Go BottomFuel question
 | Fritz Campbell
Join Date: Posts: 1 
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2001-08-12 30905
I don't want to start anything and I know it has been discussed to near death several times in the past but what is the difference between diesel fuel and home heating oil? The fellow who delivers my home heating oil tells me its exactly the same thing except for the coloring added in to easily tell if truckers are running home heating oil to avoid extremely high road taxes. As a matter of fact he told me that he uses home heating oil in all his diesel tractors, has never used "store bought" diesel, never added any additives of any type and has never had a problem with any of them. I seem to remember some posts awhile back on this subject about the sulfur content or whatever and a loss of power running the home heating oil. His opinion is that the low sulfur story is hogwash. I wouldn't mind having him fill up a couple 5 gal containers the next time he is filling my home oil tank. I don't use but maybe 20 gallons in a years time with my New Holland 1520 and the cost savings @ approximately .50 per gallon isn't going to let me retire any sooner but I wouldn't have to run to the local Sheetz to get it everytime I needed it either. I'd appreciate knowing what others use. Thank you!
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 | Peters
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 3034 Northern AL 
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2001-08-12 30908
Home heating oil is perfectly fine for the use in tractors. Most large farms, marine or construction equipment use it rather than unmarked diesel. The cost of these power plants far exceed the cost of your whole tractor.
The government/oil companies is trying to reduce the sulfur content of diesel, but I do not know about any attempt to reduce it in heating oil. Sulfur content will vary depending on the oil well of origin. Traditionally high sulfur has not been used for gasoline with out refinement to reduce sulfur content.
My understanding is that sulfur reduction in its self does not affect the lubrication factor, rather other compound are also removed that affect lubrication. These compounds probably are not responsible for lubrication as plain paraphinic oils are best, but prevent the oxidatve breakdown of the oil.
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2001-08-13 30919
Interesting comments from Peters. People talk about inadequate injector pump lubrication from low-sulfur fuel, but I've never thought about whether it's the sulfur itself. For that matter, I don't know whether it's an issue for new tractors, where the injector pumps may be engineered for low-sulfur fuel. I believe it is an issue for my mid-80's tractor. Whether or not there's an issue, I just use a fuel additive. The additive also contains an anti-gel compound I need, and it's not very expensive. I haven't used furnace oil in my tractor, but that's because there are suppliers of both off-road #1 and #2 diesel nearby. However, I wouldn't hesitate to take some from the furnace tank in a pinch (probably from the top rather than bottom). I'd also probably run it's through a 10-micron fuel filter I have. As far as I know, furnace oil and #2 diesel is the same from the refinery. I don't know, but I suppose there could be differences in the way distributors store and handle oil intended for heating as opposed to fuel. ....
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 | Murf
Join Date: Dec 1999 Posts: 7249 Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada
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2001-08-15 30968
We use quite a bit of fuel on an annual basis, almost all of it is home-heating oil, not diesel. The basic reason is economy, both the cost of purchasing, and the (tongue firmly in cheek) stability of the heating oil. By that I mean it stays where it's put. Most of our fuel is delivered to the site to 500 gal. portable(?) tanks with hand-pumps on top, they are clearly labelled "Furnace Oil Only" and bear the Haz-Mat Placards for such. It seems that every tank labelled gasoline, diesel, or coloured diesel gets raided by bandits, but not the furnace oil tanks. So far....... Anyways, after 20 years of this we have had no mechanical or performance problems from burning heating oil all year round. Best of luck. ....
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