Hotwells - Designs and building

[barts]

Yup - got it exactly. In fact, I used one of these for a while:

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/6-deep- ... 20369.html

Round ones work well as separate oil separators, too.

- Bart

[PeteThePen1]

Hi,

Many thanks for the link. I should have made the connection - like most UK kids I ate "school dinners" which were, of course, kept hot in these things. I suspect the appropriate response is Doh!

Regards

Pete

[Dhutch]

Picking this up some what late the event and may create my own thread (have you made yours yet). Ours in mild steel, welded and galvanised, but as long as its waterproof, can stand how oily water, and can be cleaned, I suspect you could make it from almost anything.

Ours has four compartments, condensate spraying onto a basket of oil clothes on the left, the baffles are then stopped 40mm or so from the bottom where more oil cloth is rolled up, and out the bottom. With a ball valve controlling the return of excess delivery water from the feed pump, and a tap of the domestic water to add 'make up' water.

This works well although currently we are struggling to find suitable oil cloth at a reasonable price and the garden centre capillary matting we using currently is a little to dense a weave so we are looking at other option to get the oil out cheaply and reliably.


Daniel

[Lopez Mike]

As others have mentioned in other threads, the commercially available 'bilge sausages' sold at all marine stores are wonderful in this application. Take one apart and use the contents in your hot well. They absorb the oil and reject the water. Better than all of the older ways of doing it.

[PeteThePen1]

Hi folks

Thanks for the added tips. I have bought a restaurant heated food container/steam pan/bain marie pan and very nice it is too. Needless to say the price in the US was sooo much less than the price in the UK... All I need now is to take delivery of the boiler. That is on the way, but not yet cased.

Thanks again.

Pete