Monday, 29 March 2010

Waste carrier license renewed, and thoughts on the cost of veg cars.

The time had come to renew our waste carriers license to enable us to pick up the used oil legally. Rather disappointingly Instead of a nice certificate all we got was a 1 page document to print off ourselves. Still it does give our registration number so its all above board.

Last time we paid the extra to have a nice credit card type identification to show people but it didn't seem worth it this year.

The cost for this license was £104 for a 3 year renewal. Works out £17.34 per car per year, beats the price at the fuel pump !!

Given the actual fuel is free this is our only significant fuel cost. Unless you count the 30p per wash for the powder it takes when I wash my filters every couple of months or so. I suppose we should also factor in the extra expense of not getting free crystal wine glasses from the petrol stations we don't visit any more unless we run out of milk.

Wednesday, 3 March 2010

Details of my veg filtering setup, including my new plans

I have been asked recently about my filtering set-up. To save me re-jigging it too look right I have decided to just post a link to details I posted on a forum. You don't need to join, you can just view it without.

http://bit.ly/aaJehn

Basically its a 120L barrel with a 7 inch hole cut in the lid. I hang a 5micron filter in it (1 micron when filtering for a trip just to be safe). I pour 20 litres into the sock and then go in the house and leave it to filter (placing a second lid over the first and a brick on top to hold it there. All filtering is done outside. I want it to pass through the filter at the same temperature that it will pass through the cars filter. Otherwise, in my opinion, there is a risk that fats will get through the home filtering which will then get stuck in the cars filter because of the lower temperatures.

As you will see from the thread I am currently working on upgrading so I can let the veg flow direct from the barrel into my fuel tanks. It saves me tapping it into containers and then pouring them into the car.