Kerosene Vs Home heating fuel

[Marster]

Have a question. The oil company I buy my fuel from said I no longer need to use kerosene due to the fact that fuel oil does not jell unless we are at -20 for a peroid of time. They said an additive is put in fuel oil that prevents gelling. I called my furnace man for a general cleaning and he told me I should mix my tank 50/50 since it's an outside tank.

I live in the northeast. Central Pa. Anyone out there from this area that has any problems with an outside tank using fuel oil these days?

Thanks

 

[MikePA]

For the first 20 years we lived in our current house, our oil tank was outside. The copper line from the tank into the house gelled once. Our fuel oil company also services the furnace, and they never mentioned cutting the fuel oil. However, when we had to get a new furnace, while they were here anyway, I had a new tank installed in the basement.

 

[PA hayseed]

Most of the people around here have their tanks in the basement or outside. When you call the oil guys, they will ask if its an inside or outside tank. Of course this is local to my area, and may not work for you. My inlaws had their oil tank outside for years, and they had their lines freeze once or twice. From what my FIL says the days that it froze it was well into the negatives when it happened. COuld have been some water issue too, but who knows.

 

[Marster]

I live in Dillsburg, Pa.........and have never used fuel oil.......but due to the price of it this yr, I decided to go with fuel oil just to save a few bucks.

Thanks for the replies. I get my fuel from SAC. They're saying it wont gell unless we get -20 for a long peroid of time. From these replies, it sounds as though what they're saying is true. Is there an additive I can put in if i continue to use fuel oil?

 

[MikePA]

Any additive you'd use in a diesel engine would work. But your tank is probably 275 - 300 gallons, so you'd need a lot of it. Check with SAC before doing this. Also, when the fuel in my line, not my tank, froze we had not been below -20F for a long period of time.

 

[DieselPower]

Any additive you'd use in a diesel engine would work. But your tank is probably 275 - 300 gallons, so you'd need a lot of it. Check with SAC before doing this. Also, when the fuel in my line, not my tank, froze we had not been below -20F for a long period of time.

??? Actually it doesn't take much additive. Many additives have a mix ratio of 1 gallon to 1,000 to as much as 1 gallon to 3,000 gallons. I wouldn't consider that a lot.

 

[MikePA]

Good to know. I was estimating based on the dollop I have to add to 5 gallons. Should have read the PS bottle.

 

[George2615]

I'm in the snow belt of Upstate NY and heat with fuel oil (#2 diesel home heating fuel). I have 2 tanks, one outside and one in the basement. The outside one is piped to the basement one with CPVC pipe with brass ball valves at each end. I've heated with these 2 tanks for 17 years now. I add 2 - 32 oz. bottles of Power Service (white bottle) to the outside tank before filling and run the furnace off the inside tank. (Power Service recommends 32 oz. per 100 gal.) When the basement tank gets empty around mid February I open the 2 valves and refill the basement tank from the outside tank. It has not gelled up on me to date.

 

[MajMac392]

Marster, I'm up in SE Maine and my Mother had her tank outside for a Mobile Home. Three or four years ago the company servicing her told her they had a new additive they could put in Fuel Oil and it was cheaper than the traditional Kerosene/Fuel Oil blend. So they mixed a can of something, I assumed it was like Prist like they put in Jet Fuel. Well when it got real cold out the additive didn't work and the filter and line plugged. Needless to say they came out, no charge, fixed the problem and then put in I think the straight K-1 fuel. There was no charge for the repair but my Mother was pretty cold for a few hours. Our Office Manager has a Mobile Home and the only thing she uses is straight K-1. The safest thing is the K-1 but the cost my be prohibitive this year. My 2 cents.

 

[john_bud]

ULSD (and I think the fuel oil is also at or heading to that spec, but not sure??) mis-behaved last year. Lots of gelling. You may want to keep an eye on it. Last year you probably had old spec oil. The anti-gel additives don't seem to respond the same in the ULSD.