Kerosene questions?

[jimmy1]

I have and old detached garage (24x24)that had been resided and insulated some years ago. I have cleaned it up and store my SCUT in it and do a bit of wood work in one side. I would like to add a cheap source of heat and was considering kerosene. I do not know anything about kerosene and wonder will it heat sufficiently and more importantly is it safe, i.e. fumes? I do not want to go through any major work as sometime in the hopefully not to distant future I want to build a new one and just use this for overflow storeage.

Thanks
Jim

 

[nobull1]

In my 600 sq ft steel building I tried the kerosene route. I had one of those ones that looks like a wood stove, but has the old type of carburetor mounted in the back. The benefit was it did not need a double wall chimney. The bad thing was it just didn't provide near enough heat and took too long to heat up. In the end I put in a wood stove with the proper chimney and "could" have my garage up to a comfortable temperature in less than 10 minutes with the use of "Super fire starter"(not environmentally friendly, but tractor owners usually have an ample supply around). Recycled fence posts work great for cheap heat, so long as they are not treated.

 

[N80]

I have a 1100 sq ft log cabin and we have been using a single, free standing kerosene heater (the cylinder shaped ones like you see at Home Depot, etc.). It works extremely well to heat the main room (probably about 600 sq ft with a vaulted ceiling. Even when it is in the 20's outside it keeps the room near 70 degrees and we have to turn it off frequently. It will run for 8 hours per fill, which I'm guessing is about 1.5-2 gallons.

We have been very happy with ours. It lights at the push of a lever. It doesn't smoke. It has a safty shut-off if the unit is tipped of knocked into. However, I'm in South Carolina, not Canada, so I can't say how well it will work in really cold temps. But, other than the logs, my cabin is totally uninsulated.

It does have to have some sort of ventilation. In my cabin that is not an issue. Plus, we shut it down at night and run electric oil heaters in the bedroom. If I were going to be sleeping with one of these in the room, I would crack a window for proper ventilation.

They run about $100.

Here is what we have:

Tractor Supply Company - 23,000 BTUs RADIANT KEROSENE HEATER

 

[schmism]

Kerosene is wicked expensive in my neck of the woods.

like $5 a gallon vs propane which is more like half the cost.

in other words between kerosene and propane id go propane

 

[N80]

Kerosene is about the same as diesel here. Efficient propane units are generally more expensive than kerosene units. I've seen very cheap propane units but they use up a typical propane bottle (grill unit) in about 3-4 hours on the lowest setting.

 

[Highbeam]

I bought a kerosene convection heater, the round 23000 btu kind, about a month ago as a secondary back up heat source. These heaters cost 130-150$. I am very dissapointed in the price of kerosene. The clear K1 as recommended by all of the heaters costs more than 6$ per gallon in the 5 gallon pail from a big box store and the red dyed bulk #1kerosene is 4.50$ per gallon from a fuel depot. Even at 4.50 per gallon it costs just as much per btu as a plain electric space heater with the added disadvantages of the slight smell, fire risk, handling efforts, and refueling efforts. I shut mine off outside as recommended by the manual to prevent the strong odors from stinking up the house.

Just one cylinder style heater throws 23000 btus which is equivalent to about 7000 watts worth of electric heat. The radiant kerosene heaters only throw 10,000 btus. My big honkin huge woodstove only makes 68,000 btus at near overfire.

So, if you have good cheap kerosene, it is a nice heat that makes no sound and even makes a little light. It is an excellent backup source of heat for power outages and if you are not a wood burner.

Permitting, code, and insurance issues are non-existant with the portable space heater.

I would love to find a cheap source of kerosene.

 

[goaliedad]

I have a 24 x 24 pole barn- no insulation, just metal walls and roof. I have a kerosene "salamander" style heater I think it is 65,000 btu. As long as it isn't zero weather it works pretty good- not warm enough that I take my coat off, but pretty comfortable. For working on my tractor, I like the fact that I can focus the heat, melt snow of the blower and such. I do all of my sawing and milling for woodwork in the barn as well- just have to move to the basement shop for assembly and finish.
No fume problem, but I have plenty of air flow! So far I've only used Kerosene in this unit- have been told that #1 desiel will work- about $1.00 per gallon cheaper, so maybe....

Years ago I had an old unit, similar to what I have now- inherited from my dad, used in a stickbuilt garage with lots of fume issues. I'm sure the new unit burns much cleaner, but the ventilation helps too.

Kerosene is about $3.70 per gallon, haven't really kept track of how long a gallon lasts- but it does heat the barn up pretty fast.

 

[jimmy1]

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. George, the unit you pointed to at TSC is the one that I was looking at and your description on is function was about what I expected, just had to hear it from a user and not just the store clerk.

Also I did get a real heads up on the price of kerosene. After I read the responses I called TSC for a price and they quoted $39.99 for a 19 litre pail. Sorry about the litre stuff but some time ago we had a government that tryed to convert us totally to metric. Anyway 19 litres divide by 4.5 litres per gallon = 4.22 gallon into $39.99 = $9.52/gallon plus taxes. Of course that is CND currency and it is always more.

For part time heat, not necessarily in the heart of our cold snaps and not needing shirt sleeve temps. it seems as good an option as anything if I manage it's useage.

Thanks again everyone.
Jim

 

[N80]

Wow! Kerosene sure is expensive up there. I've got to purchase 5 gallons in the near future and I'll be curious to see what the local prices are right now. No more than $3 probably.

Anyway, good luck.

And for what its worth, I wish the US would go metric too. I know its a loaded topic, but I come from a science background and am used to most metric units anyway, at least the smaller ones. I don't think it would take me long to get the feel of kilometers and kilograms, I already work with mm and mg and cc's and liters. It is so much easier to work with units of ten!

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Jimmy,
Youve got some good replies so far. I dont want to try to disuade you from kerosene but Im kind of a fan of propane if you dont want to go the wood route. Its so much easier to have someone come fill your propane tank than going out to fetch a couple 5 gal buckets of kero. I had a kero heater years ago and no matter how careful I was at turning the unit off, I would invariably get a kero odor on shutdown. Also as others have stated it is more expensive in my neck of the woods to deter its use.

 

[CharlieTR]

I have not purchased a kerosene heater, but I have rented them twice.
Both times the mechanic at the rental store said to fill it with diesel before returning it. He said it has diesel now and that all they used in their "kerosene heaters". I sure was glad I didn't have to buy Kerosene.

 

[duber34]

K1 is about $5.00/gal. at the big box stores here in NY. I can find K1 available at a few gas stations around town for about $3.50/gal out of the pump. I have the same TSC heater for the house and use it sparingly simply because of the high cost of Kerosene. For the garage I use a salamander type 55,000 btu Reddy Heater. It can burn K1, HHO, diesel or even JP-8 jet fuel. I run diesel through it at about 2.70/gal. Still hurts the pocket but not quite so bad.


Regards,
Duber

 

[EastTexFrank]

I have one of those kerosene heaters that I use in my 600 sqare foot shop (and for emergencies) and it works pretty well to take the chill off during the winter. The only problems I have found is that it does smell a little bit when you first walk in from outside but you can buy an additive to add to the kerosene that helps disguise it and secondly, my shop has 12' to 15' ceilings and all the heat gathers at the top. So, you need a fan running to keep the heat circulating. If I want T-shirt temperatures, I supplement it with a propane patio heater that also works great. If all else fails there is always electric heaters but I've never needed all 3 running at the same time. Whatever route you decide to go would depend on cost, availability and fuel storage capacity and ability but that kero heater should work on a shop your size.

 

[mjarrels]

Back in the good ole days, we had to take fuel samples from each tank on aircraft... about a pint per tank. Two fuel tanks per aircraft and twelve aircraft on the flight line (JP-4/5 fuel). Didn't need to buy any kerosene because the samples could not be reused. Went into a five gallon can for anyone who wanted it.

mark

 

[Skerby]

I bought a 110kbtu unit from wal-mart. it can heat my 3car garage up comfortably in like 10 minutes from near zero. i use diesel fuel in it as it's cheap. but you want to open up the door when you start it as it puts out a large plume of grey diesel exhaust. this unit (pro heat or something w/ the word PRO in it) runs on diesel, kero, fuel oil, and the jet stuff.. says so right on the box too! i'd put in a CO detector if i were running it a long time (fyi diesel produces far less CO than gas combustion).. i think the fuel oil is the cheapest followed by diesel, then kero (not sure what jet fuel costs). they sell a thermostat you can put on the unit, but that would be a problem with the plumes of smoke everytime it kicks on... i think the kerosene would burn much cleaner however.. good luck ..

 

[Mickey_Fx]

One need to take energy content into consideration when comparing cost. Kerosene = 134k btu's/gal, propane - 91k btu's/gal (that's US gals and not Imp gals. That mean it take almost 1.5 gal of propance to equal 1 gal of kerosene. Also need to figure in heater efficiency. Non-vented one can consider 100% efficiency. If vented efficiency may be in the 70% range.

 

[RonMar]

I heated a house when I lived in Upstate NY years ago with 2 kero heaters. one 20KBTU and the other 12K BTU. We only really ran the 20K unit to warm up a cold house then we shut it down. the 12K went in the living room and we used a small circ fan to distribute the air. That house was pretty well insulated and at the time it was the cheapest option as kero was petty inexpensive at the local gas stations. For the standalone type heaters, there should be a ventilation requirement right on the operating label. I still have the 12K unit and use it in my 24X24 garage. It specifies 80 SQ/IN of vent or an 8 X 10 hole. The garage is uninsulated and that heater can't keep up when it dips into the 30's. It can be placed where you are working(as long as you are not working on flamables like a fuel system and it is nice to go stand in front of to warm up. It will probably work OK once I get the garage insulated and a ceiling put up.