Advice on using kerosene heat

[Lennard1974]

I recently moved from S. Louisiana to N. Mississippi and to say I was not ready for this cold snap is an understatement.
I live in a 100+ yr old house that is drafty and has no central heat...
My plan is to install a wood stove before next winter, but that has to wait till next yr due to finances.
So for this winter I am looking at a kerosene heater. Does anyone have any experience with them?

[arnie]

sure if you truly have a drafty house you won't have to leave a window open a little to let fresh air in otherwise do so keep them away from any curtains or funerture use only kerosene still they tend to leave film on mirrors or windows over time .get one of those battery powered pumps to fill it up with pouring and sypnoning stinky flammable fuel often as every 8-12 hours they are faster and neater iv' used them and staying warm trumps the order and the puff of smoke when you turn them off or on . the main thing is caution CAUTION CAUTION and the can keep a large room warm or a small house from getting frozen pipes . it may be cheeper to make payments on a good heating stove . with the price of kerosene over $4 a gallon it will likely cost 10$ a day to keep it going and a trip to the station that sells keroisen to fill your cans every couple days best done in a pickup if spill even a drop on the can it will absorb into car carpeting or trunk lineing to be your perfume for a month or so kerosene is usable to start a fire in a wood stove or you can use the leftover kerosene in a diesel tractor when you do get a wood stove

[Harry Chickpea]

Kerosene has been too expensive for a few years for it to be a good choice. A propane radiant heater would be cheaper to use. Check with a local propane company and ask if they might have some older ones for cheaper.

Back in the 1980s I used kerosene for a while. It was OK if the wicks were trimmed and the kero didn't have water in it.

[arabian knight]

Kerosene IS VERY expensive. I used to use it in the burning barrel to start fires but wow it is sky high in price. At between 4 bucks to 4.50 a gallon sure would not be my choice for heating a home at all.

[Shrek]

Kerosene heater wicks need to be trimmed and replaced just as lamp wicks. That aside, kerosene heaters are okay for temporary emergency heat but in addition to increased expense if your house has light colored walls or ceilings, extended use generally results in worse sooting than a wood stove.

Also after use the newer kerosene heaters need to be completely drained for summer storage due to a combination of construction materials now used and the mix of K-1 now required by the EPA.

Where kerosene heaters in the past could be stored over summer with fuel in the tank, now it is common especially in the humid south to have the fuel tank and fuel end up moldy and rust contaminated after summer storage.

The related maintenance issues with kerosene heaters since about 2000 are why I switched from them to first a small milk barn udder water warmer stove and recently to a couple 1 pound LP tank portable propane heaters for my emergency heat.

[MichaelK!]

I heated my cabin in winter with a Corona DK kerosene heater. I can remember waking up in the middle of the night with a bad headache, such that I immediately rushed outside into the snow to get fresh air. Shortly thereafter, I purchased Carbon monoxide detectors from Home Depot and installed them near the heater.

The detectable CO jumped up immediately into the warning zone. Even when I light the burner outside, wait for it to get red-hot, and has a completely blue flame, I still get measurable CO. I switched shortly thereafter to wood and haven't touched it since.

I'd advise getting wood ASAP, do the installation yourself if it costs too much. Plan your installation starting with the chimney, not the stove. The chimney is where the real cost is. I installed two chimneys myself at an average cost of 850$ each. That's a 850$ chimney on top a a 100$ stove I bought from a neighbor. Minimize the amount of triple-wall chimney pipe by locating the stove where the pipe does not pass through a wooden floor or ceiling. Once you penetrate anything wood, you MUST use triple-wall chimney pipe. Below that you can use either single-wall are double-wall stove pipe if you observe the proper clearances.

Here's the company I bought my pipe from. They provide an installation guide.
http://www.northlineexpress.com/help...-planning.html
You can also go to a local barbeque/woodstove shop. OBEY all the recommondations related to fireproofing. This is an project that you DO NOT want to screw up.

BTW, talk with your home insurance agent before you get started. Find out before you start what hoops you need to jump through to maintain your policy.

[Jolly]

Originally Posted by Harry Chickpea

Kerosene has been too expensive for a few years for it to be a good choice. A propane radiant heater would be cheaper to use. Check with a local propane company and ask if they might have some older ones for cheaper.

Back in the 1980s I used kerosene for a while. It was OK if the wicks were trimmed and the kero didn't have water in it.

+1.

This is your best immediate course

[o&itw]

These are all great points. I have a kerosene heater I use in emergencies, but it is surley nothing to heat a house with all winter. The filling problems, fuel price, carbon monoxide/dioxide, and smell if spilled are not overstated.

One thing I would like to add is that, if you do use it, be sure you only use K-1 Kerosene in it and never diesel or heating oil.

[Rectifier]

Kerosene, terrifying for all the reasons mentioned above!

Drafty and no central heat - but what heat was there before you got there? Is it in such a warm climate that it's not really necessary?
If that's the case, and you have electricity, I would go with some cheap electric heaters to get through the cold snap.
Electricity is expensive, but safe and reliable, and the heaters themselves are very cheap, allowing you to get warm now and pay monthly for power instead of a lump sum for a heating appliance.

The important thing is DO NOT spend a lot of money on electric heaters. They are all 100% efficient - none are any better than any other, regardless of price or BS on the box. You should not pay more than $20 for a 1500W heater with fan, and on sale you should get them for ~$10.

[JLMissouri]

I have used kerosene as my main source of heat before. I used dyna-glo wick style heaters and they performed well. There was a slight smell, but it doesn't bother me. They burn through about 1.75 gallons a day.

Finding a good source of kerosene is very important. I used my first heater for a long time before having any problems, then switched where I was getting my kerosene and within a couple months I had problems with the wicks gumming up. With a good source of kerosene I didn't have that problem.

I never shut down the heater by retracting the wick, I removed the fuel tank and let the wick burn dry. This helps to prevent the wick from gumming up.

I stopped using kerosene when I got my wood stove installed. It does have some advantages though. Prices vary a lot, but it was the cheapest source of heat besides wood for me at the time. When the price went up on kerosene electricity became cheaper. I don't know the current price of propane as I don't use much, but it was more expensive than electricity or kerosene last I looked into it a couple years ago. That may not be the case anylonger, and it very well could be regional as well.

I am tried to attach an excel spreadsheet that compares the price of different methods of providing heat. Just put in your local price for various heating fuels and it will give a breakdown of cost per BTU. But I cannot find a way of attaching it to a post. It is a great way to get the most BTU's for your dollar. I will instead provide a link to my blog where you can download the spreadsheet at the bottom of the post:

http://jlmissouri.com/2014/01/02/cos...mparison-tool/

[motdaugrnds]

My trailer is heated with a kerosene furnace. I have a 275 gal tank and it just cost me $999 + some cents to fill it. That's right, nearly a thousand dollars to fill this tank. I spoke with the man filling it and he told me it was still better than propane because it burned hotter, taking less of it to keep a home warm.

When renting I had no heat in the house and purchased a large kerosene heater. It put off so much fumes that my head constantly hurt until I stopped using it. (The furnace in my trailer that uses this kerosene is not letting fumes into the house and, thus, no headaches.) The large kerosene heater has been sitting in my store room now for many years; and I'ld gladly give it to you if we were closer.

[arabian knight]

I just saw at a home improvement center that 2.5 gallon jug of kerosene was $19.95~!
As they had a few sitting next to those small kerosene heaters that a person would be buying at those types of stores. This was at Menards I saw that price today. Ouch

[JLMissouri]

Buying kerosene in jugs at a store is the most expensive way to purchase kerosene. Best product and price I have found around here is sold at the pump at Sinclair gas stations, half the price of prepackaged fuel. Check around, there are several gas stations in my area that sell kerosene.

[arabian knight]

I don't think I have One Station in my area. not one. The one I worked at back in the 70's we had a kerosene pump but those days are Long Gone. Even the Cenex stations that caters to the farming community does not have any pumps that handle kerosene.
Even the Cenex Feed mill and convenience store has diesel pumps, but not one pump for kerosene.

[Lennard1974]

Thanks for all the advice... The cheapest 1-k kerosene I can find here is $39.99 for 5 gallons at TSC. .... so will probably go a different route.
Looking into a dual fuel ventless blue flame heater.. Propane is expensive but it Turns out natural gas lines are supposed to be extended past my house by end of December..

[Nevada]

Originally Posted by Lennard1974

Thanks for all the advice... The cheapest 1-k kerosene I can find here is $39.99 for 5 gallons at TSC. .... so will probably go a different route.
Looking into a dual fuel ventless blue flame heater.. Propane is expensive but it Turns out natural gas lines are supposed to be extended past my house by end of December..

I used a ventless blue flame propane heater for my cabin in Elko. We lived there for 4 winters and it was satisfactory. We started with a kerosene heater and it did the job, but it didn't have a thermostat and made our clothes smell of kerosene. The blue flame heater was much more pleasant, economical and convenient. With natural gas it would be even more convenient than with propane.

* Get a thermostatically controlled heater
* Get a heater with an ODP (oxygen depletion sensor). They all should have them now.
* Get and use a CO detector (looks like a smoke alarm) from Walmart
* Don't mount the heater in a confined space that can be isolated with a door, such as a bedroom or bathroom
* Be sure to provide 50 cubic feet of living space for every 1,000 btu/hour of heating capacity. As an example, for a 20,000 btu/hour heater you would need 20 x 50 = 1,000 cubic feet of unisolated living space.

You should be able to find a new blue flame heater at eBay for about $150 delivered. Here's a 20,000 btu/hr model with ODP and a thermostat for $150 that can operate with either natural gas or propane.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Procom-20k-B...item2ed9e3e564

[unregistered353870]

Keep in mind vent free heaters aren't code-approved for living space in many states. Not sure if yours is one of them. I would do it anyway, but your insurance company might have a problem with it.

[Nevada]

Originally Posted by jtbrandt

Keep in mind vent free heaters aren't code-approved for living space in many states. Not sure if yours is one of them. I would do it anyway, but your insurance company might have a problem with it.

Oh, I forgot to ask. LOL

[unregistered353870]

Nothing wrong with "forgetting" to ask. As long as nothing bad happens, they'll never know. But if the house burns down, you might have some consequences, even if the violation isn't the cause of the fire. For me, it's worth the risk. For others it might not be.