Boston-area diner heated by its own used cooking oil
French fries may be terrible for your arteries, but Don Levy thinks they’re pretty darn good for the environment.
Sort of.
Levy owns Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown, MA. For the last three years he’s been heating his restaurant with spent oil from his fry maker. Not only does this eliminate the need for heating oil – it also slashes his heating bill to nothing.
“What was attractive about heating the building this way?” muses Levy, who bought the 1947-built diner in 1999. “Zero heating cost.”
Watertown isn’t in Boston proper, but the rising cost of winter heating oil is an important issue facing cities in the northeast, not to mention other areas that suffer cold, harsh winters.
Three years ago, Levy says, he was paying $2 a gallon for heating oil. This winter, he says, oil looks to be heading toward $5.45 for the same gallon.
That’s why, when Levy learned that he’d have to replace his oil-fired heater, he decided to try something new. Conventional boilers can burn a combination of regular heating oil and cooking oil, but to use 100-percent spent cooking oil requires a special type of boiler.
So Levy bought the machine, manufactured by Econo Heat Inc. of Spokane, Wash. for about $25,000, including installation. He says he’ll recoup that investment in savings over about 4-5 years.
“We burn about 1,500 gallons per year to heat our building and our hot water,” he says.
In addition to these costs, Levy says he’s saving an additional $150 each month because he no longer needs to hire a rendering company to pick up the used oil for disposal.
Still, money’s not the only reason Levy likes his investment. He also appreciates its environmental benefits.
“We’ve taken the pledge,” says Levy, whose son, Eric, runs Save That Stuff, which removes discarded food from restaurants for composting. “We don’t sell bottled water anymore, we serve tap water. We use environmentally friendly to-go containers and coffee cups.”
Levy’s only regret about his boiler is that it’s not quite big enough.
“I probably should have bought a little bigger one,” he says.
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Ken O. says:
So what I'm wondering is -- not to knock a great concept -- if the restaurant was better insulated in the first place, could it use less heating oil overall? Do most Northern city buildings have double-pane windows and thick wall insulation?