Probably a dumb question but somebody told me once the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask

My local hardware shop only sells pre-packed paraffin at £13 for 4 litres.So that is £3.25 per litre - go on ask me how I know
On the bay of flea I have found 20 li of domestic heating oil for £27 ( £1.35 per litre). Five times the quantity for just twice the price and that is delivered. They describe this as KEROSENE, DOMESTIC BURNING OIL, 28-SECOND OIL, HEATING OIL in the item description. Pretty sure I have read on here that 28 second oil is good for use in Tilleys but I can’t find that post again now.
So I ask the collective can I use this in my Tilley once I have finished off the expensive stuff ( doh !) and the fettling ?
Is it okay to store this oil in the supplied nato style 25l container in my garage It could be there a while at 1.5 pints per fill of my lamp.
Thanks, and apologies if this is a dumb question.
Gaz

 

Ebay is going to be cheaper than a shop, due to the fact that a lot of sellers do not have the overheads shops do eg. rent, business rates, labour etc. If it has the same specification as the other oil that you use it should be ok. maybe one of the other members can post a link to the oil thread just for a bit of clarification to be sure.

 

I hardly think your question qualifies as dumb. Read my posts, you will have the definition of dumb.

Here is a link to 28 Second Oil etc. Oil Info

I suspect your container will be perfectly fine but as I alluded to previously, don't take my word for it.

 

28 second heating kero will work fine in lanterns but it it does smell due to the increased levels of sulphur. I have managed to remove the smell from one batch but the next time I tried it didn't work and I'm still not sure why. Anyhow, right now 28sec kero is around 50p a litre!

 

Forget ebay, just Google domestic heating oil supplies, in your area. We have a Texaco supplier (minimum order 20 litres) who will quite happily supply loose kerosene at 74p a litre. Kerosene runs very well in Tilley/Vapalux/Petromax etc but does have a slightly stronger odour. I've been using it in mine for years.

Martin

 

Stupid question no. 2: where does the 28 second stands for ?

 

the amount of time the fuel takes to drain out of a set size container. it gives an indication of how viscous (thick) the fuel is.

 

It is less than 20p per litre at the moment - if you buy in quantity.

 

...a set amount of the fuel...

... of a set-shaped container through a set-sized diameter orifice. I think that's more or less it, although the temperature will need to be specified and kept constant because that will also affect the viscosity of the liquid.

I've forgotten what the various parameters were determined at but I'm sure a quick Google will reveal them although it's rather academic - the 28 seconds is the important bit for our purposes.

Also important is the sulphur content because it will be converted to oxides of sulphur during combustion. Not only do these smell but they're toxic so good ventilation is a must...

 

Ahhh, thanks @swiss-paul I never bothered to research the proper meaning.

 

@paparazi
Thanks for the suggestion. Found a local-ish oil merchants who has C1 paraffin and kerosene on pump at 1.35 and 0.7 gbp per litre with a minimum sale of 5 litres. Happy days.
Best,
Gaz

 

Blimey... it's years since I posted on a lamp forum and I think both those site are long defunct. I hope there's not a theme there...!

I did some amateur research on this years ago and came across some interesting information. My interest back then was that I seemed to be carbonising-up Tilley vapourisers alarmingly quickly and wondered if my use of central heating oil rather than expensive premium paraffin was responsible. I never did come to a final conclusion on that but I did learn some other things.

We all know that crude oil consists of different hydrocarbon molecules from small (e.g. methane) to thick heavy bitumen and all grades between. The oil refinery tries to maximise the valuable fractions by catalytic cracking and then separates them out for sale by fractional distillation. Gasoline (petrol) and kerosene (paraffin) are highly profitable but industry uses vast amounts of the other fractions (methane, propane, butane etc.) too. Incidentally, from a petro-chemist's point of view, paraffin certainly IS kerosene but there are perhaps nuances in marketing to the public that support a distinction.

One challenge with refining crude oil is that it contains a proportion of hydrocarbon molecules that nobody wants. These might be exotic aromatics (rings), or strange branched chains of carbon atoms that are uneconomic to refine out. The refiner tries to concentrate these in a kerosene layer of the distillation column, and this is the layer that's taken off as heating or "burning" oil. The presence of these oddities doesn't matter much because the product will be simply burned - as distinct from burning in an engine where consistency is essential - but it does make the unburned fuel a little more smelly and CHEAP. Because it's taxed at a lower rate that (say) the closely related diesel, some countries dye it to identify it. I must admit that I thought our heating oil was dyed yellow but a reference I checked just now makes me doubt that.

This was at the core of my original question and relates to this one. When these "odd" molecules are flash heated in the lamp vapouriser, do they contribute to increased carbon deposits? That carbonisation is due to pyrolysis (another long story - but sometimes deliberately employed to make very pure carbon). I really never got to the bottom of it.

The grades in this discussion are:

Grade C1 - premium paraffin which is relatively consistent, low sulphur and sold for use in enclosed spaces like houses and greenhouses.
Grade C2 - central heating oil which contains those odd molecules and impurities (but not "dirty" impurities, if you get my drift).

Finally, I've one more thing to share. I did once obtain a quantity of Jet A1 for my lamps. Jet A1 is yet another kerosene specification and, because it's not taxed, it's very hard for individuals to get hold of it. I expected an ultra-clean burn but it was nothing of the sort! I had no means to measure it other than my nose but it contained a VERY high level of sulphur. I could easily taste the sulphur dioxide in the burn and would not recommend it, even for use in lamps outside. However, I don't suppose the concentrations are dangerous in comparison to what we inhaled when we all burned coal and of course, very much less so than carbon monoxide. I did speculate that this was another refiner's trick; at 39,000ft a bit of S02 isn't going to be smelt by anybody, so there's no need to go to the cost of refining it all out.

A dumb question? Not at all, but my comment back is - "be careful what you ask!"

(and I'm taking a lot of this from memory, so if anyone spots errors, please do shout)

 

That was a very interesting read @jf20938

I found a supposed method for de-smelling 28 sec kero or central heating kero so I syphoned a few litres out of the tank and treated it with calcium carbonate with variable results. The instructions said to agitate the kero for two weeks, let it settle and then carefully decant thetreated kero. The first batch worked brilliantly and once I'd let the residue settle, the filtered fuel was free of it's sulphurous smell and burnt well.

Having had success, I treated a second batch but the results were only maybe 50% as good. The CaCO3 I used was from a different supplier.

Not sure why one worked and one didn't plus I'm also aware that from a chemical standpoint it shouldn't work anyway. All very annoying and frustrating. I haven't sniffed the second batch recently so maybe I need to go and smell it.

 

@jf20938
What a great post, thanks for that. I would have thought the jet a1 would have been highly refined - every day is a school day.
Best,
G

 

I built a methane/coal gas generator years ago to put on a car. The way to remove the sulfer smell was to run the low pressure gas through iron oxide. Basically, this is rust. I used left over machining "curls" to make a " rust" filter. I wonder if you could pour 30 second kero through iron oxide to achieve this. I dont have the capability to check for contamination, but maybe coffee filters? Only the flame, with the tiny sparks in it would tell as far as I could persue it.