Paraffin and Alcohol Heating.

[nickdutch]

Hold on the subjects of trying to provide some heating for the house and during the winter during the power cuts I was previously very obsessed with bio ethanol which I still am to a certain extent. However I have recently discovered that these days you can buy paraffin heaters of a Japanese design which have a radiant heat effect. Although you can burn clean burning kerosene in these things I have tried that and it still made the whole house smell like a car garage. The next one I want to try is a C1 grade paraffin which should in reality provide a lot less smell as well as providing good heat output. I have discovered that when I buy C1 grade paraffin it would not save on the cost of electricity so I don't think you can use paraffin as a way of saving money unless of course you've managed to collect with one of the agricultural mutual collectives out there which could provide you with either odourless kerosene which I haven't yet tried or similar fuels which you could then use. These things are very sensitive to the fuels you put into them and so a certain quantity of experimentation has to happen in order to get your mix right. Some people say that adding diesel conditioner to diesel as well as a little bit of isopropanol alcohol would actually mean you could use diesel in a kerosene or paraffin heater. However other reports say otherwise. I have not experimented in this direction and nor do I intend to.
But one thing that I would say when experimenting with this particular device was that it did put out an extraordinary quantity of heat or at least a quantity of heat which felt extraordinary during the autumn conditions. Is the one I got was supposed to be a 2.2 kW device but my estimation and my experiences with it suggest it puts out an awful lot more than that and as well as the radiant heat which is helping to heat the walls are properly there is also a lot of convection which goes upstairs and helps to seriously take the chill off the upstairs of my small two-bedroom property. So if are great and glorious leader decides that we should be having plenty of long power cuts in order to try and save us from whatever issue which is going on with gas and electricity at the moment then at least I can keep myself warm for a period of time and order more paraffin from online when I need to. The first fuels I purchased was from speedy fuels also known as crown oil they don't do paraffin but they do carry kerosine. they said they haven't had any complaints by domestic users. However I think those domestic users must be living in larger more well ventilated properties than mine to be honest all those domestic customers only use these devices as a patio heater or a heater for a garage maybe. Unless you're using the right fuel I think your living conditions might not be as comfortable as you might think so think about paraffin grade C1.
3.8 litre tank lasts about 15 hours worth of continuous heat. possibly more if you have The heater on a lower setting. Never use a kerosine or paraffin heater with ethanol. I havent tried it but I understand it can be dangerous

[steptoe]

HI yes these heaters are great i have one but i also have a few of the other type and i can say they kick out a hell of a lot fo heat , i tested mine in the poly tunnel and it heated the place to striping off in minutes lol that was feburary last year , i know they are not going ot work out cheaper to run but if th electric goes the central heating goes to so i would be happy to run one and as i stocked up on paraffin the c1 grade is the only one to use indoors .

We have 4o litres in stock which i am glad i got as at the time i got it very cheap £20 and a few pence , i am also looking at mini heaters of no more than 500w that i can run off the power station if need be as i just got a mega deal on the power stations so got 2 of them now .

[Vitamin c]

Sorry a bit off topic but anybody on here been successful burning used vegetable oil for heating or cooking.

[nickdutch]

I haven't yet tried used veg oil. I have seen people using pressure kerosene stoves to make a roaring flame that way, but some seem to have more sucess and some less. My instinct would be to mix the veg oil with paraffin, kerosene or diesel probably about 50 / 50 (just a guess I havent explored this though experimentation) and then run that through a pressure kerosene stove. If the oil is mixed with either paraffin, kerosene or diesel it might wick up[ on on a "mop wick" kerosene stove and burn ok. But its a bit think, heavy and viscous to be used by itself in my opinion. If you mix the oil with other fuels, it can still so I understand, separate out and settle at the bottom of the tank and in colder weather it might gel up into gunk and not run through the stove well. Anyway, that's a concern of mine.

Mop wick kerosene stoves seem good, but the 8 wick camping one that I got myself either would smoke th pout and make the water taste terrible or it would not blacken the pot, but neither heat the water.

The blue flame operation is plainly more efficient and burns more pollutants So I have an 16 wick stove on order and I hope that it will be useable in low settings, with blue flame operation and with the ability to do real cooking cleaner.

The other thing is that indoor cooking using liquid fuels has its risks. Soot, Carbon monoxide and bad odours. So you cant use veg oil with the same ease as you might gas.

A possible solution could be to cook outside once a day and use heat retention devices (big thermoses!) to store the cooked food until dinner time.

[rik_uk3]

As some of you know, I'm a recovering stove collector so over the years I've played about with stoves/lanterns/heaters.

Paraffin as a fuel works great but unless you have access to a cheap source its expensive, 4l tubs going for £10-£15 and running a wick heater on full and your use 4l in 14-16 hours. You can use central heating oil which is cheaper but it will burn a bit 'dirtier'.

A few of us stovies have played around with veg oil in various mixes and its, messy, smelly, sooty, PITA to be honest and running in a Primus type pressure stove it clogs up the jets which need frequent pricking to clear and you get a high carbon residue build up in the burner pipes so for me I'd not use it. Diesel is not bad but again sooty but will run in a Primus.

Ethanol has about 30% less energy content over paraffin so you may end up using more fuel for the same heat output.

Wick heaters are fine the flat wick and round wick are much easier to maintain than multiwick heaters/stoves and as the old saying goes, "keep your wicks trimmed"

This stove is an Optimus 111T and burning paraffin, 10,000 BTUs or getting on for 3kw. The mesh dome is actually a tea/coffee strainer. The stove is designed burn paraffin/coleman/ethanol with a good adjustable flame control; great stoves easily in my top 5 stoves of all time.

[pseudonym]

Loved my 111T, if you were up, your neighbours were up as the roar echoed through the woods

[rik_uk3]

Loved my 111T, if you were up, your neighbours were up as the roar echoed through the woods

The 111T is the 'silent' burner type as in the picture, just gives of a hissing sound, the standard 111 is the paraffin only 'roarer' burner and is pretty loud (there is the 111B which was for coleman type fuel).