Last summer the DeKalb Airport installed a waste oil heater in the Airport Maintenance Hangar. The airport is trying to cut costs everywhere and this is a good opportunity to try and cut their gas bills.
During snow removal operations, snow removal equipment is pulled out of the hangar to plow and is put away when the airport is operational again. They have to open the large hangar door to get the equipment out. This lets all the heat out and it takes a long time and is very expensive to regain the heat in the hangar. When they have completed plowing and all the equipment is like an ice cube, the hangar door is opened and the equipment is put away. Again, it takes a long time to recover the heat in the hangar. The waste oil heater is to ease the use of the natural gas infrared heaters when they have the hangar door open a lot.
The Airport is asking for your help. They need additional waste oil. If you have waste oil in jugs, Chuck Lanning, Airport Maintenance, will be happy to pick it up from you; or, if you want to drop it off at the Airport Maintenance facility at 2200 Pleasant Street, they will gladly accept it. Please call Chuck at 815-739-0728 if you have any waste oil they can have.
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2 Comments
“Waste Oil Needed at Airport” oh wow, I could not resist imagining sending everything at the bottom of all the french fryers in town or whatever drips off those alligator, corn dog, hamburger, etc. on a stick from Corn Fest to the airport, but of course, they do not mean that kind of oil.
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It just does not seem right to me that they have to open an airplane sized hanger door to get plows in and out. Why is there not a smaller door for the trucks? Or even a completely separate building with appropriately sized doors?
Is the “Airport Maintenance Hanger” used only for trucks? I would hope they don’t store lightweight and expensive aircraft in the same area as cumbersome, heavy duty, perhaps salt-laden snowplow trucks. Is there a mismatch here? Is salt/road deicer in the same heated space as planes? Do they understand the potential effect of salt on aluminum airframes? I hope planes and plows don’t share the same space. But why is the “maintenance” area a “hanger”?
Great they can use waste oil for space heat, but sounds like the airport has some major inefficiencies if this article implies what I think it does.