A couple months ago, the thermocouple for the furnace decided to crap the bed. As you know, the thermocouple, on a gas appliance, is what keeps the device from sending gas to the burners when the pilot light is out. Its a part that regularly fails. Could be a year or two, could be ten years…but you’d be a smart man if you kept some spares on hand and learned how to replace them. I was not a smart man.
Oh, I knew it was the thermocouple. And thermocouples are pretty standardized. But do you know what is not standardized? The means of accessing the thermocouple. That is to say, while I have the part, and know how to swap the part, I had no idea how to successfully disassmeble my furnace to get to the par.
So I did what any smart person would do who didn’t want to spend money they didn’t have to – I went to YouTube and looked for instructional videos.
TL;DR – wound up having to have someone come in to swap it out, but video’d the entire process so I know how to do it next time.
But this post isn’t about that, although there are some good takeaways there. This post is about that the heat went out when it was 0 degrees out and the ‘supply issue / labor issue’ bugaboo said no one was coming to fix my furnace for about three days.
Worried? Nope. Went to the basement and pulled the kerosene heaters out of storage. I have two. Why two? Well, first of all (say it with me) one is none and two is one. Also, I wanted one for the basement to keep the pipes from freezing, and one for the living area to keep the humans from freezing. So, two.
What surprised me was that when I pulled the trashbag dust cover off the heater I was delighted to find an index card clipped to the top of the heater with a clothespin. It said that the heater was last used, cleaned, fully refueled, and had its batteries changed on a particular date a couple years ago. Sweet. Future me is very impressed with past me’s thoughtfulness. (Yes, batteries. All kero heaters can be lit with a match if you need to, but most use a couple C-batts to power an igniter to light the heater. But, you can work it just fine without the batteries if you need to. More of a convenience, really.)
But, heater #2 is a bit dog-eared. It works, but it’s definitely seen better days and perhaps it is time for a replacement. So, of to Lowe’s. First thing I noticed was that kerosene was $35 for 2.5 gallons. This is wildly absurd. Even at your local green-handled Cenex pump its still expensive. Fortunately, I’m prepared. A few years back I bought out someone’s Y2K stash for $2.86/gallon. And prior to that, there was the Great Kerosene Closeout at Home Depot which pretty much set me for the forseeable future.
So, it was off to Lowe’s yesterday for a new kerosene heater. One left in stock. I assembled it, filled it, let it sit for a while so the wick would soak up fuel, ran it for a while to burn off any oils and whatnot, and now it’ll go into storage with a happy little index card taped to it with all the necessary info. But…a few other things are worth noting.
Any piece of gear can, and will, fail. This is why I have two of these things. So, in addition to keeping the instruction manual with the heater for quick reference, I’m also ordering a spare wick or two (which, fortuitously, both heaters use). I also keep a couple siphons on hand as well. Most importantly, in the box with the kerosene heater gear is a CO detector and spare batteries. There’s no room for error with this stuff. Get a carbon monoxide alarm and use it.
And, finally, a couple really good, really large fire extinguishers. I never, ever fuel these things indoors and when I fuel the outdoors I always have someone standing by with a fire extinguisher….just in case.
Also, I bring the heaters out onto my porch to light them or extinguish them. I light them, wait ten minutes, and then bring them inside. When I want to turn them off, I take them outside, turn them off, and let them sit for ten minutes before bringing them back inside. This avoids the annoying smells they make when you start/extinguish them.
So…thats the big prep-related activity this weekend. New kero heater.
Squared away, good report. For reference info I went to Miles Stair’s wick shoppe for spare wicks, ignitor buttons things, and there is a school house of information there for folks. Harbor freight tools has a stick type battery (D×2) powered liquid transfer pump that works good for fill ups. They are cheap, buy three just because. I also got a small fold down handle type of flat cart to put my round dynaglo on and roll it “gently” around to different sections of house for heating as needed. Had some -30 degree days this year so it helps out.. I transfer a 5 gal drum of kero into two of the smaller 2.5 gallon Jerry cans. Easier to move about or field transport if bugging out for lamp fuel etc. Having back up heating source or a redundant separate heating system is as mandatory as carrying a knife in both the cold zones of America, as well as in these days of unreliable anything. Stay warm.
The above mentioned pump is only $11.99 at Horror Freight. I do believe that I need to invest in several of these, both for fuels and for water barrels. Frosty, thanks for the heads up!
don’t leave the batteries in them or you’ll be sorry. if it hasn’t happened yet you’re lucky, not immune. wind knocked our power out for a day, for the sixth or seventh time this year. my neighbor couldn’t get his generator started. its a honda, and just came back from the shop that cost him 700 to rebuild it after the carb malfunctioned and got gas into the oil somehow. yall can have your 3000 dollar hondas. at least when mine take a crap i have enough money left to buy a new one. …….back on subject, i tried kero heaters a while for backup but the wicks were all crusty and dried out when i needed them. changing a wick while you’re freezing isn’t easy nor fun. any secret to keeping it operational?
Store it with a full tank would be my suggestion. The most obvious would be to do a periodic inspection of it to make sure the tank is full and everything is in good working order. If the wick dries out, fill a squeeze bottle with kero and run a ‘bead’ around the top of the wick until it’s saturated.
I’d take the Honda over a Horror Freight knockoff any day.
RR, your wicks may have looked “all crusty and dried out,” but a certain amount of that is pretty normal in my experience. An Aladdin lamp has a circular wick not unlike the wick in a heater and periodically it gets hard, crusty deposits on the top edge. Aladdin makes a tool that you twist around the top of the wick and it “reconditions” that top edge. The hard deposits are broken up and the top edge of the wick is kind of fluffed up, for want of a better term. I think the same thing can happen with a heater wick. I can’t speak to whether these deposits come from low-quality fuel or perhaps from someone trying to run the heater turned down too low. In my experience all wick devices that burn kerosene have one optimum burn setting. Turn the wick up too high and you’ll get sooting and smell. Turn it too low and you can get smell and poor performance. CZ’s advice to wet the wick with a squirt bottle will help, but I still think any crusty deposits on the wick need to be crushed/crunched up.
I’m an old farmer and I have burned No.1 fuel oil in heaters and lanterns without any problem for more than 60 years.. I would not use it in the house unless I needed to as it sometimes, but not always stinks. Yes, kerosene usually works better but if you need heat and light it will work. Try it yourself in a lamp and see what you think. —ken
Can you tell us which heater you got? I bought one on Amazon 10 years ago, it was very pricey and stunk to high heaven. Didn’t work well either, I’d like to replace it, thanks.
https://amzn.to/3kNFINQ
Just a suggestion to make it multipurpose,if the wire cage is strong enough a light weight pan could be used to heat food or hold a heat powered fan to distribute the heat.