Esso Blue

@paul m yes, wasn't half bad either ..

 

I have strong blue food dye from corner shop (could be water based but not need much after all).
I have clear BBQ lighting fluid - smells not too bad.
Maybe I can sell recipe to local corner shop?
This is an Arkwright idea isn't it?

 

@JonD lol, could well be

 

@Muzzleflash - you have it sir!!

 

David is very posh.

 

Guardsman on Esso Blue/Curacao - It didn't like the straw or pineapple slice though unfortunately ...

 

No, the smell is taken out of the stuff from your hardware store. When you say "purchase paraffin from the hardware store pump" do you mean from a dispenser/small pump or a full-sized petrol pump? All the places around here that sell kero on draught sell from petrol pumps which are marked 'Kerosene, not to be used as a road fuel' and it is heating oil. Stuff from smaller dispensers/pumps may be the fancy non-smelly stuff. Price should be a guide - garage kero in these parts is around 65p a litre from the pump or 46p delivered in bulk. Fancy stuff is around £2.00 a litre.

 

How would they do that at a little hardware shop?? Essentially it's de-sulfurising the stuff isn't it??

 

@Muzzleflash , it is not the little hardware shop that does the de-sulfurising, that's done at the refinery. It is purely a matter of which product the hardware shop buys in.

Best regards,

Wim

PS., I've bought paraffin "at the pump" at less that €1 and the "fancy" stuff in 20liter cans at between €1,5 and €2 per liter and did not notice any difference. Both are of a light yellow colour.

 

@Trojandog

Thanks for the clarification.

Yes, the fuel is dispensed from a 900 litre bonded tank with powered pump supply,

Regards Jeremy

 

I remember in the late 1980s it was getting hard to get Premium paraffin for heaters. Most around was clear, and was not premium grade but heating oil that stank dreadfully in a paraffin heater. Dealers were buying it, adding dye to it and selling it as premium ( I had correspondence with Valor and Aladdin who told me this). More recently, I bought a pre pack container labelled as premium to BS2868C1, but I knew as soon as I opened it that it wasn’t. Proper premium fuel has a distinctive smell, heating oil is much more pungent. I still use paraffin heaters, I have an Aladdinique and Valor No12E at home, which don’t see as much use now due to an increasing damp problem, and a series 8 Aladdin blue flame heater that burns all day in my workshop. My fuel comes in 50 gallon drums from Rix and it’s proper stuff.

 

I think it doesn't matter what brand paraffin, the colour of it, or anything, if you burn it in a simple heater in the home.
Some brands will make a smell, others may not. They will all make water vapour and so increase dampness of the house.
It cannot be avoided - just chemistry.

Central heating - by gas, by oil (kerosene) or whatever, only solved it by sending the combustion product water vapour outside. (Steamy outlets from boilers - still observed - everywhere)
As for the resulting heat (hopefully most of it) kept inside.

Sometime in the early 1970s my single glazed bedroom gained a radiator and it became warm and would no longer form ice on the bottom of the windows.
Before then I could split it up with the needle point of a compass - fun to play with but unpleasant all the same.

 

My understanding is that in the UK two grades of paraffin exist.
The more expensive grade has been treated to reduce the sulphur content, and therefore burns with less smell. This is the fuel sold prepacked in hardware stores for use primarily in portable heaters and lamps.

The slightly cheaper grade has a higher sulphur content and may produce an offensive smell if burnt indoors in appliances with no flue.
It is primarily intended for use in fixed domestic central heating boilers, oil burning AGA cookers and the like.
An indoor, unflued appliance will work correctly on this fuel, but the smell may offend.

To complicate the matter, SOME suppliers only stock the low sulphur fuel, so SOMETIMES fuel from a central heating tank might be the slightly more expensive low sulphur type, but don't count on it.

A minority of domestic heating systems burn red diesel fuel, but this is rare. Diesel fuel works in wick lamp or a portable wick type heater, but smells bad and may smoke.

 

Out of my league here......

 

George, David explained that part a few posts later. It's from the commercial jingle:

 

Perhaps I should have said 'asses'...

 

What have donkeys got to do with it?

Tony

 

I got it!!