- Mar 9, 2011
- 69,716
- 83,211
- 3,635
It's going to be -60 tomorrow with the wind chill factor. We recently had a new furnace installed and the 500 gallon propane tank is full to 70% capacity. But when I'm in the garage dinking around, I like to run a kerosene heater, to add a little more warmth.
Kerosene heaters create very little carbon monoxide, just mostly heat and a little water vapor. They really don't smell that bad either. The one I'm using now is an Aladdin Blue Flame Series 15. These were made in the UK from the 1940's to the 1970's, and I got two of them at a garage sale for $5 apiece. The only thing I had to do to get this one up and running was clean it up a little, and put a new wick in it...
I have another one that I'll clean up and re-wick when it get warmer...
Before I found these, I was using a Kero-Sun Moonlighter that I found at a garage sale for $10. It burns with an orange flame and doesn't put out as much heat as the Aladdin models...
I can buy kerosene from the Ace Hardware store in 2-gallon jugs for about $10 per gallon, which is pretty damned high. So I drive 25 miles to a small town that has a convenience store that sells it out of a large tank for about $4.50 per gallon. There are alot of Amish people living near that town, and they use kerosene for heat and light. I usually fill up two 5-gallon cans when I go there...
The worst thing that can happen when you're burning kerosene, is that you get some water or condensation in it. Then the heater tends to sputter, stink, and go out. In anticipation of this cold-snap, I emptied all of the kerosene lamps into one of the cans. Evidently, there was some moisture in one of the lamps, and the Aladdin heater kept going out. I had to put 1/3 teaspoon of isopropyl alcohol in the tank to absorb the emulfied moisture from the wick, then empty the tank, then let the wick burn until the carbon was burned off. After cleaning the wick and filling the tank, it's working like new.
Kerosene heaters create very little carbon monoxide, just mostly heat and a little water vapor. They really don't smell that bad either. The one I'm using now is an Aladdin Blue Flame Series 15. These were made in the UK from the 1940's to the 1970's, and I got two of them at a garage sale for $5 apiece. The only thing I had to do to get this one up and running was clean it up a little, and put a new wick in it...
I have another one that I'll clean up and re-wick when it get warmer...
Before I found these, I was using a Kero-Sun Moonlighter that I found at a garage sale for $10. It burns with an orange flame and doesn't put out as much heat as the Aladdin models...
I can buy kerosene from the Ace Hardware store in 2-gallon jugs for about $10 per gallon, which is pretty damned high. So I drive 25 miles to a small town that has a convenience store that sells it out of a large tank for about $4.50 per gallon. There are alot of Amish people living near that town, and they use kerosene for heat and light. I usually fill up two 5-gallon cans when I go there...
The worst thing that can happen when you're burning kerosene, is that you get some water or condensation in it. Then the heater tends to sputter, stink, and go out. In anticipation of this cold-snap, I emptied all of the kerosene lamps into one of the cans. Evidently, there was some moisture in one of the lamps, and the Aladdin heater kept going out. I had to put 1/3 teaspoon of isopropyl alcohol in the tank to absorb the emulfied moisture from the wick, then empty the tank, then let the wick burn until the carbon was burned off. After cleaning the wick and filling the tank, it's working like new.
