Paraffin!!

can't you use heating oil for your diesel needs? here in usa i get untaxed (road tax) diesel out of the pump marked "#2 fuel oil". they use a red dye to identify that it's not been taxed. of course, if you use it onroad and get caught, it can get expensive..... otherwise, it's the same thing. is the "green" similar? or is it what we here call kerosene? sammmm

Yes, paraffin is what you would refer to as kerosene. Over here it seems to be dyed various colours, I've seen pink, green, and yellow, as well as clear.

Diesel fuel isn't a problem, I can get either red (dinodiesel) or Biodiesel locally :-)

Regards

Philip T-E

Aren't there reg's regarding storage of flammable liquids?

I know you can't store more than so much petrol, as per the Petroleum Reg's but Paraffin is covered as well, possibly by local council reg's.

If you split it up into 5 gallon drums then probably OK.

We used to have a guy round the streets with a small tanker but he has gone now.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Hi Philip, To need that much Paraffin for Tilley lamps the mains in your area must be extemely unreliable. Have you considered a generator? :-) You could try an established garden centre. Greenhouse heaters used to be paraffin fueled. The other possibility is oil suppliers. Google says most will supply paraffin but you may be back in the 45 gal route. Of course, if they have it in bulk and you're prepared to collect, other quantities may be possible especially for beer tokens. If you used to buy the stuff in 20 gal quantities, why is 45 gal so inconvenient?

John

Weight, I should think, even at 8lb a gallon that's a fair load for Philip's Citroen Xsara.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Well, I've got some handyt storage space that just happens to fit 4 x 5 gallon containers :-) A 45 gallon drum isn't the easist thing to store/shift. The mains round our way is pretty reliable, this stuff is for recreational use only!!!!!! The 5 hp M type when working will burn about 6 gallons per weekend.

'Cept its a C5 estate, which can carry 600kg in the back quite happily.

Regards

Philip T-E

Our local garage told me that's why they are only allowed to sell it in gallon (4.5 litre) prepacks. I'm not entirely convinced they aren't just using this as an excuse. The price went through the roof as soon as the self-service pump was shut down. A plastic can can't cost that bloody much can it? And what are we supposed to do with all the damned empties afterwards? A man can only build so many rafts ;-) Refilling the old can was so much 'greener'.

Bloody 21st Century ;-(

Gyppo

Ah, progress of sorts... :-)) Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

I can buy that wretched pre-pack stuff at £3.79 for four litres, but that makes it almost as much as petrol.

Regards

Philip T-E

Your getting off lightly at £3.79. At the garage where I work we sell those

4 litre packs for £5.88. At the moment I run all of my pet/par engines on petrol as I cannot get hold off a cheap source of parrafin (the nearest garage to us that sells it on the pump is a 20 minute drive away).

As for storing it, by law you are only allowed to store (ISTR) 1 five gallon jerry can of fuel in your garage, without a special liscense, or so im told.

So petrol garages cannot stop you buying more, as they don not know youtr circumstances etc.

Mike M

miley snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

28sec heating oil (aka kerosene, paraffin, Jet A1) is not 35sec diesel (gas oil, red).

But for meeting paraffin uses heating oil should do. I don't think it will have been refined quite as clean or (de)odourised as much "lamp oil" destined for use in lamps of heaters. So the engines might be a bit smellier.

Ring around a few oil suppliers and see what the minimum cash on collection quantity would be. I normally find that 500l (approx 100 gallons) is the minimum delivered. I've heard that Jet A1 can be had very cheap from places that service small jet aircraft.

Storage, certainly for petrol (gasoline) there are strict regulations regarding unlicensed storage. But kerosene and diesel are far less explosive than petrol, there probably are regs but not as strict as those for petrol.

Use fuel oil..............works fine in my paraffin space heater, and £10 for 20L this afternoon!

k

20 gallons, the pump was all covered up. Upon enquiring, I was told that due to lack of demand, paraffin sales had ceased permanently :-(

I can buy that wretched pre-pack stuff at £3.79 for four litres, but that makes it almost as much as petrol.

The plan now is for myself and several friends to buy a 45 gallon drum and split it between us,hardly convienient- but what do other people do?

Regards

Philip T-E

£3.79 round here too - more at B&Q.

I feel I ought to recommend that those intending to store what the fire brigade euphemistically call "accelerants" should consult the terms of their house insurance before laying in a decent supply.

I ordered some waxed hessian processional torches last year & was recommended to check this by the supplier. Although they require a blowtorch to get them lit, they do indeed invalidate my house insurance. Storing them in the garage, coal shed or garden won't do, all too close to the house.

Regards,

J. Kim Siddorn,

Here in Ireland , I buy it from the local Hardware shop - At =804 for a

5 litre can . Slightly cheaper than petrol which is currently =801 a litre.=20

John

Hi Philip, I was in a quandary as well, looking at spending six dollars a gallon at the hardware store. It seems it's not practical to sell bulk kerosene to consumers in small amounts, considering all the environmental regulations that must be met.

Then I came across an oil distributor. They provide all kinds of petroeum products, mainly to businesses. One of their products is kerosene in five gallon cans. It's a little cheaper than at the hardware store.

Another option, if you have the connections, is the airport. I've used Jet-A in place of kerosene in our Rumely. It's almost the same. I only did that once, as I had to "talk my way" past the security guards, and it surely looks suspicious to have a guy stacking cans of jet fuel into a white van. It's better to pay a little more a the hardware store than to end up in jail, suspected of cooking up a terrorist plot.

I suppose in some respects I'm lucky in this area as we don't have a gas supply in the village and so heating is generally by oil. I therefore have 1000 litres + of the stuff just sitting in my back garden.

The 28 second heating oil stuff seems to work well enough in engines (except Ruston PR's apparently) although needs the engine to be hotter before it will run nicely. I don't think I'd put it in a tilley lamp though! I prefer my temporary lighting to be provided by a generator of which there seem to be several knocking about in the engine shed :)

As for storage of larger quantities there are plenty of regs but none that I've found seem too stringent unless you are within 10 mtrs (IIRC) of a water course, in which case you must have a bunded tank, otherwise it seems that it must be stored 3 mtrs away from any boundary or less if there is a fire barrier between the fuel and the boundary.

Oh, and by the way, our engine club have been forced to ban the use of heating oil in our engines at rallys - something to do with the chancellor, they say!

Regards

Mark

Pray tell how they enforce that rule?

John

And don't forget good old.......boom boom boom boom....Esso blue :)

Once again I must ask how this is enforced? The only time a domestic insurance company will get involved is after a claim when evidence of such items (particularly proof of quanitity) will be long gone. Particularly if we all use plastic cans.

John

They don't and probably couldn't!

If someone came along with the will and the equipment to check, the club would at least be in the position to say "not our problem, we told them not to do it".

Mark