shed/workshop during the cold dark months of the year?
Does anyone recycle the spent engine oil. I've a big wooden fence that's coming down round the place was thinking of rigging up a stove to produce a bit of heat in the shed.
Not quite cold enough yet but still needs to be thought about

bloody heating boiler has come on here a few evenings lately .... set at 12C over night .... 15 or 16 C of an evening IIRC ..... was on this morning when we woke up

two oil drums stacked horizontal with flue tube linking them, each end, through the sides .... sand bed in bottom one and a front door .... single flue pipe out the top one... a few legs and Bob's yer uncle ... the top drum serves as an additional radiator for the heat too ..... oh and a few vent holes in the door with a control flap of some sort - circle with holes in to correspond with the holes in the door so's you can open them or cover them


this is the closest I can find ... fancy one with extra tubes in the top one to heat the air
a mate did one with one big tube in the top drum and a fan to blow the hot air around .... worked real well too

 

[Mintsauce]

Not burning any used oil here but we have 2 wood burning stoves in the house.

There is a ready supply of various grades of seasoned firewood mainly generated as a result of my work.
This year there is a fair bit of pop to burn.

I know I could buy it in and save some time and effort, but I get an enormous amount of satisfaction from not being held to ransom by the energy companies.

We didn't use the central heating last winter.

 

[Quattromike]

Anyone done underfloor heating in their workshop? I've heard a few big workshop's that have it and really makes a difference when crawling about on the concrete

 

[Shovelhands]

Anyone done underfloor heating in their workshop? I've heard a few big workshop's that have it and really makes a difference when crawling about on the concrete

Having got UFH in part of my house (hope to do more),it would be awesome in a workshop, but I’d be concerned jacking on the floor or dropping heaving items on it, as it would ideally need to be an insulated floor. But if you’ve got a good supply of cheap heat, then maybe it could judge be an a concrete slab, and you’d not worry about the heat loss?

I keep threatening to make a wood burner for the workshop, but just use a space heater at the moment....or do lots of welding

 

[doobin]

We get sawdust from the joiners in town for free. All bagged up, nice and dry.

Going to make a new burner this year out of a big old forwarder rim. Bloody thick steel, just needs a bottom with a sliding door to drop the ash out, some legs and a spigot for the flue and hinged lid up top.

If we have dusty sawdust rather than flakes it can sulk a bit, so a bit of red diesel (not used oil, honest) makes it go better. Lasts for ages like that.

You guys are aware that there is a massive tax on running a waste oil burner? Bastards. Initial fee of £3200 plus £1400 a year!!

http://garagewire.co.uk/news/garages-face-dilemma-ahead-of-small-waste-oil-burner-reg-changes/

"
A spokesperson at ZM Heaters, distributors of ZM SWOBs, told GW: “From a greenhouse gas emissions point of view, incinerating waste oil at source for space heating is the perfect means of disposal. Under the new regime, this oil will still be burned. It will just be burned elsewhere. So what you will have is an energy intensive process to collect, process, package and redeliver the oil before the same outcome results."

Why am I not surprised?

 

[Rob 210]

bloody heating boiler has come on here a few evenings lately .... set at 12C over night .... 15 or 16 C of an evening IIRC ..... was on this morning when we woke up

two oil drums stacked horizontal with flue tube linking them, each end, through the sides .... sand bed in bottom one and a front door .... single flue pipe out the top one... a few legs and Bob's yer uncle ... the top drum serves as an additional radiator for the heat too ..... oh and a few vent holes in the door with a control flap of some sort - circle with holes in to correspond with the holes in the door so's you can open them or cover them


this is the closest I can find ... fancy one with extra tubes in the top one to heat the air
a mate did one with one big tube in the top drum and a fan to blow the hot air around .... worked real well too
View attachment 1256

saw something similar to this,but the guy had fabricated two steel boxes.The bottom one was a wood burner the top one he had welded loads of scaffold tube in,so all of the heat from the fire and exhaust gasses had too pass through the tube before it exited into the chimney. he had then rigged a big fan on the top box and ducting around the workshop to blow warm air all the way around.
Realy efficent too.the chimney was barely warm and the workshop was like toast.All the heat was extracted from the fire!

 

[Quattromike]

saw something similar to this,but the guy had fabricated two steel boxes.The bottom one was a wood burner the top one he had welded loads of scaffold tube in,so all of the heat from the fire and exhaust gasses had too pass through the tube before it exited into the chimney. he had then rigged a big fan on the top box and ducting around the workshop to blow warm air all the way around.
Realy efficent too.the chimney was barely warm and the workshop was like toast.All the heat was extracted from the fire!

I like it ☺

 

[Quattromike]

Who is going to start building this for for everyone?

 

[Pedrod355]

Any photos??

 

[Quattromike]

People with these stoves in the workshop do they pipe the chimney outside or just exhaust into the shed? Can imagine that making everything black and sooty

 

[V8Druid]

are the tubes in the upper chamber horizontal ? with the fan blowing air through them? ...... much like the one I mentioned, with the one big tube in the upper drum, end to end and a fan blowing air through it ?

 

[V8Druid]

People with these stoves in the workshop do they pipe the chimney outside or just exhaust into the shed? Can imagine that making everything black and sooty

be pretty 'fuggy' if they didn't .... aside from the soot issues

 

[Rob 210]

From what i remember of it the tubes where all vertical.very similar in principal as a steam engine boiler in reverse,if that makes sense?
The heat from the fire passed through the tubes,with the air blown through the top box,passing the tubes.
Big heat exchanger system realy

 

[Rob 210]

closest thing i could find as diagram,
Box was set up vertical,with fire exhaust passing through the tubes,rather than water as shown in diagram

 

[Quattromike]

I think it would work either way, you either let the hot smoke through the tubes which heats up the cold air in the chamber or let the hot smoke through the chamber and pass the cold air through the tubes to absorb the heat.
I’d be in the mindset that the later would work best as there’d be less restriction on the hot smoke exhaust though the chamber which as mentioned earlier you don’t want coming into the work space.

 

[Charlie]

I think it would work either way, you either let the hot smoke through the tubes which heats up the cold air in the chamber or let the hot smoke through the chamber and pass the cold air through the tubes to absorb the heat.
I’d be in the mindset that the later would work best as there’d be less restriction on the hot smoke exhaust though the chamber which as mentioned earlier you don’t want coming into the work space.

I'd go with your first one. Tubes are a lot easier to sweep clean than cleaning around the outside of them?

 

[Stock]

Built this but it is about to be superseded......................