MAN INVENTS NOBLE WARMING

Local Man Heats Home Using Free Vegetable Oil
by Carlton Laing, Chronicle Contributor
02/14/2008

Inventor Mirza Aliahmad retrofitted his boiler to burn used vegetable oil instead of fuel oil, saving him money on home heating. Ever since he was a child, Mirza Aliahmad was always tinkering with and inventing things. His most recent invention is his home heating system, which he transformed from an expensive burden to a free, warm pleasure. Facing the rising prices of heating oil and a crisis for his checkbook, the 40-year-old South Ozone Park resident got innovative and figured out a way to retrofit his boiler and burn free vegetable oil instead of the expensive No. 2 heating oil he previously used.

He has stopped calling on his oil supplier for deliveries and instead has been calling on his local Chinese restaurant for the used vegetable oil they put out and pay to have carted away every night. It’s a win-win situation, saving both parties extra costs. Since arriving in New York from his native Guyana more than 15 years ago, Aliahmad’s can-do spirit spurred his creativity and led him into various endeavors. Being a restless individual who finds an opportunity for an idea in every situation, his latest invention was likely his most revolutionary.

“Last winter my oil bill was over $3,000, but so far this winter I haven’t had to buy any oil at all,” Aliahmad said while showing off the vegetable oil heating system in his basement. He came up with the idea after enduring several years of skyrocketing heating bills at the family gas station he manages. The steep jump in oil prices was unbearable and it got him thinking.

Aliahmad recalled that while he wondered what to do to reduce his heating costs, he looked at the waste oil his gas station collected from oil changes and observed how similar it looked to the oil he was buying. He questioned why he was paying more and more for deliveries of heating oil while at the same time paying fees to get rid of the waste oil collected. He decided to find a way to recycle the waste oil as a fuel for his burner. By the middle of that winter he had retrofitted his boiler so that he was using half waste oil and half heating oil. Soon enough, after working out all the glitches, he was burning all recycled waste oil and his heating bill was down to zero.

“My guys are working in T-shirts in the middle of winter even when the bay doors are open because I can run the boiler full blast since the oil is free,” Aliahamad said. He remembers the days he was still working out the glitches and his workmen complained of having to dress like Eskimos. Those days are long gone. “My guys are loving it now.” Aliahmad considered obtaining a patent, and while talking to an attorney friend about the issue, he was asked about the possibility of using vegetable oil in his system.

A light went off in his head and by early spring 2007 he had retrofitted his home boiler to burn used vegetable oil that he could get for free from the restaurants near his home on Rockaway Boulevard. “Now I know why the city banned hydrogenated oil with trans-fats in restaurants,” he said. “Some of the oil that I was getting at first would clog up the burner pipes within a matter of hours. I realized that it was due to the hydrogenated trans-fats in the oil. I thought that if it could do that to copper pipes in a boiler, imagine what it could do to your arteries.”

He became very selective in his choice of vegetable oil after observing that some restaurants were not yet in full compliance with the city’s mandate to ban oils with trans fats, while others re-used the oil so often that by the time he received it, it was black. But for Aliahmad, it was still black gold. He admits a preference for used oil from Caribbean restaurants because they don’t re-use the oil as often as other restaurants.

Although the breakthrough idea is exciting, City Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), who chairs the council’s committee on environmental protection, has some concerns. Even if boilers are properly retrofitted and used cooking oils are appropriately filtered and refined, there are still many unknown factors that could make results, such as efficiency, unpredictable, he said.

Aliahmad has registered a company to patent and possibly market his innovations. But for now, his house on 124th Street is possibly the warmest in all Queens and it’s not costing him a dime. He is most proud of the fact that his innovation could help to reduce this country’s dependency on expensive foreign oil, as well as reduce the problem of global warming.

“I commend any individual New Yorker for taking efforts to reduce their carbon footprint,” Gennaro said. “But we also need a citywide solution to make a noticeable impact.” To this end, Gennaro recently introduced legislation requiring that all heating oil contain 20 percent “biofuel” by 2013. This would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, soot and other pollutants that cause asthma.