The price of kerosene

[bobusnick104]

Some of us that live in the northern parts need to heat our shops to do a little wrenching on our Model A's in the winter. I keep my toys in a private airplane hangar and use a kerosene fired torpedo heater to get the chill off so the gas furnace can get a head start. With the price of oil being low, I just don't understand why kerosene is $4.79 per gallon. Gas is $2.25 and diesel is $3.19. There shouldn't be any road tax on it. What gives? Is this a local SW PA thing or typical all over this great country?

[31 Model A]

Originally Posted by bobusnick104

I just don't understand why kerosene is $4.79 per gallon. ?

I'd gladly buy my kerosene at that price....................I'm paying $7.40 a gallon.

[CarlG]

Kerosene is essentially the same as Jet-A. While gas prices have come down a bunch, Jet fuels not so much.

[John Duden]

I use diesel fuel in ours, I mix 1 gallon of diesel and one quart gas and burn it, it burns clean and the small amount of gas makes it so the heater does not spit and keeps the spark plug clean

[5window]

Originally Posted by CarlG

Kerosene is essentially the same as Jet-A. While gas prices have come down a bunch, Jet fuels not so much.

I don't know for sure, but the news is full of stories about how much the airlines are making since the price of jet fuel is down.

Here's chart showing jet fuel costs over th last 10 years. Looks way cheaper than kerosene to me;

http://www.indexmundi.com/commoditie...odity=jet-fuel

[C26Pinelake]

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Kerosene in my part of Canada is $49.00 for 5 gallons or about $9.80 a gallon. I use propane in my torpedo heater. Wayne

[segelhorst]

Just looked at Kerosene at Tractor Supply this week and it was 10 bucks for a one gallon can. I'm not aware of any gas stations selling Kerosene locally.

[31 Model A]

Around here, no gas stations bother with kerosene anymore, strictly, Farm and Home, Lowes or Home Depot.

Cheapest I found once was at Lowes and it was $37.+ for five gallons. Military discount or Old Fart discount, 10% off.

[CarlG]

Originally Posted by 5window

I don't know for sure, but the news is full of stories about how much the airlines are making since the price of jet fuel is down.

Here's chart showing jet fuel costs over th last 10 years. Looks way cheaper than kerosene to me;

http://www.indexmundi.com/commoditie...odity=jet-fuel

If I were buying 5,000,000 gallons of kerosene (Jet-A) at a time (as the airlines do), I could certainly get it a lot cheaper than my measly 5-gallon can at Home Depot.

[mass A man]

The Haffner Gas stations around here sell kero at the pump, I got 20 gallons @ $3.40/gal. It is a rip off in my opinion since the drop in crude is so low now.

[mshmodela]

I can buy kerosene at many gas stations.. I think it was close to $5 a gallon (lots cheaper than the tin cans from home depot or lowes... All supply and demand ...

[Ted Duke]

Check around, it's still available at many gas stations in Virginia and West Virginia. I suspect it is other places as well.

[Purdy Swoft]

I may be wrong but they always told me that kerosene was coal oil, not derived from crude oil. I use to buy kerosene for 25 cents per gallon. Prices went up in the late seventies when a lot of perple started using the fancy new kerosene heaters because kerosene was cheap. When demand for kerosene increased, prices began to skyrocket. Kerosene is a good parts cleaner and not nearly as dangerous as gas. Kerosene doesn't have all that much odor . Diesel stinks so bad, if you get a drop of it on you , you can't wash it off. It mostly has to wear off .

When kerosene went way up , bologna also went up. I called it poor tax . We never cared much for bologna but it caused us to quit using our practacally new at the time kerosene heaters or using kerosene as a cleaning fluid . Go figure !!!

[mrtexas]

Kerosene = jet fuel = comes from crude oil. Don't think there is much "coal" oil around anymore. Diesel has lower ppm sulfur than gasoline. Shouldn't stink.

[CarlG]

Originally Posted by Purdy Swoft

I may be wrong but they always told me that kerosene was coal oil, not derived from crude oil. I use to buy kerosene for 25 cents per gallon...

My Dad always called it "coal-oil", burned it in stoves, lamps, etc. Used it for a parts cleaner as well. In the early 50's it was probably even cheaper than 25¢.

[marc hildebrant]

Not sure where "Coal Oil" phrase came from...

Rockefeller of standard oil got his start making a consistent quality kerosene. His product was safe for burning in the lamps used at the time.

By the way, he didn't use the resulting gasoline from his refinery at the time since gasoline was dangerous when used in a lamp. He threw out the gasoline !!

Marc

[Afordman31]

Just paid $3.91 per gallon in Southwest Michigan , was $4.19
Surprised that it dropped. I will pay that because it breaks the chill and if you dress warm enough you can work in 50 or 55 degree weather. My salamander has a thermostat for it so it doesn't have to run all the time. Afordman31

[ronn]

I am thinking there so little demand locally, that the stations are charging top dollar.
People aren't running kerosene heaters any longer, like they did in the 70's............

[Purdy Swoft]

Originally Posted by CarlG

My Dad always called it "coal-oil", burned it in stoves, lamps, etc. Used it for a parts cleaner as well. In the early 50's it was probably even cheaper than 25¢.

Carl, I agree . I think that it was probably as low as 15 cents a gallon in the early fifties. I remember that the old country stores all had kerosene tanks with a hand pump like the red Texaco tank pictured in a different thread here today. People used it in stoves and lamps. We had kerosene lamps on stand by in case the electricity went off. Deb still has a bunch of the old oil lamps and lanterns in her collection. We now have a standby generator that runs on natural gas and cranks automatically when the power cuts off . Times change for the better in some ways.

[Purdy Swoft]

Originally Posted by mrtexas

Kerosene = jet fuel = comes from crude oil. Don't think there is much "coal" oil around anymore. Diesel has lower ppm sulfur than gasoline. Shouldn't stink.

Diesel may have less sulfur than gasoline. Diesel and ethanol gas both stink really bad to me. Kerosene, on the other hand doesn't have that much odor. The smell of diesel or gasoline won't wash off with soap and water. The scent can be removed by scrubbing with tooth paste and then wash with soap and water. To me Diesel is even more odiferous than gasoline .

[mshmodela]

Some of what crude oil can be made into:



For further details contact a Chemical Engineer.

[bobusnick104]

Jet A is not available at my airport although the cost is close to the price of kerosene. It is not feasible to fly or drive to get it. I know how much tax is included in jet a. I think it is a Communist conspiracy!

[Ted Duke]

Originally Posted by Purdy Swoft

Diesel may have less sulfur than gasoline. Diesel and ethanol gas both stink really bad to me. Kerosene, on the other hand doesn't have that much odor. The smell of diesel or gasoline won't wash off with soap and water. The scent can be removed by scrubbing with tooth paste and then wash with soap and water. To me Diesel is even more odiferous than gasoline .

Use the cheapest dollar store shampoo to clean your hands. Works better than any hand cleaner I've found to remove grease, dirt, smell.

[bambooboy]

our local sheets gas station has it.was$4.20 gal,now dropped to $3.40.makes sense to me.at 4.20 they prob paid 3.80,next load was cheaper,so price drop.50 years ago dad&i had a Sinclair station,no price drop till new load came in cheaper.Purdy,back then we had a crank tank which we used for varnalean for sale.i think 15cents a gal.it was a good cleaning fluid&no bad odor.tom

[bobusnick104]

Originally Posted by CarlG

Kerosene is essentially the same as Jet-A. While gas prices have come down a bunch, Jet fuels not so much.

Jet A is not available at my airport. I know how much tax is included in the price. It's not feasible to fly or drive to get it. It must be a Communist conspiracy!

[Vic in E-TN]

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In 1979 I bought an Olds diesel. My area had converted to natural gas and I had a few friends that had fuel oil tanks pretty full. I offered to take it off their hands if I also removed the tank. I worked for a company that has a lab that could measure all the necessary parameters - gravity, cetane number (similar to gasoline octane), flash point and importantly sulfur content. Everything was equal to or better than the diesel fuel.

In the past fuel oil was significantly less expensive than diesel so the government started to dye fuel oil red. If they caught you with fuel oil in your tank you paid a large fine.

What is happening now is that the few stations that sell fuel oil is pricing it based on what they paid for it until they get their next delivery. In my area that is $4 per gallon. Diesel is a little less than $3 per gallon.

I just bought 5 gallons of diesel for my parts washer. The label said to use fuel oil but since diesel is less expensive so that is what I will be using.

In the past diesel could contain up to 300 ppm (parts per million) of sulfur and fuel oil had basically any allowable sulfur. The fuel oil that I was able to get for free contained 10-30 ppm. Now road diesel is limited to 15 ppm, I believe (ultra low sulfur diesel).

Try a few gallons of diesel in your heaters and see how you like it.

Vic

PS The price of diesel spiked up a few years ago several months before the Olympics in Beijing when the ChiComs bought a lot of it. We are not allowed to export crude oil so the refiners are making a lot of money exporting refined products like diesel to the world market. This is one of the reasons that the proposed KeystoneXL pipeline should be built. The Chinese are a lot smarter than most of us when it comes to things like this

[edmondclinton]

Kerosene

• Kerosene is a fuel oil made from the distillation of petroleum, or crude oil.

Coal Oil

• At the dawn of the oil industry, the patent for a product called Kerosene was filed by the chemist James Young. He had found a method of processing oil shale and bituminous coal into a thin, clear liquid fuel. He named this oil Kerosene, and sold this product all over the world. This product was called "coal oil" by the general public.

Coal Oil is Kerosene

• The name "coal oil" is historically linked to Kerosene because of the common misconception that the Kerosene came from the coal. In fact, Kerosene came from the oil inside the coal. The term "coal oil" is an outdated name which only flourished at the dawn of the oil industry

Some of my friends who are in their 80's still call it "coal oil."

[ian Simpson]

During my poor apprentice days, I used to top up the tank of my BWM motorcycle with kerosene. Smelt funny and did not run as fast, nor start reliably, but it was cheap, having no road tax.

But as for using Salamander or torpedo heaters running kerosene, diesel, gas or any other unenclosed flame in a garage heater is not a good idea. Too much risk that Model A's actually leak highly flammable gas fumes. Keep your extinguishers very close.

Ian

[DougVieyra]

I use Kerosene for the lamps that light my home, so I buy it in quantity, with a considerable span of time in between restocking. However, the last time I bought it, it was $5.25 per gallon.

- Doug Vieyra, Eureka, CA

[darrylkmc]

Originally Posted by ian Simpson

During my poor apprentice days, I used to top up the tank of my BWM motorcycle with kerosene. Smelt funny and did not run as fast, nor start reliably, but it was cheap, having no road tax.

But as for using Salamander or torpedo heaters running kerosene, diesel, gas or any other unenclosed flame in a garage heater is not a good idea. Too much risk that Model A's actually leak highly flammable gas fumes. Keep your extinguishers very close.

Ian

Plus the CO, Carbon Monoxide.

Here this far North in Alaska, it is just all #1.

There is Kerosene available at the hardware stores, but I have never know anyone who burns it.

Warmed up to -20 F.

Darryl in Fairbanks

#2 is delivered for below ground use in the winter, and vehicle use in the summer

[mot]

i worked in a Texaco gas station in the 50s
every once in a while some one with a Model A or other old car would come in and buy kerosene to put in their tank
i had to go out back and hand pump it into a container and put it in their tank
it cost 15 cents a gallon
it smoked a lot when they left,but i dont know if it was the kerosene smoking or the bad rings
we even had one guy come in and ask for the used oil
"you know man,the stuff whats you drain out the car"

[scrapiron]

>>>>>>greed<<<<<<

[Terry, NJ]

A friend and I are doing the same thing. Only difference is he uses diesel with the road tax. No Red dye! The dye will kill the heater. This is true from what he says about kerosene too. BTW I couldn't buy white kerosene any where in Bucks co except Home Depot at $22+ for 2 1/2 gallons. I wanted it for my diesel Jetta. Anyone know anything about Jet A?
Terry

Originally Posted by bobusnick104

Some of us that live in the northern parts need to heat our shops to do a little wrenching on our Model A's in the winter. I keep my toys in a private airplane hangar and use a kerosene fired torpedo heater to get the chill off so the gas furnace can get a head start. With the price of oil being low, I just don't understand why kerosene is $4.79 per gallon. Gas is $2.25 and diesel is $3.19. There shouldn't be any road tax on it. What gives? Is this a local SW PA thing or typical all over this great country?

[scrapiron]

Around here, western NC & VA you can get undyed kero for $3.30/$3.90 a gal. from a pump.

[Rex_A_Lott]

Around here the price of kerosene shot up overnight when Katrina hit, and has never came back down. I'm not sure why that is.
It really hurt the people who were using kerosene to heat, but most just flat refused to buy it at that price, and as a result several of the places we used to be able to buy it took it out and converted that pump to Diesel.

[bobusnick104]

Jet A is kerosene refined to a higher standard. I checked prices around SW PA airports and the cheapest is 3.70 for self serve. Too far to drive and I don't want to haul 5 gallon cans in the airplane.

[BlueSunoco]

I'd install a natural gas or even propane heater in the shop, the pay back will be pretty fast at THOSE prices you guys are quoting

Ditch that kerosene,

[5851a]

Used to work with a friend in his garage with the salamander heater, always gave me the worst headache but figured was just the odor of the kerosene and a few vapors from cleaning carbs. Was in the garage one night for several hours and cigarette lighter wouldn't work so went to the car to get matches and it lit, took it back to garage and it wouldn't light. Opened the overhead door and it lit. I think there was close to no oxygen left in there. I have never used one of those heater since, that was in the early 70's and I would hope the newer ones have some kind of sensor on them.

[Purdy Swoft]

Early tractors were setup to run on kerosene because it was a low cost alternative. These tractors had to be cranked on gasoline because kerosene wouldn't ignite with a spark like gas untill the engine was hot. Because of very low octane the tractors had less power when running on kerosene. In an attempt to save a few cents some still run the tractors on kerosene untill they realized that it really wasn't that practical and just used gas instead . Same for heating and parts cleaning and so on, Now that the price of kerosene has risen to the ridiculous price it now is, I would think that they have priced it out of the practical market .

[dlfrisch]

My father owned and ran a country general store (rural Amsterdam, N.Y.). Back in the late '50s I remember pumping kerosene for customers and it was 12 or 17 cents a gallon. It was, what they called white kerosene and it could be used in lamps along with regular heaters or cooking appliances. I can't believe what home owners are paying for heating fuel oil today! I studied and researched along the years, that the procedure to make diesel fuel, heating oils and / or kerosene from crude oil took a lot less refinement time and money, than it was to make gasoline. I often wonder when I see the price signs at the different fuel stations, who's making all the money.

[triumphleroy]

Do not know what is happening elsewhere but Diesel Fuel dropped about $.50 cents a gallon over the last few days and gas went up about $.25 cents a gallon Diesel now $2.33 per gallon, gasoline $1.89 gas had been $1.60 last week? Those prices are in east Texas?
I have used the diesel lately for parts cleaning as the smell is not as bad as it was way back there! Prefer Naphtha as it has less odor but is too costly these days, it also dry's faster but will dry your hands out if used with out gloves!
Have also found that your old coffee grounds from the coffee pot will take away the odor better than soap etc. Just wash your hands then take handful of the morning's left over coffee grounds and rub around in your hands, seems to work pretty good after slicing onions too!

[Bruce of MN]

Purdy, we see those dual fuel tractors at the Berryville Steam Show.

Another source of oil from coal is what we called Light Oils from coke oven by-products plants that made coke for blast furnaces. I was told that the mill got a pretty good price from the refineries for that by-product. While heating the coal enough to make it pretty pure carbon, there was a very wide range of products driven off, from methane to coal tar that could either be used or sold. We have a lot fewer blast furnaces nowadays, so it probably isn't a big source of oil.

[RonC]

Buy a heater that runs on diesel fuels much cheaper and easier to buy fuel

[latecomer]

Its amazing how many of us depend a few gallons of kerosene to keep our hands on the As at this time of the year.

[edmondclinton]

Originally Posted by Purdy Swoft

Early tractors were setup to run on kerosene because it was a low cost alternative. These tractors had to be cranked on gasoline because kerosene wouldn't ignite with a spark like gas untill the engine was hot. Because of very low octane the tractors had less power when running on kerosene. In an attempt to save a few cents some still run the tractors on kerosene untill they realized that it really wasn't that practical and just used gas instead . Same for heating and parts cleaning and so on, Now that the price of kerosene has risen to the ridiculous price it now is, I would think that they have priced it out of the practical market .

Henry's famed Fordson tractors had that kerosene/gas set up.

[dumb person]

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About $45 US a gallon here.

[Marvin/TN]

Around here some convience stores sell kerosene but not all.

[Purdy Swoft]

Originally Posted by triumphleroy

Do not know what is happening elsewhere but Diesel Fuel dropped about $.50 cents a gallon over the last few days and gas went up about $.25 cents a gallon Diesel now $2.33 per gallon, gasoline $1.89 gas had been $1.60 last week? Those prices are in east Texas?
I have used the diesel lately for parts cleaning as the smell is not as bad as it was way back there! Prefer Naphtha as it has less odor but is too costly these days, it also dry's faster but will dry your hands out if used with out gloves!
Have also found that your old coffee grounds from the coffee pot will take away the odor better than soap etc. Just wash your hands then take handful of the morning's left over coffee grounds and rub around in your hands, seems to work pretty good after slicing onions too!

Thanks for the tip on using coffee grounds to remove the smell . I'm a big coffee drinker and always have plenty coffee grounds. Coffee grounds are less expensive than using tooth paste as a hand cleaner !!!

[31 Model A]

Just returned and found Kerosene is now over $44.00 for five gals, over $10.00 for one at Lowe's and Home Depot, without the 10% Old Fart/Vet discount.

[C26Pinelake]

Originally Posted by 31 Model A

Just returned and found Kerosene is now over $44.00 for five gals, over $10.00 for one at Lowe's and Home Depot, without the 10% Old Fart/Vet discount.

Lowes in Canada today was $55 dollars exactly the same as....are you ready for this...24 Bud Light beer ! Wayne

[31 Model A]

Originally Posted by C26Pinelake

Lowes in Canada today was $55 dollars exactly the same as....are you ready for this...24 Bud Light beer ! Wayne

Bud Light !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they should give that water away instead of charging anything for it!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SeaSlugs]

Yea not sure why canadians beer is rediculous priced. Not sure how you guys ever get/got drunk haha.

ANyways, 2 summers ago when i bought 10 gallons of kerosene for parts cleaning it was about $4.89 a gallon at a local gas station. at that time it was $10 a gallon from lowes or the like. Cleaned up 2 model aa rearends just fine and then some. Then lit one hellacious bonfire after i was done haha.

Not sure why they would ever bother selling a new kerosine heater nowadays