This idea came to me last night while thinking about Michigans last two brutal winters. Theyre predixting another this year!

I've never seen this idea anywhere. I tried it today, and it works BEAUTIFULLY!

At work, I save all  the shredded paper they've been throwing out.

Today, I went to Lowes and got all the free carpet tubes they had.

Went back home, mixer old cooking oil in a plastic tub with a little gasoline.

The gasoline is only to thin down the oil.

Now, I take handfulls of shredded paper, soak it in the thinned down oil, wring out the paper of excess oil and cram the paper into the cardboard tubes.

They burn better, cleaner, and longer than I ever expected!

Pictures coming soon!

Pretty cool and cheap idea.

We do something similar with paper towel/TP rolls.
We save the saw dust from cutting firewood and milling lumber, melt a block of paraffin wax, add diesel to assure a better burn.
Fill the empty rolls with Doug fir cones, sawdust, pinch the ends and dip in wax for cohesion, they make great fire starters.

I'm going to check with the local Home Despot and see if I can get some empty carpet rolls and try your idea with sawdust.

How do you keep the gas/diesel from evaporating and stinking up the whole place?

I tried the sawdust idea last year. A local lumber yard started letting me haul it away for them. They were throwing it out anyway. Then the guys got greedy. They decided I should pay them for each bag. If I had to do that, gas heat would be cheaper, so I quit taking away their sawdust.

Quote from: kj4adn on September 06, 2015, 10:19:01 AM
How do you keep the gas/diesel from evaporating and stinking up the whole place?

I do it outside. I want the gasoline to evaporate. There are lots of carpet places around. I think it's an easy way to get free fuel.



Yeah, its a barrel stove I'm burning the old paint off.

Quote from: kj4adn on September 06, 2015, 10:19:01 AM
How do you keep the gas/diesel from evaporating and stinking up the whole place?

In my case, the wax contains the diesel once it cools.
I have no formula, I add roughly 8, 16 maybe 20 + Oz to a 5 lb block of wax?
Today's parafin is nowhere near as flamable as it was 30+ years ago, so you really need the diesel to keep it burning.
I think the sand candle craze had something to do with it, not sure.
Remember that hippy shit, where a bunch of stoners on the beach poured a bunch of melted wax in a divot in the sand, decorated it with shells and sold them for $20.0 a pop.
Even hippies can play capitalists.

Quote from: carlb on September 06, 2015, 10:32:45 AM
I do it outside. I want the gasoline to evaporate. There are lots of carpet places around. I think it's an easy way to get free fuel.



Yeah, its a barrel stove I'm burning the old paint off.

I had a neighbor that used the double barrel kit like that for his heat, replaced the barrels every three years like clock work, because they would start burning out.
But damn, those things really crank out the heat, better than my 120 thousand BTU wood stove.

I've drawn up plans for a wood/coal burner (with an after burner), from a 125 Gal propane tank.  Going to run the idea past an engineer friend of mine before I start building.  If he thinks it'll work I'll post it here...

The way to extract the maximum heat from those barrel stoves is in the piping to the second barrel & enough chimney for adequate draft.

Quote from: kj4adn on September 06, 2015, 12:41:54 PM
I've drawn up plans for a wood/coal burner (with an after burner), from a 125 Gal propane tank.  Going to run the idea past an engineer friend of mine before I start building.  If he thinks it'll work I'll post it here...

The way to extract the maximum heat from those barrel stoves is in the piping to the second barrel & enough chimney for adequate draft.

Yeah, it appeared the issue my neighbor had was soot buildup from inadequate venting.
He lived in a 20x20' shed with a 20' high ceiling no insulation. The problem arose when he couldn't generate a venturi flow to push the cold air out the exhaust, the stove would finally warm up but because he used to crank it high, the fire wouldn't last all that long.

Meaning it would cool down at night and smolder building up creosote which is acidic in nature, that would rust/eat out his barrels.

Yeah, a cheap barrel stove is an ideal heatiing solution for me. Without alternate heat, my gas bill is 2k a year. Nearly all of that between Nov 1st and April 1st.

During the winter months, I turn the furnace down to 55 or 60 while I'm at work and while I'm sleeping. When I get home from work an t 6 pm, I fire up the stove for 4 hours and let it die by 10.

This saves me a fortune on heat and I got better uses for that money anyway


Also, I have a 1 acre lot with lots of large trees that I'm constantly trimminng. I get a lot of wood this way, and I haul pallets home from work. They burn great!  This is just another way to get free fuel.  Hope others find the idea useful.

Quote from: carlb on September 06, 2015, 02:28:22 PM
Yeah, a cheap barrel stove is an ideal heatiing solution for me. Without alternate heat, my gas bill is 2k a year. Nearly all of that between Nov 1st and April 1st.

During the winter months, I turn the furnace down to 55 or 60 while I'm at work and while I'm sleeping. When I get home from work an t 6 pm, I fire up the stove for 4 hours and let it die by 10.

This saves me a fortune on heat and I got better uses for that money anyway


Also, I have a 1 acre lot with lots of large trees that I'm constantly trimminng. I get a lot of wood this way, and I haul pallets home from work. They burn great!  This is just another way to get free fuel.  Hope others find the idea useful.

Holy Crap! two grand a year for fuel?  Even if I left the thermostat set at 80 for that time period, it would at most cost me $300 in propane.
Of course I never heat the entire house either, we keep the kitchen and bedroom unheated and only heat the living room.
Hmm, now that I think about it, if I did heat the entire house, it would cost a lot more.
I'm guessing you live somewhere near Michigan, or further north?

Quote from: Solar on September 06, 2015, 05:52:47 PM
Holy Crap! two grand a year for fuel?  Even if I left the thermostat set at 80 for that time period, it would at most cost me $300 in propane.
Of course I never heat the entire house either, we keep the kitchen and bedroom unheated and only heat the living room.
Hmm, now that I think about it, if I did heat the entire house, it would cost a lot more.
I'm guessing you live somewhere near Michigan, or further north?

Damn I can heat my full house, 4 car garage and 30' 5th wheel for 235$ a month.  In those same months. 

Quote from: Solar on September 06, 2015, 05:52:47 PM
Holy Crap! two grand a year for fuel?  Even if I left the thermostat set at 80 for that time period, it would at most cost me $300 in propane.
Of course I never heat the entire house either, we keep the kitchen and bedroom unheated and only heat the living room.
Hmm, now that I think about it, if I did heat the entire house, it would cost a lot more.
I'm guessing you live somewhere near Michigan, or further north?

Between Ann Arbor, MI and Toledo, OH.

Without wood heat, my gas bill is $500 a month in January and February. Last February was brutal. The other winter months are less. Ive begun ripping out walls and insulating with foamboard. The house was built in the 40s. They didn't know about insulation.

Quote from: carlb on September 06, 2015, 07:36:31 PM
Between Ann Arbor, MI and Toledo, OH.

Without wood heat, my gas bill is $500 a month in January and February. Last February was brutal. The other winter months are less. Ive begun ripping out walls and insulating with foamboard. The house was built in the 40s. They didn't know about insulation.

I thought so, it gets bone chilling cold there, with winds and an old house, heat gets sucked out with every gust.
My parents house was built in the Sacto. valley Ca in 59, back when the monthly gas and electric bill combined was under $5. a month and homes then weren't insulated at all, you just set the thermostat on both gas wall furnaces at 80 and left it there all winter.

Under Carter the cost of energy shot up so dad had insulation blown in the walls, 10 years later, it had settled so badly, he had to reinsulate the entire house again.

If it were me, I'd blow in Styrofoam and call it a day. Costly, yes, but in the long run, it pays for itself.

Quote from: Solar on September 06, 2015, 08:19:28 PM
I thought so, it gets bone chilling cold there, with winds and an old house, heat gets sucked out with every gust.
My parents house was built in the Sacto. valley Ca in 59, back when the monthly gas and electric bill combined was under $5. a month and homes then weren't insulated at all, you just set the thermostat on both gas wall furnaces at 80 and left it there all winter.

Under Carter the cost of energy shot up so dad had insulation blown in the walls, 10 years later, it had settled so badly, he had to reinsulate the entire house again.

If it were me, I'd blow in Styrofoam and call it a day. Costly, yes, but in the long run, it pays for itself.

The last house we lived in - back in Wisconsin was one of those insulation con jobs.  It has all the 3" plugs, but was very cold...  We pulled a couple of them out of the bottom, the walls were empty.  Out last winter Y2K we managed to keep a couple of rooms comfortable ($400 a month), but, we had plastic on outside of all the windows, sleeping bags covering doorways...   it was pretty costly.  Pretty little 2 story on the edge of 600 acre farm land, with +2 feet of fertile top soil - you could grow 15 ft sweet corn, and green beans ... wish I had that soil.  The house was Propane, and the price was about .65 a gallon... $200 to fill the tank...  the furnace ran continually.