Kerosene Heaters

Started by BruceinKY, January 12, 2005, 11:53:19 AM

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BruceinKY

Last year my heating bill were outrageous (natural gas furnace), we're talking 400 dollars, just to keep the house at 68.

This year I bought a 23,000 BTU Kerosene Heater. WOW, does that thing work great. 2 gallons of kerosene will burn about 12 hours (It's 2 dollars a gallon here). If I ran that thing 24/7 it would cost me 240 bucks a month. Even when it dropped into the single digits it kept my entire main floor (not including the bedrooms at a comfortable 70 degrees.  

John Raabe

#1
Interesting Bruce.

What type of heater do you have and is it vented (I hope)?

We used keosene heaters in the Peace Corps in Iran. We had an old man with tanks stapped to a donkey who delivered every other day. We used Aladin unvented heaters then and one volunteer (in India) died when a dirty wick pumped out too much CO overnight.

The fuel does have a fairly high heat content if you can burn it efficiently - which we did not.
None of us are as smart as all of us.


glenn kangiser

#2
I have been using the Monitor 2400 for several years in our house near Fresno.  We are running offroad diesel in it and have had no problem (recommended by a local farmer- not the company) .  Our Total heating cost is about $200  (avg 120 to 150 gallons) per year running about 4 to 5 months per year.  Temps with fog average in the 40's for about 3 to 4 months occasionally to a little below freezing.  This heater has a heat exchanger from exhaust to intake air  through the single 2 1/2 inch double wall pipe that goes out through the wall.  (exhaust center -intake outside to cool exhaust and recover heat)  Thermostat programming is easy and there is a backup low temp setting in case of power failure.  It burns very nearly odor free even on diesel and exhaust temperature is  fairly cool.  The safety features work great.  It does require a small amount of 110v AC to run the fan, etc.

The heater comes on before we get up -goes off to lower temp as we go to work- comes on before we get home and lowers again after we go to bed.  You can also set it manually.  I highly recommend it.  It is as good as they say it is (rated 93% efficient).  

Note- there is no soot as in old oil stoves- it is very clean burning.  Update: Reviewing their site again I see that they do recommend #1 diesel as usable in the Monitor.

http://www.medfordfuel.com/Monitor_Kerosene_Heater.htm
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

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Amanda_931

The Monitor sounds wonderful.  I've added it to my totally unwieldy bookmark list.

The standard rectangular or round kerosene heaters were my backup (occasionally only) heat when I lived in Nashville.  The instructions with the first one included--I've paraphrase, of course:

How to clean the wick.  Let it run out of fuel--as much as possible.  Avoid the automatic shutoff like the plague.  If you must turn it off,  try to have it run at least until it fully heats up--hour or so IIRC--before you turn it off.

There's a very small amount of adjustment possible.  You will get into trouble if you try to turn it too low, unburned and partially burned fuel get in the room.

My house was very leaky, so I never figured there was a problem with CO.  So this worked pretty well.  Low odor.  But a serious nuisance to go get fuel in 5-gallon jugs.  (we won't talk about the winter when my only vehicle was the motorcycle!)  Also a nuisance to fill the little tank.

But by contrast the Monitor heaters sound like heaven--outside air and exhaust, fuel from a big tank filled once a year, etc.

They don't seem to want to tell us what the MSRP is, though.

glenn kangiser

Sorry I didn't mention that they are not cheap.  Here is a link to sample pricing info-- It is on the first page but hard to find.
http://www.monitorheaters.com/Monitor_Installation_Quick_Reference.htm
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

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Amanda_931

Not that different from a premium wood stove.

Everything (except shipping) for the biggest one around three grand.  Including a tank of fuel, and getting someone else to set it all up for you.

Looks rather as though they aren't selling the smallest one any more, at least at that dealearship.


glenn kangiser

I'm not sure what their current line covers or who reputable dealers are- I just  took the first site I found that had the monitor.  I can say that the listed site looks reasonable in price as it is listed at about what I paid for mine about 4 years ago.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

Glenn's Underground Cabin  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=151.0

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John Raabe

#7
I'm starting to research a freestanding oil stove to replace the wood stove on my masonry chimney. I am motivated by the fact that I started to compare costs for homeowner insurance and found that some companies won't insure a house with an older wood stove like mine. I also have a neighbor with oil heat who loves it and spends less on fuel than he did for delivered wood. (Well, that was last year, oil has gone up more than wood.)

Here is a look at a high quality cast iron unit made in Canada - the Napoleon:
http://www.napoleonfireplaces.com/Webshare/Brochures/OS10_OS11.pdf

Here is a review of the stove: http://hearth.com/ratesingles/rate955.html. The best price I could find was $1450 delivered. That does not include the oil tank and fittings.
None of us are as smart as all of us.

DavidLeBlanc

While doing research on radiant heating (which is a lot less expensive than it used to be!), I discovered a site that says that natural gas (NG), oil and propane (LPG) are the ways to go with NG the cheapest and most efficient and LPG the least efficient and most expensive. I'm sure that varies by region and market variance...

One good source of (vented) kerosene heaters are marine cabin heaters. They run on diesel or kerosene and have safety features. They are fairly inexpensive too! Less than $500 to start (maybe plus plumbing). They are small wall-hung units.