just wondering

[oldskoolron]

id say im in the right place to ask which is better or hotter ? old motor oil for the furnace or propane I have 2 44gallon drums of old oil I put round the fence line an it seems to keep most snakes away but was looking in youtube an seen that theres a lot of oil burning furnaces
just wondering so as I can maybe use it if I run out of gas one day
cheers

[Pete O]

I'm pretty sure the propane will burn hotter but the main thing is that it is easier to burn, furnaces that burn waste oil need to be specifically set up to burn it. The design I've used for my casting furnace has a pre-heater on the inlet pipe to get the oil hot before it enters the furnace. It uses propane to get started.
Old motor oil certainly is cheap though- I've got someone trying to give me a 44 gallon drum of the stuff and I haven't even had a chance to burn the 44 gallons I've got.

[TomG]

Waste oil contains nearly double the BTU's of propane, but as Pete pointed out, it's a lot tougher to burn efficiently. The problem is getting it to atomize to the point where it burns completely.

Tom

[Mayhem]

This guy has some interesting burners...

https://www.youtube.com/user/glumpy10/videos

[dallen]

http://www.exothink.com/Pages/btu.html

the chart at the above link will give you the btu's of various fuels, waste motor oil can be thought of as number 3 fuel oil. Number 5 and 6 fuel oils are bunker fuels and when cold are more like cold molasses then oil so have to be heated. #4 fuel I never had any dealings with.

like has been said oil has more BTU's but is it really worth the hassle of burning it, I don't have any problems doing it

[the penguin]

We sell and service large industrial boilers, we burn them all, natural gas, propane, methane, hydrogen, some odd bio-gases, # 2 oil, #4 oil, #6 and waste oil. 

The usual problem with waste oil, for the most part is its not a known quantity, is it all oil? part transmission fluid?? Different brands and types of oil burn differently, a couple of the newer synthetics, actually have a flame suppressant, so it won't burn in the red hot turbo on shut down, they don't burn worth a crap, The last job with that type of oil,  had to burn the oil through a gas flame envelope, surrounding the oil flame, to keep a constant source of ignition.

We are also a Clean Burn rep, for auto shops, in most cases, the stuff they try to burn, is the real problem, anti-freeze don't burn worth a crap, brake fluid can ruin the pump seals. They feel as it came out of the car its burnable. I have 3 transmission shops, that burn nothing but 100% transmission fluid, never have any problems, burns clean and very little maintenance.

You also have to be careful with homemade burners/heaters, we have had a couple people in CNY, who burnt their shops/homes down and the insurance company wouldn't pay off as the heating device didn't have a UL listing, or any other code listings.