Can you run a diesel engine on heating oil or kerosine? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: woodchips
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 08:02:37 pm
content: Electric heating is becoming more and more expensive. Have a Robin engine based diesel generator, runs on ordinary diesel but that is now expensive.Will it run happily on heating oil or kerosine?Diesel is a lubricant so the injection pump runs happily with it. Are heating oil and kerosine equally lubricating? Not much point in the pump seizing up after a few hours, or even lots of hours, running. Makes for very expensive fuel.Heating oil and kerosine are both hydrocarbon fuels, so basically the same, similar calorific value to diesel, just less than half the price. I seem to remember that diesel engines for the military will run on any hydrocarbon like diesel, avgas springs to mind. Is this true?Must be many people who could use a cheaper source of fuel for a generator.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 08:51:33 pm
content: afaik heating oil and diesel i basically the same thing, sometimes it is even the same thing, it is just taxed differentlyif you are concerned about lubricity add a bit of two-stroke oil

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 08:57:46 pm
content: It will certainly run on either of those, although I do think kerosene is not as good at lubricating. If you live near a rural area you can often find off-road diesel too which is dyed red and doesn't have the road taxes. I know a guy in England who for a while was buying vegetable oil at Costco and running his diesel van off it, I think he did that for around a year and it didn't cause any issues with the old mechanically injected engine.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 09:00:12 pm
content: Quote from: woodchips on June 10, 2022, 08:02:37 pmThen gasoline and diesel also are basically the same by this merit. While you may have success with heating oil depending on how it was made, don't try kerosene. It will certainly damage the engine.QuoteDepends on type of the engine. Gas turbine engine can use multiple type of fuels. But it's not even close to usual ICE.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 09:02:46 pm
content: Probably not avgas, but jet-A which is kerosene with some additives. It is not uncommon at airports to run diesel vehicles like fuel trucks on jet fuel. It's more expensive than diesel typically but it's conveniently stocked on site.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 09:03:24 pm
content: Quote from: woodchips on June 10, 2022, 08:02:37 pmSince you're in the UK, here's a reference that might be useful:https://www.crownoil.co.uk/guides/paraffin-guide-uses-history-more/#:~:text=Paraffin%20vs%20diesel,fuels%20are%20different.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 09:04:04 pm
content: If you consider also "biodiesel" you might reconsider. A colleague of mine (10+ years ago) ruined the engine of his diesel Mercedes with college-lab made biodiesel from used caffertia cooking oil. He was a physical chemist and didn't understand how Hydrion pH paper works. Also, you cannot ignore the additives.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 09:25:47 pm
content: Quote from: jpanhalt on June 10, 2022, 09:04:04 pmThis is an important consideration. The diesel engines in cars and trucks are highly tuned and depend on carefully refined diesel fuel with the right lubricating properties and additives.Heating oil will not in any way be designed for use in engines.A crude diesel engine for non-automotive use might be more tolerant of poor fuel quality, but there would certainly be a risk.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 09:38:39 pm
content: Quote from: jpanhalt on June 10, 2022, 09:04:04 pmsure, but I doubt a robin engine has some fancy ultra high pressure pump common rail injection system, like cars now a days

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 11:03:01 pm
content: Biodiesel is made, at least in that case, by methanolysis of the fats. That is, convert the fatty esters to methyl esters under alkaline conditions. He thought the"neutral" color of Hydroin paper meant it was OK. What he didn't realize is that those indicators depend on water to work properly. With water, they were still very highly alkaline. He learned, but a little too late.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 11:12:38 pm
content: Quote from: woodchips on June 10, 2022, 08:02:37 pmHappiness is relative, but it will run on those. You would want to keep the engine and the fuel from getting too cold if you are using heavier heating oils, and you would want to filter any non-diesel fuel very well. For kerosene you might want to also use a lubricant additive. An anti-gel combination additive like Power Service won't hurt.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 11:23:04 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on June 10, 2022, 09:00:12 pmThe Hercules multifuel engines from Continental are/were 6-cylinder turbocharged multifuel engines that run on almost any liquid hydrocarbon that isn't excessively viscous. Gasoline in cold weather wasn't ideal IIRC, but they will run on motor oil, transmission fluid (quite smokily), jet fuel (probably not JP-7), kerosene, etc. They were very low power density but very rugged military truck engines.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 11:36:54 pm
content: I suspect the answer to this varies greatly with vendor, location and application.I asked my vendor if the heating oil supplied to me was just untaxed diesel fuel. He responded that it was almost identical, with the addition of anti-bacterials to deal with the longer average dwell in the tank for heating fuel. It was a curiosity question. In my market the difference in price was a couple percentage points. Certainly not enough to risk cross use of the fuels.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 11:54:41 pm
content: Quote from: langwadt on June 10, 2022, 09:38:39 pmThere are a range of different reports on the matter here:https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=540694For people with a captive/waste source of an alternative fuel, some blending is likely fine.Would I run my direct injected diesel on 100% kerosene? No, 30/70? sure. 100% heating oil? depending on the formulation. Cars are designed to use a fairly broad range of fuels in the different countries they are delivered to, so there is some overlap with alternatives.

author: abquke
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2022, 11:57:37 pm
content: I used Jet-A fuel to prime a fuel filter in a TDI I had once (long story) and the computer did a "I'm going to throw a code because that was weird", but nothing untoward happened to the engine.Later on my dad and I made biodiesel and it worked alright in the older VW I had at the time. Bit of an investment and a big container of methanol requires some "don't be stupid" in handling and storage, but it's straightforward. The 'gotcha' on that one was that the biodiesel tended to gel in cold temperatures and I'm in a fairly warm climate. Generally depends on where the lipids came from.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 01:16:18 am
content: It's worth remembering that this is a generator, not a high tech modern car. I can't say for sure without looking at it but I'm going to guess it's a primitive fully mechanically injected engine. Diesel engines made before about the late 90s are generally quite tolerant of variations in the fuel. They don't have computers and a generator isn't going to have a catalyst or particulate filter or anything like that. There is some risk in trying any un-approved fuel but if it were me and this is not an extremely valuable piece of equipment I'd probably give the heating oil a try.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 01:24:30 am
content: Either will work. Kerosene may not have the lubricity required. Heating oil should be filtered.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 02:11:04 am
content: Quote from: james_s on June 11, 2022, 01:16:18 amThe injection pumps and injectors are extremely precise and work at many thousands of psi even on old iron, so they are not tolerant of any type of abrasive contamination. Nor do they typically like ethanol and water.

author: BrokenYugo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 05:47:46 am
content: Check the receipt, #2 heating oil is about the same, probably close enough in an old mechanical injected engine. Any lubricity concerns can be resolved with 2 cycle oil at a high ratio like 128/1 (1 oz/gal).Personally I wouldn't mess with it though, a generator is something that I do all I can to make it as reliable and trouble free as possible. That includes using quality fuel.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 06:19:48 am
content: Quote from: woodchips on June 10, 2022, 08:02:37 pmSo install heatpump(s). You are in a country where air source heatpumping works very well. This cuts your electricity use down to 1/3 or 1/4.If youstillhave shortage of electricity, then consider running the genset, use the power to run the heatpump, and collect the waste heat of the genset, for >100% total efficiency.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 06:37:56 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on June 11, 2022, 06:19:48 amThe UK doesn't even have expensive electricity (comparatively world wide) such that discount fossil fuel in a generator is still likely to be more expensive than just buying the electricity from the grid (off grid of course has different economics). Over to the OP to explain their economics!

author: woodchips
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 09:20:15 am
content: Wow, thanks to all who replied, a useful standard post possibly?Some more reading to follow up on.Yes, the Robin is a very basic diesel engine, all mechanical injection. Used in things like generators, water pumps, in fact anything that 2.5kW is needed and the fuel consumption of the usual petrol/gas engine is just too much. Looking at the Machine Mart catalogue, in the UK suppliers of all sorts of engineeringy things, and the fuel consumption stated is vastly more than mains electricity, even threatened in 6 months time.Air source, or ground source, heat pumps are a possibility but all my calculations over the years makes it an expensive source of energy. The snag in the UK is that whilst there are large handouts available, you can't just use the money to buy a simple ASHP, you have to have all the mains feed in, underfloor heating plus all the rest of the rubbish, end up at £15-20k, or more for GSHP. We are even allowed to fit one wind turbine in our garden for generation without planning approval.We have insulated our standard 90's home as far as is easily possible. Lining the inside is a mammoth job and not at all easy. Best seems to be timber outside cladding with 25mm Celotex under it, but even that is a big job.We are currently quoted £0.16 kWh night time and £0.33 kWh day, so running our 20kW Nightstor boiler is now expensive. Apparently going up in autumn but must say I rather think that we are being rooked. For years we paid about £0.05 kWh night and £0.12 day kWh, and whilst much dearer than gas was livable with.

author: woodchips
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 09:41:33 am
content: After lots of reading it seems that kerosine is better than paraffin, it is more highly refined so cleaner. Also both have less lubrication properties, the important thing, so as suggested adding 2 stroke to the fuel would be a good idea.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 09:52:13 am
content: Have you considered buying red diesel sold for off road use, which should be taxed at a lower rate than white diesel? Assuming you can obtain it, the red diesel should still be good for diesel engines.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 09:55:39 am
content: As already said, I fail to see how running a generator on heating oil will save you anything. Quick googling shows you would need about 0.4l/kWh with a good generator, while yours seems to be of less efficient type. Unless you buy heating oil for less than £0.82/l, even during the day and without considering maintenance of the generator (you want it to run on questionable fuel too), I fail to see how it will give you any savings. And quick googling shows heating oil costs around a pound per liter.

author: emece67
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 10:23:56 am
content: .

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 12:28:06 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on June 11, 2022, 06:19:48 amProbably the easiest way to use part of the waste heat is to direct the warmed cooling air from the generator through the outdoor airflow of the heat pump so that is is using somewhat warm air as a heat source instead of plain cold outdoor air. This will raise the coefficient of performance of the heat pump for sure.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 03:02:48 pm
content: Quote from: Circlotron on June 11, 2022, 12:28:06 pmNot by much - what you propose is a variation of recurring modification theme, but people fail to understand these outdoor units process just massive amounts of air through them. This is because air has poor thermal capacity, so a lot of flow is needed. Whether you mix solar-heated air (one common modification idea), warm ventilation exhaust air from the building (another), or exhaust gas of the genset (yours), it's going to mix with 10-100 times larger volume of outdoor air, so the benefit is almost negligible, maybe one-two degrees C and 0.1 units in COP.The next step is to suggest casing the whole outdoor unit to prevent this airflow, but this is trying to break the laws of physics: the only reason why seemingly overunity efficiency is possible with heatpump, is they actually harvest thermal energy in our atmosphere, which is basically an infinite source of energy. Try to modify them to harvest some limited resource (like waste heat source), and you are going to be limited to maybe 50% efficiency, not 300% some might expect.Probably the soot and other crap in the exhaust gas does more damage to the performance of the evaporator than it helps.But, something I would seriously consider, if you truly need a backup system off-grid, or for backup during blackouts, or just to help with peak expensive hours of electricity, is getting adecentgenset (not a cheap toy which breaks after 10 hours of use), which is water-cooled, so you can trivially just connect it to your hydronic heating circuit through a heat exchanger. Then run bog-standard air-to-air heatpump - which you should have anyway - with that electricity, of course along with all your normal electric loads. This way you can tap into most of the waste heat to heat up the radiators, some in rooms and hallways etc. that are outside the range of the air-to-air heatpump; while the air-to-air heatpump heats the living room, maybe.If you run 30% efficient genset to run a heatpump at 300% COP, and harvest half of waste heat of the generator, you will have 125% efficiency from gasoline chemical energy to heat. Compare this to running direct electric heating with the same genset plus harvest half of the waste heat = 65%; or direct electric heating with no waste heat harvest = 30%.But practically, just do the right thing, get a heatpump or two (air-to-air units are cheap and provide summertime cooling), get some PV, and have your neighbors do the same. Then you can forget about the whole generator idea.

author: woodchips
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 04:33:59 pm
content: Thanks for further comments.At the moment the problem is paying for the electricity, it could become a different problem with no electricity available to be bought. All the comment in the papers etc don't address this second problem.I do have a 20kW genset bought to run a sawmill, this will actually run the Nightstor boiler if needed. Needs some drastic re-wiring so unwilling to do this unless freezing! Will shift the genset into the garage, piping the exhaust out with heat exchanger for incoming air. Then as mentioned use an aircon unit to extract the heat from the genset to pipe into the house. But it all gets more and more complicated, and would just rather pay a little more on the electricity bill, it is just what this little more ends up to be.It does end up to be a careful balance of costs and also hassle, but in January with it at 2C and a power cut then things happen. Already run the house at 18C, wear a jumper, but 17C is definitely cold when sitting. Also the basic question of do I bother to buy some kerosine, about £1 litre, red diesel is now about £1.60 litre, substantial difference.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 04:36:46 pm
content: Quote from: woodchips on June 11, 2022, 04:33:59 pmWhich in both cases is more expensive than electricity from the grid.

author: abquke
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 04:38:21 pm
content: Quote from: woodchips on June 11, 2022, 04:33:59 pmIf it's to offset the electricity bill, then I'd relate that my electricity bill has been hookup fee plus taxes since mine was installed. Large initial cost, but the bills are now the same every month and there's a "time's on my side" satisfaction.

author: BrokenYugo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 04:47:16 pm
content: You'll probably never run into a scenario where burning stuff to turn an alternator yourself is cheaper than grid power. And if there ever is no more electricity to be bought, you will have far larger concerns than staying warm and keeping the lights on.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 06:22:43 pm
content: Quote from: BrokenYugo on June 11, 2022, 04:47:16 pmI don't know about that. It's a perfectly valid scenario that our societies partially collapse to the point of having long and serious blackouts etc. I'm not saying I expect it to happen, but it's a perfectly validideato prepare for it. And I frankly don't understand what you mean by "far larger concerns". Staying warm is a pretty big concern, having some lights and a refrigerator, too. If you can prepare yourself to have technical means to stay warm, you are halfway there to survival. The other important thing you need is food (and water).

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 08:07:13 pm
content: Quote from: BrokenYugo on June 11, 2022, 04:47:16 pmIf you can make use of the heat (generally this means only colder climates or those who have some sort of production process that needs a lot of heat for hours per day or more), it can easily end up cheaper anywhere there's a readily available fuel that's much cheaper than electricity.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 08:16:54 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on June 11, 2022, 08:07:13 pmBurning stuff can be cheaper to directly produce heat. But not to generate electricity.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 08:59:40 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on June 11, 2022, 08:16:54 pmtaxes can really mess with that calculation

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 09:10:46 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on June 11, 2022, 08:16:54 pmHere in Expen$ifornia our summer peak electricity rates are over $0.50/kwh. Of course gasoline is now $7/gallon so that won't work, but during the peak times an efficient natural gas generator could probably be cheaper, at least if you are just counting the fuel--which would be reasonable if you had it already for backup purposes.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2022, 09:52:07 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on June 11, 2022, 08:16:54 pmWith CHP, you're doing both.