Heating Oil

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Does anyone know what the difference between Diesel and Heating oil is in Australia? Can they be mixed? There is plenty said about the similarity in the US but not in Australia.

[Captain Echidna Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Captain Echidna]

Re: Heating Oil

I have used heating oil in my 78 merc. (someone I knew had a vulcan heater that did not work with a full tank so gave me the oil) It mixed ok with diesel.
My thoughts are heating oil may not have lubricating additives to keep the injector pump going better, so I added some veg oil in with it.

These are only my observations, perhaps someone else can fill in some information.

[Chris Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chris]

Re: Heating Oil

I have used heating oil in my 78 merc. (someone I knew had a vulcan heater that did not work with a full tank so gave me the oil) It mixed ok with diesel.
My thoughts are heating oil may not have lubricating additives to keep the injector pump going better, so I added some veg oil in with it.

These are only my observations, perhaps someone else can fill in some information.

Well done guys very environmentally friendly Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers
Chris

[Jacka Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jacka]

Re: Heating Oil

Conversly on this if you had a Oil Heater could you use BD in it without problems?

[Tony From West Oz Vice Chairperson of WARFA Find all posts View Profile Close Tony From West Oz]

Re: Heating Oil

Conversly on this if you had a Oil Heater could you use BD in it without problems?

This is an interesting thought.
I have experimented with veggie oil in a Vulcan oil heater. Veggie oil would not continue to burn, even when mixed with 50% diesel. The flame just got lower and lower until it went out.
I have not tried biodiesel in one of these yet.
Tony

[bruceT Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bruceT]

Re: Heating Oil

As far as I know, "heating oil" is just plain kerosene. It is added to winter diesel formulations to lower the cloud point.

[Guest Close David]

Re: Heating Oil

I believe the difference between heating oil and Diesel here is the same as in the states. One has road tax added to the price and the other does not. There may be colour differences as well to indicate which is which. I don't know about additives but bio certainly dosen't have any and it works fine in engines

The difference between burning Veggie oil and diesel is that burning veggie leaves deposits and refined petro products like Diesel, kero, turps, Petrol, thinners Etc does not. Oil heaters work on an evaporative system. Veggie oil leaves fast building carbon deposits which choke the evaporator in an oil heater and kill the fire. Once this has happened, the heater has to be pulled apart and properly cleaned in order for it to work again. This isn't a big deal as they are made to be cleaned out because they can be clogged on regular heater fuel by running them too rich or too low for long periods.

To see the differences in burning between SVO and Diesel, get an old spoon or tin can and put some veggie in it and heat it over a blowtorch till it has all burned off.
Do this a few times and you will see an amount of ash and carbon left with the veg oil. You can heat this till the spoon glows red but you will only get the stuff to reduce to a white ash and that takes some significant temprature that the evaporator in your oil heater would never reach.
I have often wondered where all this ash goes in an SVO burning engine. I can only assume it must be blown out the exhaust.

These deposits from Veg oil will also clog a tube type evaporator like found in a Primus type Kero lamp or stove very quickly and I am not aware of any way to clean these once they have been blocked. Far as I know once they are clagged up they are buggered.

When diesel and kero etc re burned in the same way, you find they will leave nothing more than discolouration in the spoon and they burn totally clean.

If you want to see why Burning Glycerin is a difficult undertaking, do the same experiment about 4 times and you will find the spoon is totally full of ash and it is near impossible to burn it off. You can -eventually- but it is easy to see the problems in burning a fuel that leaves about 25% of its volume in crusty deposits.

As for Bio, it will burn with little if any deposits depending on how well it is made and converted. I believe it would be OK in oil type heaters and even if it does eventually leave some deposits, they should be small enough to make the time between periodic cleaning of a heater well worth while.

[bruceT Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close bruceT]

Re: Heating Oil

Thanks for the info David.

So, if I walk into an oil shop, and ask for "heating oil", what do I get?

[xavier Member Find all posts View Profile Close xavier]

Re: Heating Oil

G'day all,

Recently, I was approached to provide capital development funding for a manufacturer/inventor who claims to have perfected a range of multi-biofuel super efficient home and industrial heating systems.

I am yet to see all the details, but the experts who are conducting the preliminary due diligence report they are impressed by the potential of these products to economically compete with not only LPG fired heaters but natural gas models, without any form of government subsidy.

What I find exciting, is the potential of these products (if commercially successful) to educate a large section of the general public to have confidence in biofuel as a viable energy alternative, and widespread support is what's needed to change government policy in favour of biodiesel.

I shall keep you posted of developments.

[tillyfromparadise Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close tillyfromparadise]

Re: Heating Oil

Hello everyone

I was given some old Vulcan heater fuel which smells like kerosene. This may have been 10- 15 years old. It is clear. Kerosene that I have bought in the last year was blue. Has Kerosene always been blue?
Diesel is clear. Has diesel always been clear?

In the USA most central oil heaters use #2 Fuel oil which is #2 diesel with a red colour in it to show road tax has not been paid.
I have never seen a central heating oil heater in Australia like the ones used in the USA.
If I am not mistaken, there is no such thing as Off Road Tax Free Fuel in Australia.
Everyone pays the tax and if you are a Primary Producer (Mining Company, logging company, Farmer etc) you can get the tax refunded.

Tilly

[yorta2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close yorta2]

Re: Heating Oil

Tilly, my son-in-law works in air conditioning and often, after installing a new system, the householder asks him if he can get rid of the old oil from his old oil heater. He takes it and gives it to me. I have used it in my Surf (100%) without any problems at all. In fact it runs beautifully. However, now that I am using 100% bio, I just add some of it to my mix. I know a farmer who used heating fuel in his vehicles for some years while it was cheap, but stopped when the price went up to match regular diesel .

[Truckdriver Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Truckdriver]

Re: Heating Oil

Assuming the initial questions were referring to home heating oil and related to automotive diesel…

My experience has been that heating oil in the Asia Pacific can encompass a fairly wide-cut of distillate. I’m not sure if heating oil has a defined standard as such. It is very doubtful that a Cetane value (for what they are worth) would be part of such a standard. Flash point, carbon residue, sediment etc. most probably would be part of the regulations or are prime considerations of the blend.

Thus, for heating oil that is delivered for home tanks the differences are varied and dependent on a number of factors such as at what time of year you buy your fuel (with regard to ADF) and your location (with regard to heating oil).

Heating oil in the South and cold would vary to a significant extent in fractional makeup from heating oil in the North and warm.

Heating oil is not specifically refined and blended for combustion in compression ignition engines but in saying this, the same grades of oil sold as heating oil are often sold for combustion in diesel engines (Note Well: not specifically high speed automotive diesels). I am pretty sure in some parts what is sold as heating fuel is the same product sold as ADF. I would suspect due to transport, volume and storage considerations.

A number of factors underlie heating oil composition:

Heating oil may stay in an uncontrolled storage tank for considerable periods of time. It must therefore have good stability characteristics. This influences the blend.

Heating oil is often stored in external unheated tanks and is unsurprisingly often used when it is cold. It must therefore have good low temperature properties.

It is to the fuel companies advantage to sell the lowest grade (current cost) of oil they possibly can as heating oil (feedstock, standards, blend stability, environment and demand dependent – a complex matrix). Most heater designs are rated to burn a far wider spectrum of fuel than your average high speed diesel.

Heating oil is blended/refined for use in burners of many different designs. It is therefore not specifically blended for compression ignition although it may well be suited for this. You shouldn’t have too much problem if you blend it. In alpine regions BP suggest blending heating oil to diesel with low temperature problems to raise the cloud point.

It should be noted that the heating oil may have good ignition characteristics due to the “width of the cut” that may be in the fuel (there are proportions of light and heavy components in the blend) this does NOT equate to good internal combustion characteristics. Due to the cut width some diesel products have lower flash points than kerosene.

The heating oil sold in colder regions will be a “lighter” (kerosene) gas oil product and in the North a “heavier” No.2 diesel kind of product. If you are located in Canberra I would suggest that the heating oil is a “lighter” (kerosene) gas oil and in Mount Gambier a “heavier” No.2 type oil. Some heating oil sold within Australia has (believe it or not) lower temperature limits of -30C. This is a light, dry (lubricity wise) fuel.

If you are looking at burning heating oil in a diesel for the long term and you don’t want maintenance, try and get a spec sheet. The guy driving the truck should have one on board or you should be able to get one easily from the depot. From this you can compare the fuel with engine manufacturers and ADF specifications in order to identify any major irregularities.

I would suggest that in Mt. Gambier the oil you burnt would not have had any major lubricity issues. The oil in Canberra may. The Canberra oil is liable to be fairly winterised or a kerosene cut. Does the fuel appear particularly dry? What colour is it? Put some in a jar in the freezer overnight and see what (if anything) and how much drops out and what colour the waxy residue is…

If you have lubricity issues ADD BIODIESEL!

I know of engines that have been burning ATK (Aviation Turbine Kerosine) for considerable time (thousands of hours) with no additives. This is a comparatively low lubricity fuel. Fuel pump and unit life is reduced but this is part and parcel - you just have to factor it into your maintenance schedule.

With regard to burning biodiesel in household heaters; there are too many heater designs out there to make much of a comment on a statement like that!

Overseas, Biodiesel has been used for this kind of application extensively. If you are confident (it sounds like you aren’t – so DON’T) you know what you are doing, it’s up to you, but I would think your insurance would be invalidated if anything happened and anyone found out unless you had approval from the equipment manufacturer. Depending on the heaters country of origin, this may not be too hard to obtain.

With regard to an inventor perfecting a “new” super efficient burner suited to burning bio-products; I doubt it’s new. Very efficient, high turn-down ratio, multi fuel (density, viscosity, flash point, calorific value, etc.) burners are common place and well developed. I have operated many on everything from the lightest of diesels to residual fuel oil sludge.

[xavier Member Find all posts View Profile Close xavier]

Re: Heating Oil

To Truckdriver,

Thank you for all the information contained in your last posting. You obviously have tremendous experience in this field.

I have not yet heard back from the inventor/manufacturer, but I agree that very few inventions are really new, but having said that, the market place abounds with more attractively packaged or user friendly versions of previously unsalable existing technology, and such 'inventions' can be very commercially profitable.

[Chris Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chris]

Re: Heating Oil

Truckdriver,
Very good, Thank you for that, Very informative
Cheers
Chris

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Heating Oil

Overseas, Biodiesel has been used for this kind of application extensively. If you are confident (it sounds like you aren’t – so DON’T) you know what you are doing, it’s up to you, but I would think your insurance would be invalidated if anything happened and anyone found out unless you had approval from the equipment manufacturer. Depending on the heaters country of origin, this may not be too hard to obtain.

Hang on - I didn't mention heating with BD!

I just wanted to know if someone with a petrochemical background knew the exact difference.