Heating oil as diesel fuel?

[M. R. Bober]

We will be replacing our oil fired furnace (at home). Can home heating oil be used as diesel fuel?

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Lancaster (Oily to bed, oily to rise), VA

[Russell]

We will be replacing our oil fired furnace (at home). Can home heating oil be used as diesel fuel?

Mitchell Bober
Sunny Lancaster (Oily to bed, oily to rise), VA

Well the lovely thing about diesel engines is that they can run on almost anything combustable. People run cars and trucks on used deep fryer vegetable oil! A diesel engine will literally run on high proof rum if you want to waste the rum.

Will your engine run on your heating oil? Yes, it certainly will. Can it do so without modifcation? Maybe, probably initially it will, but for long term it may need modification. Will it suffer in the long run? Probably. Feed your diesel engine diesel, leave the experiments in things like french fry grease to people with less to lose (ie- a $2000 car as opposed to a $15K repower).

If you have leftover heating oil (I assume your switching to something other then oil since you are finding a way to make use of it), hop on craigslist, there will certainly be someone out there willing to give you 75 cents on the dollar for it considering todays prices.

[tartansailor]

The difference between diesel, and heating oil is tax and dye.
Filter out contaminants, and you will be fine.

Dick

[Neil Gordon]

I'm just trying out the math here...

If I remember correctly, I had a 250 gallon tank at the house. On the boat, I have a 10 gallon tank. I visit the fuel dock once a year or so... just for fun figure I go twice a season and it's half a tank. So half of a ten gallon tank = 5 x two times a year = 10... 250 gallon tank... hmmmm... carry the 5, ....

Okay... no matter how you do it, it's a lifetime supply of fuel. You're just going to leave it in the tank in the meantime and let it age?

Is there a downhill neighbor you can siphon it to instead?

Can you cook french fries in it or does the bio to fuel thing only go in one direction?

[sgbernd]

The engine will be happy, the only concern I might have is cleanliness and dryness. If it has been sitting for a long time, diesel sometimes forms large molecules called asphaultenes (sp?), which are basically the longer carbon molecules found in the crude oil before they were broken at the refinery. Sometimes, you can see them in the fuel, it looks like tiny black specks, especially when viewed against a white background. Secondly, if there is any humidity in the tank, allowing condensation, you might have some algae. The algae I've seen looks sort of like gelantinous strings. Either of these can clog your fuel filters or gum up the injector pump.

Assuming neither of those are present, use it. If either are present, you might try to filter it first to clean it up before it goes into the tank. I owned several diesel Peugeot cars, and, when I had leftover oils for some reason or other, I just diluted it with the fuel and ran it thru. It never caused any trouble but sometimes smoked a bit. These old engines are pretty tolerant.

[Dalton]

I delivered home heating oil for a few years back in the early 80s and once in a while we would fill up gas stations diesel tanks.

we would mix 60% number 2 oil, home heating oil, and 40% kerosine.

[bottomscraper]

My Grandad ran his Mercedes on home heating oil for many years. He had a 12v electric fuel pump set up with a filter to transfer to his car tank. I'm sure it wasn't legal since he was avoiding road tax but I don't think the car cared. I believe he did mix in some kerosene in cold weather. My Dad ran home heating oil in his Allis-Chalmers HD5G track loaders with a Detroit 2-71 2 cycle diesels, but I think they would have run on anything!

[Rebinva]

When we first moved to the house we live in now, I had never had oil heat before. And, having no gauge to show how much oil was left, I let it run out. It was a very cold Saturday night AND the inlaws were here. I called Southern States to see if I could get a delivery, but all the drivers were gone. They suggested I get some diesel fuel and use it. I was lucky to have 2 10 gallon diesel cans from the boat, so I went to the service station and got 20 gallons of over the road fuel which got me through until Southern States came on Monday. Seems to me there is not much risk substituting one for the other although I would surely filter it.

T. Cockrell

[Andy Denmark]

Back in the so-called "fuel shortage" of the mid-70's I ran my Mercedes 300-E exclusively on #2 fuel oil, right out of the tank from under the ground at the farm. Never had a problem. The Mercedes mechanics said it was the same stuff except for the color and lack of an antifoaming agent. Put 150,000 miles on that car and it ran perfectly as long as I owned it.

I said "so called" fuel crisis, allegedly due to a "shortage" of crude oil yet every weekend we would see the tankers at anchor off Baltimore and south of the Bay bridge waiting to be offloaded -- the same ones in the same spots for weeks on end. I'm guessing 30 or so in number. Whatever shortage there was was surely a contrived one.

Just to be safe I would check the cetane rating of the fuel oil and compare that to whatever they sell at the station pumps. You might have to mix in a cetane boosting additive to get the number up to where it is optimum.
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