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Ryland · 08-11-13, 09:23 AM

A friend of mine who is 82 and heats for the most part with wood but has a fuel oil furnace as back up is looking for a cheaper way to run that back up heat.
My first thought was waste veggie oil thinned with 15% gasoline, from the charts that I've looked at 10% to 20% gasoline should thin the oil enough at 60F to make it the viscosity of fuel oil, it will also make it much easier to filter, gasoline also doesn't separate from the oil, so constant mixing is not needed.
This is of course his back up heat for the house, so having it fail is not going to end well, so I'm looking for some good documentation to back up this idea, I'm also looking for other ideas on how this guy can heat his house at those times when he can't put wood in the wood stove, so I'd like to know of problems that he might have with this or things to avoid, first thing that comes to mind is changing the fuel filter more often because of crud that might be knocked loss from the change of fuels, other thought was mixing Diesel in instead of gasoline, it takes twice the diesel to thin the same as gasoline so it would cost more but it would be "safer", as it is a full tank of fuel oil is out of budget so he's using diesel to heat his house, anything is going to be cheaper then that.

08-11-13, 09:23 AM	#1
Ryland Master EcoRenovator Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Western Wisconsin. Posts: 913 Thanks: 127 Thanked 82 Times in 71 Posts	Waste Veggie Oil as heating oil? A friend of mine who is 82 and heats for the most part with wood but has a fuel oil furnace as back up is looking for a cheaper way to run that back up heat. My first thought was waste veggie oil thinned with 15% gasoline, from the charts that I've looked at 10% to 20% gasoline should thin the oil enough at 60F to make it the viscosity of fuel oil, it will also make it much easier to filter, gasoline also doesn't separate from the oil, so constant mixing is not needed. This is of course his back up heat for the house, so having it fail is not going to end well, so I'm looking for some good documentation to back up this idea, I'm also looking for other ideas on how this guy can heat his house at those times when he can't put wood in the wood stove, so I'd like to know of problems that he might have with this or things to avoid, first thing that comes to mind is changing the fuel filter more often because of crud that might be knocked loss from the change of fuels, other thought was mixing Diesel in instead of gasoline, it takes twice the diesel to thin the same as gasoline so it would cost more but it would be "safer", as it is a full tank of fuel oil is out of budget so he's using diesel to heat his house, anything is going to be cheaper then that.