Our Products
TREND WATCH
Industrial Heating Trends
Oil Heater

Oil heaters are often used to heat oil for hydraulic systems in cold climates in industrial applications (http://www.wattco.com/blog/?p=240). Lube oil heaters are used for oil gear boxes and machines that use oil for lubrication. Lube oil have low watt densities (WPSI) of about 23 WPSI or lower depending on the type of oil you would use. For example SAE 10-30 oil would require 13 WPSI where SAE 40-50 oil would require 13 WPSI.  This allows users to directly immerse an immersion heater such as a flange heater or a screw plug heater directly into the lube oil.  Oil heaters can also defined as Glycol heaters, hydraulic oil heaters and are particularly used for their anticorrosive characteristics. Additional advantages also include the ability to use steel elements instead of more expensive alloys such as stainless steel.

Typical applications can include the use of oil heaters in compressors, the lubrication of gears, bearings that require heat oil lubrication to avoid any solidification of oil lube particles.

Oil heaters are oftne used in smaller tanks that might require screw plug heaters. Screw plug immersion heaters are offered in a range of sizes from 1" NPT fitting up to 4 inch NPT fitting. Prices for these screw plugs vary from $50 up to $700 depending on the additional features you would require for your application.

Our "WHO" series of screw plug oil heaters are ideal for heating oils in fluid power and machine lubrication applications. These series of hydraulic oil heaters are designed with low densities that can be controlled with mechanical thermostats integrated within the housing or outside the housing using a TBR terminal box with pilot light. Explosion proof oil heaters are also available in hazardous environments using NEMA 7 terminal boxes. Oil reservoirs using WATTCO immersion heaters also use digital control panels for more accurate applications requirements. Lube oil heaters in larger tanks use flanged heaters that can come with integrated thermostats or can use digital control panels for higher amperage loads. Please contact us at (800) 492-8826 and speak with one of our representatives for more information.

Newer oil heaters are currently being designed to burn waste oil for heating.  For oil heaters, plus types of heating elements used in every conceivable application, Wattco is pleased to offer you a one-stop solution. We are a well-known manufacturing company supplying heating elements that meet and exceed international industry standards and you will find we stock standard generic replacements or provide a service of custom making oil heaters for special projects and other industrial applications.

Additional Technical Info:

Oil heaters work by circulating oil in pipes or columns filled with oil that are heated by special heating elements. In hydraulic machines an oil heater will be installed in the holding tank to warm the oil up to operating temperature. Cold oil becomes very thick creating viscosity issues and needs to be heated first to allow the machines to operate properly. Oil heaters for ambient heating are relatively efficient in confined spaces when they are used to heat areas and when you use models controlled by a thermostat then they are pretty energy efficient as well because oil can retain heat a lot better and for a lot longer than water will.



There are many different types of oil heaters operating from different elements and at Wattco we have models that should suit almost all current applications including for smaller residential oil heaters. Oil heaters range in many different sizes in columns and apertures where the heated oil will circulate through. Other oil heaters for industrial applications operate from cartridge heaters inserted inside pipes or other configurations where the pipes will be in enclosures heated by an oil heater exchanger. You will see that Wattco manufactures almost every heater element you can find currently on the market and for oil heaters we can supply the complete range of elements or we will custom make one according to your needs.

Our expert team of technical staff can be contacted when you need advice and suggestions for heating applications, whether industrial or for oil heating and cooling in residential and commercial applications. Often, you will find lube machines using hydraulic oil heaters and appliances have heating elements that are extremely difficult to find and if you have this problem we will be glad to help including custom making your heating element for these purposes. Browse the list of products we have in our range and find out more on the type of standard oil heaters we have available. All of our heating elements are made to international industry standards as mentioned above so you can look forward to elements that will last  extensively and, of course, at the best value for money because you are dealing directly with a manufacturer.