# Convection heating Oil gravity feed By Franco Bulge



## ducati996 (Dec 27, 2003)

Hello all,

Maybe some of you are concerned about the upcoming winter months and are looking for efficient heating methods...

http://www.francobelge.com/gb/indexgb.asp

look at the oil heat section and then the Normandie model

If I can suggest looking at a product that will propably save you hundreds of dollars in a season. I have relatives in New Hampshire White Mountain region and they installed this unit
in their downstairs 2,550 sqft living room area. This unit is amazing because its a 45,000 plus BTU unit that is gravity oil fed. On the medium setting it burns about 20-30 gallons of oil a month in the coldest days of winter. It requires no electric to start, burns a blue flame with no soot....I found the unit by accident down here (LI, NY) where the guy was heating his store for 10 gal a month in oil on a low setting. That was his only heat source. I had them ship a unit up north, but you can find a dealer nearby you I'm sure. It cost <$1,500 and they already got their return on investment....amazing product

Franco belge Convection Oil gravity heater -Normandie 

Duc


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## Live Oak (Dec 22, 2003)

The link does not work Duc.


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

While I don;t use it for heating, I use used motor oils that I collect from my friends and use it to fire up a modified domestic oil fired burner that I use to melt metal with. It does not blow black smoke either, and burns with a nice blue flame and gets more than hot enough to melt a crucible full of cast iron chunks into liquid form. When I lived up north, I used a modified version of the double stacked 55 gal drums typically seen used as wood fired heaters in shops etc for heat. I put a tank of used engine oil and anything else thatw ould burn outside and gravity fed it by way of a copper line to the bottom drum. The bottom drum was layered with about 4" of sand, topped with journal box wick pads. Journal box pads were heavy pads made of cheesecloth that were used in the jounal boxes to lube railroad cars axles / bearings, and these were saturated with a heavy oil and would wick it up out of the journal box and apply a fillm of oil to the bearings etc. When they changed them out they would routinely throw them in a pile in the railroad sidings, where I would get what I needed for my use. 

The oil would flow fromthe storage tank through the copper line and saturate the sand and journal box pads with whatever it was I had in the tank, and I used a piece of newspaper and a few sticks of wood to get it started. Once lit, it would burn with a blue soot free flame and give me a winters worth of free heat in my shop and barn............It would smoke until it got good and hot, and after that all you could see out of the chimney was heat, little to no smoke. Yes, It probably caused polution in forms of contaminaants you could not see.


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## Live Oak (Dec 22, 2003)

I think this is the link

Franco Belge 

Nice looking stove but I think I like the multi-fuel models. They don't go into much detail about what they can burn though.


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## ducati996 (Dec 27, 2003)

Fixed the link....
Home Oil heat convection is area of interest at least for me...

I have seen the stoves in action and they are amazingly efficient

http://www.francobelge.com/gb/indexgb.asp


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## bontai Joe (Sep 16, 2003)

Chipmaker,
Where did you learn of this homebuilt oil burning stove design? It sounds pretty good and something the oil companies probably don't want widely known. Did you invent yours, or get it out of a book? I'm interested because free heat is sounding REAL good to me.


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## guest (Sep 16, 2003)

i have 2 gas stoves but they suck up way too much propane.. it ends up costing me more than burning oil....

id would like to get something for the garage.... but was gonna get a cheapo kerosene heater to get me by this winter...


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## bontai Joe (Sep 16, 2003)

Ducati996,
Thanks for the link! The stoves look good, but I wish there was more info on their web site. Did your friend need a masonry chimney? metal? Or is it efficient enough to use a PVC vent?


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

Back when I was a kid I used to hang around what was called the "Shops" This was a huge multi steel building complex that catered mainly to repairing of locomotives and raillroad cars and any machine type or welding work that was just too large to be handled by most conventional machine shops. It had all dirt floors in most areas, full of hard packed grease oil laden dirt, door left open all the time and most windows broken out. Typical of old time operations. Folks used to be pretty inventive on staying warm. It was common place to see these old timers using hot box or journal box stuffing thrown in a bucket r drum and light them on fire and have a drip feed container constantly refueling them. They were all open topped. I could not safely use an open top heater in my shop and when I spotted a double drum wood burning stove in an old cabin on a hunting trip the ideas hit me to use the same concept, but instead of using wood as they did in that double barrel heater was to use the journal box stuffing and used oils. The journala box stuffing once saturated with oil etc and on fire and burning, with proper draft, made a very hot fire, which had no problems making a 55 gal drum turn bright red. The packing would last a long time, as long as you did not run it out of fuel and then the packing itself would burn, instead of acting like a wick on a kerosene or fuel oil light. Back then they did not have the new fire resitant fiberglass and silica wicks commonly found in newer oil lamps etc, it was just a plain cotton woven wick, which was esentially just wat journal box packing were. I can't take credit for doing this, I just improved the basic concept of the old timers I used to hang around and learn from as a kid. Things like that would get you arrested today with epa probably, even if it did not draw any attention with smoke due to unseen contaminants. Heck back then those old timers would even use that oil fired heaters to make toast or roast hot dogs in, and never complained of any aftertaste......cancer..........hell that was not a concern back then either from their method of cooking. Me I can taste charcoal lighter on food if the food was put on the grill just a tad bit prematurely before all traces of lighter was burned off......

You can get the barrel fittings (doors, vents, connector collars and flue collars) for these double barrrel stoves from Northern Hydraulics and other homesteader type places. I wold imagine the journal box packings are still there, but what they may be made of today is anyones guess........and more than likely a controlled item due to haz mat or epa regulations on proper disposal, but there should still be something out there in this big wide world that would make a suitable substitute. The rest is just regular old 55 gal or any sized steel drums, and a length of 1/4" or larger soft copper and a typical stop cock to adjust flow.


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## bontai Joe (Sep 16, 2003)

Thanks Chip! I'll have to file this one in my "keeper" box for when I'll need it later.


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## ducati996 (Dec 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by bontai Joe _
> *Ducati996,
> Thanks for the link! The stoves look good, but I wish there was more info on their web site. Did your friend need a masonry chimney? metal? Or is it efficient enough to use a PVC vent? *


In my relatives application it replaced a wood stove, so the plumping was there already. The unit that was place in a store had metal pumbling as well....thankfully they do not get as hot as a wood or coal stove...

They are impressive units burning less than 20 gallons on a mid-high setting (45,000 BTU's) ...for a month...

Duc


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

Just seeing that they were made in France was enough for me!

Yep I am still boycotting "French" fires also!


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## Live Oak (Dec 22, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Chipmaker _
> *Just seeing that they were made in France was enough for me!
> 
> Yep I am still boycotting "French" fires also!  *


Chip, Americans are eating "natural cut fries" now. Basically french fries with the potato peel left on.


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