Josh Carmack
Full Access Member
I have never had a fire that I am certain of, and I have gotten my oil hot enough to literally have the oil residue smoking on the drum sides and the pump and valves. I suspect I may have had a fire, but I am not sure.
I left for town one day with 7500W (2000 + 5500W ) of heat running on a 3/4 drum. I got involved in buying parts and trying to order something weird and hard to find I wanted for my setup. Came home 2-3 hrs later to find smoke pouring out of the barn. Realizing what I did I ran in the barn expecting to see a fire, but only smoke pouring out of the drum. There was oil splashed everywhere from the bungs.
One of two things happened, there was water in the oil, which is very possible, because before this day I only heated enough to get the oil up to around 180 200 so it would flow well. If there was a lot of water in the oil it would have at some point boiled violently causing the oil to be splashed upwards out of the bung holes.
Scenario two says I had a fire, and is the most likely scenario as I heard a thump-whoosh a few times and each time smoke would violently shoot out of the bungs. I figure in the beginning, the oil flashed, but very quickly ran out of oxygen. The cycle repeated as the burnt fumes exhausted and new cooler air entered until a flammable ratio was met again. That would explain the several thump-whooshes until it cooled off some.
That was the time that the oil got hot enough to melt and dissolve the plastic fittings in the drum as well as the plastic insulator on the end of the heater elements. That is one of my best running and best flowing batches I have ever had, and the batch that taught me to heat all my oil til it smokes.
I left for town one day with 7500W (2000 + 5500W ) of heat running on a 3/4 drum. I got involved in buying parts and trying to order something weird and hard to find I wanted for my setup. Came home 2-3 hrs later to find smoke pouring out of the barn. Realizing what I did I ran in the barn expecting to see a fire, but only smoke pouring out of the drum. There was oil splashed everywhere from the bungs.
One of two things happened, there was water in the oil, which is very possible, because before this day I only heated enough to get the oil up to around 180 200 so it would flow well. If there was a lot of water in the oil it would have at some point boiled violently causing the oil to be splashed upwards out of the bung holes.
Scenario two says I had a fire, and is the most likely scenario as I heard a thump-whoosh a few times and each time smoke would violently shoot out of the bungs. I figure in the beginning, the oil flashed, but very quickly ran out of oxygen. The cycle repeated as the burnt fumes exhausted and new cooler air entered until a flammable ratio was met again. That would explain the several thump-whooshes until it cooled off some.
That was the time that the oil got hot enough to melt and dissolve the plastic fittings in the drum as well as the plastic insulator on the end of the heater elements. That is one of my best running and best flowing batches I have ever had, and the batch that taught me to heat all my oil til it smokes.