Bar Oil Deal

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Wish I had a Menards around here but we don't. That's a good price
 
You guys in the US have it made. Everything is cheaper......oil, gas, propane, booze....
Last year i was in a pinch and had to pick up a gallon of bar oil. Paid 15.99 (cad) plus 13% sales tax!
 
You guys in the US have it made. Everything is cheaper......oil, gas, propane, booze....
Last year i was in a pinch and had to pick up a gallon of bar oil. Paid 15.99 (cad) plus 13% sales tax!

Health insurance? ;)
 
My older bro (almost 53) lives just west of DC, has a so-so heat pump system with electric resistance back up and a wood stove insert in the LR fireplace that burns a few cord per year. He runs an Echo saw but feeds it recycled drain oil from the cars and lawn mowers. I keep telling him his cheap-a55ed ways are going to kill his oil pump but he insists on recycling the dead engine oil. "Less I have to haul off for recycling" he says.

I guess we all have some aspects of our lives that make us "squeak when we walk." Some more than others. LOL.
 
  • Like
Reactions: D8Chumley
Lol, there were a bunch of guys running used motor oil when I was cutting for Columbia helicopters in Idaho in the early 90’s. It was in a salvage log from a burn and everything was black at the end of the day anyways. They said pump and bar life really wasn’t an issue. My issue was that crap is flinging off the bar and you can’t see it but you can sure taste it ha ha.
 
I grew up watching old oil used for chain oil...
but it was filtered.
My Dad was part of a group who owned a highway lodge.They had a drum with a bunch of layers of drywall in it.The old oil was dumped in the top and cleaner oil came out a tap on the bottom. i was a kid so i don't know if it hurt the pumps,but my Dad had a 031 that cut 25 cords a year and he never had issues with that saw.
 
If anybody is ever curious about the oil off the bar getting in your mouth, put some 90 weight in. Makes a guy really question how healthy regular bar oil is ha ha
Or close your mouth...
bugs will get in as well
 
Went to local Menards on Saturday the 14th to get some of the Poulan bar oil ........sold out, no rain check, discontinued. Tried to get them to substitute another brand...no luck.
 
Billijak- if you weren't so damn far away I'd sell you one of mine! My Menards had a shelf full, maybe 20-25 gals, when I bought my 2 last week.
 
I run bar oil from tractor supply. $7 a gallon and haven't any problems out of it. My father in law is a timber cutter and uses the same stuff. He says it's as good as the more expensive name brand stuff
 
You guys in the US have it made. Everything is cheaper......oil, gas, propane, booze....
Last year i was in a pinch and had to pick up a gallon of bar oil. Paid 15.99 (cad) plus 13% sales tax!
You are in Ottawa. I can supply you with 5 gal pails of used ISO 100 Rock Drill oil for free. It's every bit as good or better than chain oil and has tacking agents in it like chain oil (unlike motor oil)
 
Last edited:
Menards store brand is cheap all the time, much cheaper than Stihl bar oil. Been using it for years. My used oil (and I have a lot of it as well as used hydraulic oil goes in my waste oil furnace or starts my burn piles. Most in the furnace however.
 
You are in Ottawa. I can supply you with 5 gal pails of used ISO 100 Rock Drill oil for free. It's every bit as good or better than chain oil and has tacking agents in it like chain oil (unlike motor oil)
Hell of a deal for anyone around you.
A wood cutter i know gets 200 liter drums of used hydrolic oil that he uses for his bar oil.
 
Hell of a deal for anyone around you.
A wood cutter i know gets 200 liter drums of used hydrolic oil that he uses for his bar oil.
I give away probably 200L of rock drill, hydraulic and motor oil a week during wood cutting season to my employees, friends and family. Beats having to pay 12 cents a litre to get rid of it!
 
Problem with hydraulic oil(used or new) is, it's thin (VG32) and it don't contain the boundary layer lubricant the yoy need for sliding surfaces in direct contact under pressure. I get a lot myself, every time I change my farm tractors, each one is 20 gallons x 3. Mine all goes in the waste oil furnace.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TreePointer
My mechanic buddy installed a waste oil burner furnace in his 5 lift shop 6-7 years ago, when oil wasn't as cheap as today, and he has an old 3/4 ton Chevy van that he calls the Valdez that he drives around to his various waste oil generating friends for pick-ups. He has a couple of 100 gal tanks and a suction pump in that old thing and he keeps expanding his oil tank farm out back, must have 3000 gal of tanks out there now. The furnace I believe is about 150,000 btu and does an excellent job of heating the shop, keeps it at 70 all winter long. Burns any and every kind of oily chit in it.
 
My Clean Burn' has a centrifugal separator, pre filter that spins out 95% of the junk and the filter gets the rest. It burns everything but anti freeze. I have about 500 gallon waste oil storage which is plenty for my needs and I use it all every winter. 500 plus the 100 gallon tank on the machine.

Don't matter if there is water in the drain oil either. the spinner removes the water too.

All it is, is a fancy oil burner but the burn chamber and heat exchangers are stainless. I think (without looking) that mine is 120K BTU output.
 
Yeah, my buddy has to clean his burn chamber thoroughly every fall. He had to fab a replacement one out of stainless, and modify the design a bit, a few years ago due to a less than robust design and too thin of steel in the original.
 
Never had that happen but I'm an accomplished TIG welder so it the need arose, I'm capable plus IO have all the fab equipment to do it as well. shears, brakes and presses to fabricate and a cnc plasma table to cut parts.
 
My mechanic buddy installed a waste oil burner furnace in his 5 lift shop 6-7 years ago, when oil wasn't as cheap as today, and he has an old 3/4 ton Chevy van that he calls the Valdez that he drives around to his various waste oil generating friends for pick-ups. He has a couple of 100 gal tanks and a suction pump in that old thing and he keeps expanding his oil tank farm out back, must have 3000 gal of tanks out there now. The furnace I believe is about 150,000 btu and does an excellent job of heating the shop, keeps it at 70 all winter long. Burns any and every kind of oily chit in it.
I have a reznor in my shop for the last 20 years.I have 2 years worth of oil as backup.Plus 90 drums of veggi oil from McDee's.
Mine burnes up to 25% gas,so i have a wrecking yard that gladly gives me oil because i am willing to take the gas as well.I have burnt straight veggi oil,diesel from the 40's with green algae growing in it.
I had one issue where the tank turned to jello one winter,it would only take about an hour of run time to plug up the filters.I strained the tank through a double layer of window screen and mixed it w50/50 with some freash oil and that was the end of that issue.
I have around 29000 hrs on it at 1.7 gallons an hour makes for an impressive amount of used oil gone to good use.
 
My buddy had a drag racer a few years ago who was dropping 80W motor oil from their fuelie cars, had some nitromethane mixed in it and that made it burn real nice. They changed the oil after each run so they dropped a lot of 55 gal drums off.
Don't know if he ever ran a usage rate calculation on his furnace, I'll mention to him your 1.7 gal/hr.
 
The initial cost is pretty steep but the ROI is excellent.