any heating engineers ?

[zimm]

just a quicky,

our place has oil fired central heating.. its run out .. cant get a delivery till mid-week, its bloody cold.

can i just bung diesel or paraffin or something in the tank as a stop gap ?

if no .. how do i go about injecting the cat with anti-freeze ? (currently trying to get into the computer as its the only source of heat)

[cargo]

Don't know about over there but most of the filling stations/ garages here sell 25 liter plastic drums of heating oil for emergency situations just like yours.

Diesl might just burn but it will be very very black and smoky

[zimm]

i wish that was the case here mate !

resorted to grabbing 8 litres of parafin from the garden center and used that .. worked fine.. but @ 1.70 a litre its a bloody expensive way of staying warm.

[cargo]

Tell me about it.................I've been trying to find out if I can use cooking oil in the van.................some tell me yes others say no

One thing for sure I gave up buying heating oil two years ago...............we have an open fire linked to the radiators. I get broken scrap pallets from the skip at work and burn them in the fire....................free heating.............well except for the price of a cheap chainsaw to cut them up.
I can cut a pallet into fire sized bits in about a minute flat........................10 or so pallets a week plus a few free logs if I can find them and we're happy.
This time of year is good lots of people throwing out Xmas tress.................I chop em up and burn em.

Since I've started on the pallets I reckon I've saved over a grand..................thats two free ferry trips to the IOM for racing................... or a seasons entry fees.

HO HO HO

[zimm]

whether cooking oil can be used in a van depends on the fuel pump and whether or not its a turbo-diesel iirc ..

it only really matters if you want to run purely on veg oil ... its the viscosity thats the issue ..

twin-tank systems get round that by starting on derv then heating the SVO to 70-80'C to give the pump an easier time.

a 50/50 mix with diesel will work fine in 99% of vehicles with no mods though.

im totally with you on the wood burning .. sadly this place is rented so its not up to me (oh, and all the fireplaces have been blocked off)

(im also moving in 3 weeks so reluctant to spunk another 300 quid on an oil delivery)

[cargo]

Stealing heating oil is a popular game here now..................the scumbags use a hole cutter in a battery drill cut a hole in your tank and stick a pipe into the hole.
It happened to a mate of mine he fixed his tank but he also put a new tank into a shed and fill that with oil.....................when the scumbags came back again they tried to repeat the job on the outside tank....................my mate had filled it with water..........LOL


My van is a very old Transit 1993 (no turbo not even power steering)..................I reckon it would run on 50/50................but I be afraid of wrecking it maybe the week before I finally scrap it I'll give the veggie oil a try if it works then the replacement van will be on it full time.

[RedexRobB]

Used to have an open fire at my mums. Used to goto old kitchen manufacturers, chip board burns beautifully, and woodyards to get free off cuts. Also had a tree surgeon who lived up our road who used to bring us entire trunks that where cut. All we had to do was 'Dairylea' them into fire size chunks. Did switch to coal for a bit but it got too expensive. Did have gas heating but the landlord had central heating installed the other week.

Proper fires are great, make excellent centre peices in a room and always something to talk about for people who dont have them when friends come round.

[zimm]

My van is a very old Transit 1993 (no turbo not even power steering)..................I reckon it would run on 50/50

it'll be fine mate .. same as my old one

[cargo]

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Tescos here I come

[zimm]

assuming of course yours is the perkins sourced 2.5 litre diesel..

as i said, its the fuel pump/distributor that'll fail if anything .. (and that shouldnt be an issue with running a 50/50 mix) the engine itself will love you for it.

[Vard66]

Proper fires are great, make excellent centre peices in a room and always something to talk about for people who dont have them when friends come round.

Plus your hands smell of wood smoke from lighting them, which I always find rather pleasant.

We've got a similar arrangement, except that the wood we're getting is offcuts from 2befours, by the shedload from the new School build up at St. John's.

*Just a small point of possible interest* I doubt anyone really will know of St. John's School, Marlborough, but during course of the new school build, someone had the notion of taking a webcam, mounting it in a still point and taking weekly shots of the build progress on the school. This is a slide window of those shots, it's quite cool to watch it springing from zilch frame by frame.

St. John's School Marlborough, New Site build slideshow

[zimm]

ahhhh ..

warmth

appears oil fired central heating will run on diesel !

result

[Davw]

Tell me about it.................I've been trying to find out if I can use cooking oil in the van.................some tell me yes others say no

One thing for sure I gave up buying heating oil two years ago...............we have an open fire linked to the radiators. I get broken scrap pallets from the skip at work and burn them in the fire....................free heating.............well except for the price of a cheap chainsaw to cut them up.
I can cut a pallet into fire sized bits in about a minute flat........................10 or so pallets a week plus a few free logs if I can find them and we're happy.
This time of year is good lots of people throwing out Xmas tress.................I chop em up and burn em.

Since I've started on the pallets I reckon I've saved over a grand..................thats two free ferry trips to the IOM for racing................... or a seasons entry fees.

HO HO HO

Old cooking oil in the van is no problem - however if you want to use it 100% then it needs treating. If you are prepared to cut it with diesel 50:50 then so long as the remains of the fish suppers have been fiiltered out it is fine. We have a taxi operator here in Aberdeen who has set herself up with a little busniess collecting cooking oil from the local restaurants and she has got a small biofuel plant which she uises to convert to fuel for her taxis. I looked into that a while ago and it is a hell of a lot of hassle - nasty chemicals etc

[lewisdale]

run it on red lol

[cargo]

Red would be fine but veggie oil is legal red isn't

In the Southern 26 counties of Ireland the don't have red it's green instead and for a while green was legal up here in the North but then then duty guys caught on

You can use 2500 liters of veggie oil a year for personal use ( no joke intended) with no tax issues............but once you go over 2500 then you must pay the road fuel tax in full on all you use.

Can you tell I've been googling LOL ?