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.