JAY – A new waste-oil burner being installed at the transfer station is expected to save the town money after the system pays for itself in two years.
The burner will heat the control room at the transfer station with used oil and transmission fluid that is taken to the station for disposal, Jay recycling coordinator Bob Sanders said Monday.
They’ll be able to monitor the used fluids, he said, to make sure they’re clean for burning and not mixed with antifreeze or water, which would mess with the system or shut it down.
The installation of the new system is expected to be completed today.
The system cost $8,962, including installation.
“People have been bringing oil here for years, and we pay to have it hauled off,” he said. “And now we’ll burn it.”
Last year, 3,900 gallons of heating oil were used to heat the control room where the compactor and the sewer and water lines are located, Sanders said.
“I’m expecting a two-year payback,” he said. “In two years, that burner will be paid for and we’ll be burning free oil. I think it is a wonderful thing. First of all, we save the money that it cost to haul the waste oil off and second, for every gallon of used oil we burn, it is one less gallon of regular No. 2 oil we have to buy.”
A 2,000-gallon tank, which is usually filled with used oil or acceptable fluids, has to be hauled off at least once a year, Sanders said.
He’s also in the process of getting figures together for a proposal to put in an outside wood boiler to heat the recycling building. It took 5,000 gallons of oil to heat that last year, he said.
“We ship anywhere from 6 to 8 tons of waste wood every month to the biomass plant,” he said.
If Jay can get the new boiler, he said, it will be able to burn that wood.
The town will still have its oil heating system to back up the waste oil system, and also the wood boiler, if it is approved.
Comments are no longer available on this story