Temporary Heat
Kerosene
We approached winter and the house wasn't closed in yet so I began to be concerned about the pipes freezing. Some temporary heating equipment was needed. Of the two available fuels in the house, electric is too expensive, and gas isn't portable enough. Kerosene heaters seemed to be the solution. The first one I bought (at my new favorite home store, Loews) is rated at 22,000 btu. It is a cylindrical convection type heater.
We started using it in one of the coldest parts of the house, just outside the kitchen. It was enough to take the chill off the room, but not enough to really warm it up. The room was still pretty drafty, which doesn't help either. It would burn for about 8 hours on 1 tank of kero.
Ben loaned me a smaller 10,500 btu radiant kerosene heater that he acquired while shutting down a construction site. It needed a new wick. Loews has a good replacement wick selection, so I bought the model that seemed to match the closest. There was a cross reference guide, but this heater model was not listed.
To replace the wick, the whole heater must be disassembled. When the old wick was removed and replaced with the new wick, it didn't fit exactly right. The old wick had metal clips to attach it to a cylinder that moved vertically with the wick to adjust the flame height. The wick was cylindrical. The new wick without the clips moved very sloppy, but it seemed like it would work. I put it back together and fired it up. After a day or two, the wick movement was so sloppy that it would not go down far enough to extinguish the flame. I let it burn out and took it apart again. To attach the wick to the metal carriage, I drilled small holes in the carriage and sewed the base of the wick to the carriage and reassembled it. It was going to work much better now.
I was using this heater in the basement on cold nights and while we were working down there. Even though its not a big heater, it really helped take the chill off. The 1 gallon tank that will burn with the heater on high for about 24 hours.
While researching the wick replacement on the Web, I found links to the National Kerosene Heater Association, and another very informative site run by a Kerosene heater merchant out of Johnson City, NY, (near Binghamton) Spectrum Industrial Support. I called the owner, Ashoke Nijhowne, to discuss the wick replacement. He was extremely helpful, and the wick sale was less than $10. I called him a few times with questions about kerosene storage, fuel additives, heater types, and potential problems. I wound-up buying another 10,000 btu heater that he had for sale, used for $80.
Quest for Kerosene
When I bought the first heater at Loews, I also bought a 5 gallon, blue, kerosene can. The heater manual and web research clearly specified that 1-K clear kerosene must be used. This is the highest grade and will burn the best, especially in wick type heaters. In an addendum to the manual was a flyer that stated that the 1-K kerosene may be dyed red. I checked all 5 gas stations in town looking for one that sold kerosene. The only place that I could find was Berkeley hardware which sold gallons in paint thinner cans for $6.00 each. The next evening I resumed the search of gas stations. Some attendants don't even know what kerosene is, let alone have it. I finally found a Raceway station in Green Brook that had dyed kerosene for $1.30 per gallon. I asked the attendant if this was "1-K" kerosene, and he said yes (as if he understood what I was asking). It wasn't that far, but it was a good 30 minute round trip without traffic to fill the jug. I picked up another so I had 10 gallons of storage. This would last about a week, but it wasn't really cold yet. The temperature was only touching freezing at night. I thought if it got really cold I could probably double kerosene consumption to keep the house and basement above freezing and I would get a bigger heater for the basement and new construction areas.
Before Christmas I started calling heating oil companies about getting kerosene delivered, but I needed more storage. The weather was turning much colder. Five gallon containers wouldn't be good enough. The minimum that they would deliver was 50 or 100 gallons, depending on the supplier. I thought that a 50 gallon drum would be too heavy to move around, so I bought 2 - 30 gallon drums from a place in Edison. They were only $30 each. The next day at work, I picked up 2 more 30 gallon drums that were being discarded. This would be plenty of storage, even if I only used 3 of them for kerosene.
I then bought a 60,000 btu heater. This heater works differently than the other heaters. It doesn't have a wick, instead it works (and sounds) like a jet engine. The kerosene is drawn from the tank and atomized in the combustion chamber with compressed air. There is a small compressor inside, the unit only needs to be plugged in and it is self igniting. This makes it easy to control with a thermostat.
I set it up in the basement. When the outdoor temperature is 20 degrees, one 5 gallon tank will last 24 hours keeping the basement temperature around 50 degrees or so. It sucks up almost 1/2 gallon per hour (the specs say 0.44 gal/hr) when on continously.
John Duffy Fuel Oil Company was set for a kerosene delivery 12/27, the Monday after Christmas when I would be home. This was also supposed to be the 1-K kero for $1.70/gal, no tax. Meanwhile I was going almost daily for Kerosene. The temperature had taken a sharp turn down, into the teens. I found a fuel oil/feed store in Plainfield, Nichwitz, that was on the way home from work that sold the clear kero for $1.70 /gal including tax, which they claimed was a better grade that the dyed stuff.
After 2 more postponements, John Duffy Fuel Oil finally delivered it before New Years Eve. In the many calls to them, I found out that they didn't even have kerosene in stock, and their main supplier was also out. They had to go to a secondary supplier.
Then all was well, for a while, kerosene was plentiful and convenient. The jet engine heater blasted away in the basement, controlled automatically with a thermostat.
The wick heaters burned in the evenings during the week, and all day on weekends upstairs. After a week or so, their performance started to degrade. The battery igniters failed to ignite the wicks, so a BBQ butane lighter was needed. The heaters smoked quite a bit until they were warmed up, and also when they were shut off. The house started to smell like kerosene. I moved the Alpine air purifier (ozone generator) out to the living room, which seemed to keep the smell under control. Creosote started to accumulate on the wicks further hindering performance. The heaters were only half as hot as they used to be. To clean the wicks, there is a procedure called dry burning where basically the heater is left to burn out. It gets smoky near the end, so I moved the heaters outside. Repeated dry burnings didn't help much.
By mid January, the wick heaters barely worked at all. I had to do something. I started by taking the 22,000 btu Dyna-Glo heater apart. I dry burned it and cleaned the inside. I used a small fine wire brush on the wick. I refilled it and gave it a try. No difference. There was a low flame, it seemed like the wick was not conducting enough Kerosene. This problem was probably water in the fuel, as described on the Spectrum web site. The solution was to change the wick, and the fuel. The wick on the Robeson, from Ben, was so clogged with creosote that it would not even retract. The prognosis here also pointed to poor fuel quality. I definitely had not purchased 1-K from John Duffy Fuel as they had claimed. Out back, I consolidated the remaining dyed kero into 2 drums and secured the empty drum in the bed of the pickup. At Nichwitz, in Plainfield, the clear 1-K kero which was now $2.00 /gal including tax. I bought 20 gallons and pumped it into the 30 gallon drum on its side.
Back home I filled the Dyna-Glo, and it burned better, lit right away, but still didn't have a full flame. I changed the wick, lit it, and the heater started cranking. I had forgotten how nice it could burn. I cleaned and changed the wick in the Robeson, and it too was fixed. The Corona heater that I bought from Ashoke, I do not have a replacement wick for.
I will burn out the rest of the dyed kero downstairs in the big heater which still seems unaffected.
Wood
There is a fireplace in the living room that we aren't using. The problem is that it's not in good shape. The fire box is crumbling and the damper rusted away probably 60 years ago. I think that this fireplace was in service at the turn of the century (1900). One of Scott's framers, Greg, loaned me a small wood stove that fit in the opening. We set it up and lit a fire.
After it warmed up and the draft started going, it was sucking all the warm air out of the house and up the damper-less chimney. To fix this problem, Bob and I built a sheet metal cover for inside the fireplace, with only a 6" opening for the wood stove flue. This worked well but the stove is a little small. A bigger stove would keep a fire longer and throw more heat.
I ordered a kit from Northern Hydraulics to convert a 30 or 55 gallon barrel to a wood stove. The kit contained a flanged door, legs, and a flue collar, all in cast iron. I mounted the hardware and tested it outside Christmas morning.
Before I install it inside, I have to protect the exposed wood on the floor and wall nearby.
When the price of Kero went to $2.00 per gallon, I bought 3 cords of wood and started burning the barrel stove 7 days. Later, I switched to burning scrap wood. Instead of paying to haul it away, I burned it for heat.
As winter turned to summer, we wanted air conditioning, but would have to settle. One window air conditioner was left, but it wouldn't fit in any of our windows. I mounted it in the old wall in the living room between the new and old construction. The outside part of the A/C was in the new dining room. A bucket would collect the water dripping.
