Just wondering

[Grahamm Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Grahamm]

Hi all, new to this forum looks like a good place to ask maybe a silly question! I have just bought my first house and it has a old vulcan oil heater in it. Remembering as a kid, my parents had one and it threw out a great heat. The cost of heating oil is too much to afford, so was wondering if anyone knows would or is it possible to make or use some sort of bio fuel to burn in the heater? Any advise would be great.

[Terry Syd Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Terry Syd]

Re: Just wondering

I seem to recall a discussion on the Infopop forum a couple of years ago where someone was trying to pick up one of those heaters. Apparently (I can't vouch for it) it can use biodiesel. You might use the search function on infopop and see if you can locate the discussion.

Does the Vulcan send it flames up through coils of piping in order to pre-heat the fuel so it vaporises?

Curiosity got the better of me - here are the search results

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/foru...eqWords=Vulcan

[Captain Echidna Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captain Echidna]

Re: Just wondering

Ahh yes the vulcan oil heater. I can vouch they will run on vegetable oil, for about 15 minutes. They will then be full of gum which will have the consistency of tar. Dont ask me how to get rid of it, I havent really worked out how. It was an interesting experiment, but not long lived.
They operate by having a bath of oil which vaporises, and it burns at the top where it is mixed with air. There is not really any pre heating, I think the oil is heated by radiant heat, or convection through the metal.
If you do run it on biodiesel lets know how it goes. (mine is in the shed under some stuff, and I am not making bodiesel yet)

[Grahamm Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Grahamm]

Re: Just wondering

Thanks for the info guys. Maybe the tar is left because the the heater wont get hot enough to vaporise the oil properly??? Any idea what the flash point of vege oil is?

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Just wondering

Unfortunately, the oil does not simply 'vaporise', it chars, polymerises and becomes carbon. The Vulcan oil heater is not suitable for burning vegoil.
Biodiesel may be a suitable fuel, but due to its high flash point, you would be hard pushed to reach its self ignition temperature in a Vulcan. Blends of diesel/Biodiesel may be a possibility.

I am a member of a small community organisation who rented a house as an office. It had a Vulcan oil heater and I did try it out on veggie. I then stopped using veggie and returned to using the kero in the tank.
I also researched the prices of Kero and Diesel and found that Kero was about 25 c/l dearer than diesel. Diesel works well in the Vulcan.
Tony

[Grahamm Biofuels Forum Newbie Find all posts View Profile Close Grahamm]

Re: Just wondering

I found on a site -(not sure which one forgot to add to my favorites) that the flash point for fuel oil
no:1 is 210 C suitable for small space heaters
no:2 is 256 C residential heating
no:3 is 262 C industrial

found on here about rapeseed oil with a flash point of 220 C so I would guess this type of oil would fire up so to speak. The thing is when it burnt would it burn clean or just gum up. What do you think?

I searched the history and found the site http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fu...res-d_171.html might be useful for others as well.