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| Does anyone have any experience or know anything good or bad about these shop heaters?
http://www.lanair.com/lanairproducts/products.asp?index=MX-300&?scr...
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algona iowa | I have a energy lodgic its six years old the last time I looked it had 18500 hours on it. Not much trouble with it just normal maintence. There are many differnt kinds out there to choose from. One thing to consider is some have their own air supply I beleive these are better along time ago we had one that used air from the shop compresore we had alot of trouble with it but that was 20 years ago. |
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Portland, ND | I have a lanair waste-oil furnace, I think the model is HI-260. It was new in 2001.
I wish I had never seen it, it is a piece of junk. I was going to go with a clean burn, but went with this instead.
They are constantly updating their gun/nozzle to make it work, and offer a $600 annual trade in to update whatever they got wrong with the last years model.
My .02
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Eastern VA. No such thing as too many Magnums. | if you don't care about having to start it by yourself in the morning, the heco free burn is real cheap and we love it. Had one little problem with the oil pump, but it was a cheap easy fix. No experience with the expensive systems. |
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| something to ponder, do you use blended synthetics or full synthetics, cause that changes the way these are going to work..... |
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Portland, ND | We use regular oil, hytran and schaeffers oil in the furnace. We have had zero luck with any gear lube, so we keep that out. We keep the water drained off, and are careful with our oil sources.
We were told when we bought it it would run anything from gear lube to diesel, synthetic or not, with simple adjustments to the fuel and air pressure. It will not run gear lube, period. We give that to our neighbors with a clean burn.
I don't think I should be expected to pay $600 plus shipping two ways to exchange my gun every year. We take care of the machine, but the company in Wisconsin is a pain to deal with, and expect you to replace the gun every year. They act like we are wasting their time when we ask for help, because we don't have the newest gun.
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SE Nebraska | We have a Lanair and have been very happy with it. Dad works in a Ford shop where they have Clean Burns, and they are forever dinking with them to get them to work right. That being said. I think machine upkeep and oil quality will determine largely how any of the brands perform. |
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Brazilton KS | We run a Lanair gun. I generally replace it every second or third year. Once I got the oil handling and supply figured out, we really don't have much trouble with it. It's mostly a matter of keeping a steady pressure and keeping the water drained off. We burn every bit of oil we generate, and several neighbors, including the gear oil from several scrapers and tractor and truck axles and finaldrives. Challengers generate quite a bit of 50 wt. 627's and D7s produce a lot of 85W-140. I guess I'm glad I didn't have anyone to explain to me that I couldn't burn it! I read somewhere that it wouldn't burn transmission fluid...but it sure as heck does. Got about 40 gallons of milky UTF ran through it from a couple old tractors the last couple weeks.
Sometimes I "get sick of dinking with it" but then after a while I think about how much LP or diesel we don't burn, and pretty soon that couple hours per year cleaning and adjusting doesn't seem so bad. |
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algona iowa | Does the lanair have a pre heater before it goes to the nozzel? I believe ours is preheated to 145 degrees before it goes to the gun. We run every thing thru ours but are care full about the water. |
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Brazilton KS | It has one element heating the oil passage and another heating the air passage. I may be mistaken, but I think it runs a fair bit warmer then 145. When I was learning about this I spoke with Tom Kagi, who builds his own gun, and it sure seems that I recall him stating that at approximately 300 degrees there is effectively no difference in viscosity regardless of what oil it is, and that is the key to making a nozzle work consistantly on unknown oil. When I mounted a 20 gallon tank inside the mechanical shed with a sump and drain, with the outside supply coming into it, and the pump running the gun off of it, that's when I would really say that our setup became adequate. It still requires some work, but now it can be counted on to run for days at a time without being fiddled with. Before, any time the temperature changed, you were fiddling with it, and if it was hard cold, you could count on trouble. Now, I have to constantly remind myself that if it is acting up, I probably better go check the tank, 'cause it's probably about empty. I don't know why but it just refuses to make heat without oil! |
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Portland, ND | I agree with plowboy, it is hotter than 145.
Plowboy, do you lift the oil up to your pump/bypass plumbing? We just changed ours Monday to lower the pickup and the pump, so it doesnt need to lift the oil out of the tank. We are just running diesel in it right now, trying to get it sorted out. Maybe that is why we have not been able to burn gear lube, it is too hard to suck out of the 265 tank.
How much pressure do you run? We have our air at 11 and oil is about 5.5. |
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| Iam on the 3rd season on mx-150. Never had trouble till this year and After some phone calls I think it is okay now.When it wasnt working and I had to burn LP it made me realize how much nicer heat the oil burner is. The service and parts dept at Lanair are top notch as far as Im concerned. I called several times and the 2 service men KNEW their product like the back of their hand and were more than happy to help me fix my problem. Top Notch |
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| I'm running two of them right now. The MX250 is going on the fourth year and all I have done is clean the filter one time and reset the igniter gap once in that period. The second one is a MXD 200 this is the first season and it seems like a good furnace also. The reason I bought Lanairs is that the factory is a half hour away I thought if I needed parts they would be close. They have been trouble free as of now. The oil needs to be filtered before you pump it in the tank and it is best to store oil you recieve from other people outside to freeze the water in the barrell before you bring it in and put it in the furnace tank. It has been the best heat for the money in my porous shop with the fuel being free. Also they will deal on price. |
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Brazilton KS | My pump is on the floor. Pulling out of the inside tank about 5" above the bottom. The tank is supposed to be full (3' or so) at all times, but if our storage tanks get low it isn't. That's when stuff starts acting up, especially if it's zero outside. We removed a couple restrictions in the lines from outside this fall, and that has helped. Intend to raise the storage tanks 3 feet or so and then I think we will have no more of that trouble as the inside tank will stay full until the storage is completely empty. My pump and pressure regulator are not Lanair. Just a little gear pump and a spring type sprayer regulator. I have double staged regulators on the air. If I try to run a single regulator I can't keep it from freezing up when cold outside. Our storage tanks are outdoors, the entire system is in an open door van body...stays 40 or so minimum. We had doors on it, but it would never run consistantly that way because it had no source of combustion air. Abuot 15-20 on air, not sure on oil at the tip because the gauge has been overpressured. It reads about 6 psi with the pump off, and I run it about the top of it's range. I'm guessing it is about 10-12. We are fueling it about 150% of what it is rated to burn. That's about as far as i can push it and have it run reliably. Can go to 200% if I'm there to keep an eye on it. |
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Portland, ND | Our oil is stored warm inside, we have an old 265 fuel barrel we use for fuel. We have a 1000 gallon tank on a trailer that we go collect oil with, and refill the 265 with.
Maybe it will work better without having to suck the fuel out of the tank, I guess time will tell. |
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| What size are you heating with the 150?
I see it is rated for 5,000 sq ft. I'm looking to cover 3,000 sq ft.
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| I just asked about sizing above.
I'm looking to cover 3,000 sq ft. I see there isn't a tremedous difference in the pricing. What area are you heating? Are the heating specs on the website accurate?
What kind of fuel consumption on say a 20 degree day can you expect?
Edited by Jon S 1/13/2011 05:58
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| My shop size is 45 by 75 and very poorly insulated. The MX250 according to specs will use 1.75 gallons per hour and the MXD 200 I think is 1.64 gallons per hour. I wouldn't be surprized if they didn't use more. I only heat when I am there but most people that I know say you will need around 1000 -1500 gallans a season. Put the word out on the street and you will get plenty of oil to burn. If your shop is well insulated one furnace will get the job done fine. |
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| I heat my 36 by 50 shop and keep it at 68 degrees and on a zero degree day it might burn 5-7 gallons. I run my fuel pressure at 1.75. The tank drops a inch a day when its that cold. That heat is nice warm heat also. |
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Goff, Kansas (Nemaha County) USA | I don't know too much about the Lanairs (other than what the guys at the farm shows say) but I have a Shenendoah 235 heating my 50'x100' shop. Have had it for 11 winters now and around 14,000 hrs on it, and have resealed the gun twice which the last time I did a full rebuild, nozzel, heating elements and the whole works, one other thing that made mine work much much better too was changing the 15 sec cutout to a 30 sec cutout on the shut down. That way if I have some bad oil or happpen to have a bit of water it will be more likely to get past it and keep on burning instead of shutting down waiting to be reset.
The gun on the Shenendoah's (firelake now) is very simple to take apart and clean and rebuild. The only think I have against the Lanair is the same thing with my Shenendoah which is the short length of the combustion chamber. The firelake for instance and some others too with the longer frame look to me to be better when it comes to getting a good full burn out of your flame. I should clean my burner once a month to keep the buildup of ash down to keep the heat transfer as optimal as possible but usually end up putting it off to more like twice a season when I start having problems. I know the longer frame setup burns cleaner cause I was checking out one that had been in use for a couple years and they hadn't cleaned it out yet at that point and it looked just as clean as when I get done cleaning mine out. Make sure you have plenty of oil supply, have gotten quite a few around here now so oil is getting kinda scarce to go around. I typically go through 1100+ gal a season and keep it set around 65 all the time. I also have LP fired hot water in the floor too though that I run if it is getting real cold out to help the oil furnace keep up.
Any of you other oil burners have any slick filter systems set up or are you getting good enough oil you don't have to filter it much? Seems lately I have been having to scrounge up some real crap oil sometimes. I have been using a 5 gal steel bucket with hole cut all over it then lining the inside with screen door screen which works ok but still has to be babysat or you can make a mess... |
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Lanair waste oil shop furnace
