O.T. Used oil furnaces/synthetic oil

I give my used motor oil to the local implement dealer. They use it to heat their shop with a used oil furnace. Is synthetic oil compatible with those furnaces? I changed my oil (synthetic) in my car today and before I dump it in the bucket that has mineral oil in it, I thought I would ask. Yes I could call the dealer, but this is easier. Thanks, Roy

I doubt they'll know the difference. As long as it isn't paint thinner, gas, or other things that tend to burn with a boom, it'll be fine.

Friend uses used oil to heat his shop, seen him put alot of things in his tank, only thing he complains about is water and antifreeze.

When I take oil to the auto parts place for recycling, ALL oil goes into the same tank. ATF, synthetic, detergent, non-detergent, etc. You can buy recycled oil (actually just re-filtered a few times) but it is a guess what kind of oil is actually in there.

I burn it in mine , no issues . Veggie or fryer oil gives it fits , so I mix it with used oil , works ok, smells like french fries though .Easy winter so far , only burned 1100 gal .

Hope you have room for 10-20 gallons, I have your barrel.

For what it is worth,I read somewhere that 99% of the synthetic is dino based.(it will burn)

Clean Burn brand furnaces state not to burn synthetic, that tag was on a replacement burner unit we bought to install at a place I once worked. We burned synthetic in it anyway. Waste oil burners are more trouble than they are worth, anyway. People keep telling me I need one now that I own my own auto repair shop, but I haven't even burned enough natural gas through my $600 second hand furnace in 5 years to pay for a waste oil burner or it's maintenance, much less save anything. I have enough cars to work on, don't need to add non-paying furnace repair to my list.

Dad ran one in his shop for nearly 10 years, and it will burn anything that is compatible with other oils.

In other words, as long as it's all being poured into a large tank, and mixing, it's not going to be an issue.

The only problems we ever had was antifreeze getting in the mix from oil obtained from other people. We all but eliminated that problem by putting the oil a settling tank first, and then transferring it to the larger tank after draining off any contaminates.

Other than occasional maintenance, we never had an issue. The furnace is now in my shop, being readied for next winter. I hope I have the same luck.

One thing to keep in kind if you have one and don't use it all the time. Many of them have heaters in the intake to warm the incoming oil. Depending on the wiring, those heaters will stay on to insure the oil is warm when the furnace comes on. So, if you aren't going to run the furnace for any length of time, insure you have a way to turn things off completely. It might take a bit of warm up before things are optimal but it will prevent the oil in the pre-heat block from getting hot enough to gum up the works.

oh ,always have room for more

Guess it depends on climate . Only heat source I have . Little bit of maint and time involved, but saves me 600 month heat bill. Set it at 70 and leave it , nice and toasty .

I'm in Indiana, so I probably don't get the extremes you do. My building is well insulated and I only keep it about 60 in the winter, any higher and I only want to sleep, not work. I agree, most problems start with fuel source pretreatment. From what I observed of their operation, the source tank needs to be indoors, near the furnace, and have a heat tape on the outlet. The three I have been involved with also needed the fire box cleaned out once a month durinv heating season. The places I worked, that was out of my control. They would usually quit working on the coldest day of the year. I have also only worked around loud oil burners, too, and the racket they made drove me nuts. I am glad you have good luck with yours.