Tour - Oil Use

This is the best part. When the thermostat calls for heat, the burner turns on and heats the water in the hot water loop in the boiler and the air in the furnaces. That's pretty much it. Once the oil is cleaned and heated, the system works like any other heating system. Our boiler system heats water that is circulated throughout the 75'x96' greenhouse where 3 unit heaters extract that heat and blow it into the greenhouse where it's needed. We also have 2, 25x96 foot greenhouses adjacent to the gutter connect where we use a waste oil fired hot air furnace in each greenhouse.

Clean Burn and other waste oil burner manufacturers who have experience with TBF report that hot air furnaces combust the TBF more easily because the combustion chamber is 300F to 400F hotter in a furnace than in a hot water boiler. While this is true, it is important to understand that TBF is much more difficult to ignite than most other fuels, especially at 45F which is the winter temperature in our greenhouses. Ignition using 45F primary air. Check carefully with your dealer on this before you decide to use the furnaces.

The way No. 2 oil burners work is that oil is pumped at high pressure through a nozzle which causes the oil to spray in a fine mist (atomize) inside the combustion chamber. Air from a burner blower is mixed with the atomized fuel and a spark ignites the mixture.

Basic waste oil burners add compressed air to assist in the atomization. The better waste oil burners also heat the oil to about 150F before atomization. The Clean Burn burner also fires into a ceramic cylinder inside the boiler combustion chamber. This ceramic radiates heat back at the flame to keep the waste oil, or in our case the TBF, hot while it completely combusts. Clean burn does not use the ceramic in their hot air furnaces, although I'm not sure why given the ignition problems I've had with their equipment. The Clean Burn burner also uses a positive displacement pump to meter 2.5 gallons/hour to the burner regardless of the TBF temperature or viscosity. This system burns TBF in a blue/white flame with yellow edges and produces no residue, very little ash, and no smoke once it is adjusted properly.