Anyone tempted to burn a little used motor oil with your pellets?

I've been tempted by this ever since ordering the stove. I don't need to burn much at all to keep up with our three vehicles, and it would save the hassle of getting to a place during the week with a 5 gallon jug every few months. A pellet stove (especially mulitfuel) seems to be nearly the perfect vessel for burning small amounts (1 qt per 40lb bag max) because:

1) There is a method for dealing with un-burnables.
2) There is no "nozzle" which requires filtering and or preheating oil to maintain consitancy.
3) There is air injection to help with the burn (not to mention the pellets burning as well).

Most people I run this by think I'm insane, especially my wife, but I finally got a couple people who thought it was sound logic. So I tried it in my 2 month old Castile, 1/2 qt drizzled within the hopper (the castile claims 40lb hopper but our bucket and the hopper like 20lbs at a time much better, which is a little bit of a bummer but 20lbs does go through the work day fine and is easier to carry up from the basement).

The results...pretty boring actually, you can't tell the difference a bit, I think because the amount of oil is so small. But no noticable side effects including ash, etc. I've done this a few times now, and am used to Maine Wood's? (Athens) pellets, so maybe I dont' know any better, but we love the stove. Interestingly after a couple hours in the hopper you can pick up a noticeably oiled pellet and not get oil on your hands, they soak it up sitting in the hopper.

Tell me if I'm crazy, and by honest if you've every thought about and/or tried it.

Well I wouldn't say soaked is the end state...I used to word soaked because they soak up the little oil per pellet that is on them, but I don't soak them in a bucket of oil first and fish them out and put in the stove or anything. Again, half a quart drizzled within the hopper is what I've been doing. The burn looks great just like it did before, short/active/whitish/yellow flame.

sugar said:

yehaw! how does the smoke look?

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Other than the normal startup, there is no visible smoke, even with the oil, inside the stove or out the exhaust.

My main concern is that I'm a rookie at this so I won't necessarily be seeing all the tiny differences compared to "normal". But for now everything seems quite normal. I'm not doing this every fill either, just when I remember, but I'm putting a small dent in the oil sitting in the garage waiting to go somewhere else to get burned.

dac122 said:

Putting aside all the issues with burning used motor oil that has additives originally in the formula, and metals and strange combustion byproducts that are trapped in suspension from your engine, but doesn't this increase the chances of a hopper fire?

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Good, question, I actually hadn't thought of that, but motor oil has a pretty high flash point (almost 400 deg F), probably similar to pellets. In the event of a hopper fire I'd be more worried about the 30lbs of pellets than the 1/2 quart of oil simply from a "size of the fire" perspective.

That being said, the quadrafire has never had me concerned about a hopper fire. I'll let it run out soon and give everything down on the bottom end a once over.

Smokey,

I'm not worried about voiding the warranty, in my experience any fault with a piece of equipment always comes just after the warranty has expired. Plus, I can fix anything that might break on one of these stoves, they're not that complicated. I'm not worried about burning minute amounts of oil actually hurting anything on the stove.

What are you talking about invalidating EPA certification? It's still the same stove, it's not like it was a virgin and now it's not and can't go back...

Waste oil is burned in huge quantities everyday in commercial waste oil furnances, I'm not sure my 10 gallons max per year is of real concern in terms of "toxic pollutants"...I see you're burning coal.....

Give me an example of a problem I should look out for and I'll consider it.

Alright guys, glad I could gin up some laughs. Moe, no I was not born in Maine. Mainer's aren't the only people who try crazy stuff though. Just so you all know I am a mechanical engineer and hands on type. I do my own plumbing, heating and eletrical work to code and all of my own mechanic work (pulled engine out of my wifes Audi too). I'm not completely uneducated about what's I'm dealing with. Also I don't have children in the house and only do this on day's when I'm home.

I'm not going to argue with anyone about the merits of doing this, or try to convince everyone it's a great idea. I really just wanted to see if anyone else had tried it. Kind of surprised they haven't but I suppose typically those types don't frequent internet forums.

There are definitely less risky ways of getting rid of the stuff and I now work a schedule where I have weekdays off on a regular basis so for my wife's sanity will probably not be burning much more oil in the stove. I'm glad to have shared my experience and to have found this forum. I did learn that my Maine Wood's pellets aren't the best product available and am looking forward to trying something else, but for now we love the Quad, heating 1400sf right now, but it's not cold yet!

Motor oil my town is not recyclable, and you cannot go to other towns and even pay to get it recycled. I have no idea what Advance Auto does with it when I take it there. In Maine, I'm guessing that a large majority of used oil is not re-refined/recycled, because there are no refinerys around. I know of 100s of garage's/shops/business' that burn it, beyond that I have little info.

Gmiller, I'm not sure what you think is so negligent and disrespectful, and many stoves are designed to burn other things than wood pellets, though admittedly not used motor oil. I think your opinion is a rather harsh for the subject. Think outside the box a little, that's how the world progresses.