Solar WVO heater, WVO politics, and The heat situation…
I have been able to get permission from two Chinese buffets to get some grease. It is very expensive here in upstate New York to have the grease taken away. So most places I approach seem more than happy to let me have it. Most places already have someone who collects it though and I won’t mess with that. If I go through the time and expense of putting in a barrel with a lid and filter I don’t want someone else taking my oil so I won’t touch theirs. I have strong feelings about this very subject. Once Diesel went above $4.00 I saw some things change in the Bio fuels community. Many people quit sharing and helping each other out. Barrels and dumpsters got locks and it almost looked like some of the once strong online communities became ghost towns over night.
Needless to say I did not like what I saw, I feel strongly about securing my own personal sources of oil but I do not want to participate in further destroying this community. I won’t touch other collectors oil. And I will continue to try to help each other out. Soon as things slow down a little bit on my house project I am going to volunteer at the local bio-diesel coop. It sounds like they need more people to keep up with the filtering.
Also, I was able to score about 60 gallons of moderate quality WVO from the two buffets I mentioned earlier. I will need to use this oil pretty soon on a couple road trips so I built a very temporary solar heater that fits about 12 cubies almost perfectly. I did this by stacking some chunks of concrete and rail-road ties in the shape of a U, put the cubies inside on a pad of reflectix foam insulation and just laid a bunch of scrap windows I had laying around that I have aquired via free-cycle and it seems to be working quite well I will post some pictures soon!