home heating oil in your tractor

[CrosbyFamilyFarm]

So I'm here in New England and half the farmers I know just use their heating oil as fuel for their diesels. As far as I know it's the same thing aside from the red dye. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Is it legal if I don't take my tractor on the road? I'm not sure if they cut it or not with automotive diesel (if there are additives in the automotive type or something.) Anyone willing to chime in?

 

[atgreene]

Won't hurt a thing and as a bonus, it will make the tractor police on here flip a lid.

Best to run some power service, but you you should anyway.

 

[CrosbyFamilyFarm]

Here in Ct the fuel tax is insane. I'd save about 75 cents a gallon using heating oil.

And... Power Service = Fuel additive?

 

[pacerron]

So I'm here in New England and half the farmers I know just use their heating oil as fuel for their diesels. As far as I know it's the same thing aside from the red dye. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Is it legal if I don't take my tractor on the road? I'm not sure if they cut it or not with automotive diesel (if there are additives in the automotive type or something.) Anyone willing to chime in?

I don't heat with oil, but the Diesel Supreme that I have used in my tractors the past 23 years is colored red. My supplier/driver has
always said it is the exact product he delivers for home heating oil. Since home heating oil is for off road use, I would think it would be red as well. The only difference on the clear stuff is the added road tax. The price is a little cheaper but sometimes higher for the red stuff. They have to mark it up to cover the driver and the delivery and also base the price on what they paid for it which may not go up and down as fast as the games they play at service station pumps for the clear stuff.

 

[jasonlives]

Not sure how it works in the US but in Canada furnace oil and tractor diesel are both red and are the same product and are priced the same. But don't get caught burning it in your truck. LOL that's will hurt

 

[dave1949]

Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel Futures Contract Replaces Heating Oil - Bloomberg

It looks like heating oil is no longer a commodity, they switched the name to ULS Diesel this spring. It should be okay for the newer Tier III/IV engines I think.

 

[JakeBrake]

Back in the day when I was working as a power equipment engineer, one of the major manfacturers of large stationary diesel engines used in generators made noises about not honoring the engines' warranty if anything but no. 2 diesel was used. The no. 2 diesel could be red or any other color, but not clear like no. 1 diesel or kerosene. They said modern diesel engines require the additives in no. 2 diesel.

As an example a customer had an installation with a pair of turbines (jet engines) with an 18,000 gallon tank full of no. 1 diesel. The customer wanted to replace the turbines with new diesels and reuse the tank and the no. 1 diesel. The tank had passed all of the regulatory hurdles and the customer did not want to redo.

The compromise was that the customer would continue to use the existing tank and fuel, but that all fuel added in the future would be no. 2 diesel (red). It would take years for the diesels to use all of that fuel with only normal maintenance runs. During a hurricane or some other major power outage the fuel could be used within a few days. The tanks were sized for 72 hours at maximum output. For equal KW output diesels use about half as much fuel as turbines.

 

[RalphVa]

I worked for a major oil company and once looked up the specs for diesel and heating oil. Think the only difference in those days was pour point. Think it was lower for diesel. You can fix that by adding a little bit of diesel additive. As someone else pointed out, looks as though heating oil is supposed to be ULS now, too. Otherwise, the sulfur would only harm in terms of how often you changed your oil. If not ULS, just change a little more often.

 

[crazyal]

Off road diesel and heating oil are basically the same. The only differences are the additives that are put in by the dealers. Off road diesel will have anti gel in it in winter while HHO will not. Off road diesel may have additives to increase it's lubricating properties. HHO often will have algaecide added to it. Using an additive like Power service will boost up lubricating properties and (if you get the right type) will also have anti gel. It's not worth saving a few bucks a year if you have to replace an injector pump that wore out.

 

[atgreene]

Ok, I will say it again. No fuel companies put any anti-gel or algicide in any fuel. I use several companies for my bulk fuel as well as have dealt with the local dpw fuel system. Due to the new fuel requirements of different manufacturers, no fuel dealers will add anything to the fuel. Its up to the consumer to add whatever is recommended for their specific engine by the manufacturer.

Diesel and heating oil is the same, I have never seen an injector or injector pump ruined by the type of oil, only by wether it was clean or not.