When your heating oil tank runs dry... (1 Viewer)

Basically all of 2015 has been absolutely brutal temperature-wise in the Northeast.


I heat my home with a 200 gallon above ground kerosene tank. It's a very small cottage and normally I use about 350 gallons for the whole cold season, and in a normal winter I'd have plenty of kerosene left in the tank after my last delivery in mid-January. But with the unending frigid temperatures, my heat has been on more or less non-stop since the new year and this has thrown my delivery schedule off. Now my tank has just run dry and with it being the weekend my supplier can't make it out here to fill me back up until early next week.


It's still in the mid-sixties inside, and I'm running my faucets at a drip to keep my water pipes from freezing. I've got plenty of blankets to keep me warm overnight, so I'm not worried about that. But it's going down to the low twenties tonight and I'm worried about the heating pipes freezing. How long does it take and how cold does it have to get for that to happen?


One of the gas stations nearby sells K-1 dyed kerosene. Can I fill up my 5-gallon red plastic oil can there and use that to put some kerosene in the tank? I've always had it delivered, so I've never had to consider this before? I'm just looking to get something in there to hold me over until I can get a proper delivery on Monday or Tuesday.


Certainly this teaches me to keep a closer eye on the tank gauge going forward! But any advice on how to mitigate my mistake in the short run will be greatly appreciated!

I don't have a clue, Adam, How helpful is that?


But I've got a co-worker who heats with fuel oil and is forever letting his tank run dry. When the company comes to bring him oil they also have to do something specific by terms of maintenance...something like priming the system. But I'm a natural gas guy so I really don't know how that works--or if it applies to you.


Maybe you could ask that question to your company that brings the kerosene?

Mike Frezon said:

I don't have a clue, Adam, How helpful is that?

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Well, I always I appreciate hearing from you anyway.

But I've got a co-worker who heats with fuel oil and is forever letting his tank run dry. When the company comes to bring him oil they also have to do something specific by terms of maintenance...something like priming the system. But I'm a natural gas guy so I really don't know how that works--or if it applies to you.

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If I had to guess, they have to bleed it. If that's my only problem, I should be alright.

Maybe you could ask that question to your company that brings the kerosene?

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I'm definitely planning on calling them first thing Monday morning. They have an emergency technician I can call during off-hours times like this, but the cost of going that route is so prohibitively expensive that I'd like to avoid it if I can.

Even just to ask the question about if it's possible for you to just add a few gallons on your own?

Mike Frezon said:

Even just to ask the question about if it's possible for you to just add a few gallons on your own?

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My concern is that if I tell them that I'm dry they'll insist on sending their guy -- at a steep mark-up -- whether I can do it myself or not. As it stands, I think I'm going to tough out tonight and then survey my options in the morning. If it doesn't look doable myself, then I'll make the call.

Yes, you can do this. And you will have to bleed the line to get it working again. The furnace is designed to shut off if runs and there's no flame (while you are bleeding the line). You will have to find the reset button (it should be obvious like a big red button).


Look around. There are some places that sell actual fuel oil. There's a Turkey Hill in my area that sells it.


I had to do this once or twice over the years.

I don't know anything about home heating old, or the consumption rate. I don't know if 5 gal is enough for a night or two.

Be safe and take unnecessary risks with your heating it's warming up some out here. But if it's still dangerously cold, sans heat, you might consider staying the weekend with a friend.

If 200 gallons got you through since January, 5 gallons should be fine through until they can deliver Monday, especially if you set it low-ish.


The local farm supply places sell kerosene around here, and I suspect they do in NY, too.


Good luck, & stay warm.

We've put kerosene in with no ill effects before after winter is done and we know we won't need to use our kerosene heater due to something like a power outage.


One thing you should never do though which I mention only because my furnace recently died and I inquired as it was being worked on at 2AM one cold night a couple of weeks ago (Always have it cleaned every Fall ), is to never put dry gas into your tank. It will explode since more than just alcohol is in it apparently, so denatured alcohol is what you should use as an additive to combat moisture.

Thanks for the input everybody. Fortunately my oven is electric, and running that with the door open has been an effective (albeit expensive) means of keeping the temperature up. I'm shutting it off now, and it's kept the thermostat level at 62.

LeoA said:

One thing you should never do though which I mention only because my furnace recently died and I inquired as it was being worked on at 2AM one cold night a couple of weeks ago (Always have it cleaned every Fall ), is to never put dry gas into your tank. It will explode since more than just alcohol is in it apparently, so denatured alcohol is what you should use as an additive to combat moisture.

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Dry gas is a gasoline additive. Gasoline and gasoline additives should never be used in systems that run on heating oil/petroleum or kerosene for exactly the reason you mention. I make note of this only because if this thread shows up in anybody's Google search I don't want them blowing themselves up.

Well, I got a 5 gallon blue plastic kerosene can from the local Lowes and filled it up twice with K-1 dyed kerosene at the local gas station. The kicker is that I paid $2.95/gallon, or roughly 60 percent of what I pay to regular supplier.


Couldn't get it going at first but I found instructions online that showed me how to bleed the lines. After that was done, it kicked right on and my radiators are warm and toasty now.


I'm going to call my regular supplier first thing tomorrow morning to schedule a delivery. If they haven't come by Tuesday evening I'll make another run to the gas station and put another five in. They've never taken longer than three days to come.


Thanks again everybody for your input.

I used to have oil heat about 10 years ago. My vendor offer a "never run out" program. If I paid 6 months in advance based on my average monthly usage at current prices, they came monthly and topped of my tank. At the end if the six months, we settled up. If I used more than what I paid for, I owed the difference, if I used less, I got a bill credit for the next 6 months. Never had to worry about running out.

I think my supplier offers that, too. But there's a limited window in which to join, and it's during the warm weather months so I never think of it. This year I'm definitely going to try and make the effort. As much as I'll hate paying heating bills in August, I'd rather spread the cost out across twelve months instead of concentrated in the cold weather months.

Since I live in a southern state and heat with natural gas, the only time I have ever run out of "heating fuel" is during an ice storm when we lost power. Then I just checked in at a hotel for a few days. Hope you stay warm Adam.

Love a happy ending, Adam!


Hmmm...Wonder how you can parlay this little "experiment" of yours into cheaper kerosene prices?

Electric space heater?


I know the heating oil companies will charge a small fee (like $25 or so) to "prime" your oil system if your tank is dry, I have recently just moved into a new house that has natgas so my only experience with oil is the previous house and only for 3 years and I never let it run dry so I don't know what exactly is involved with a dry tank..


Jay

I called my supplier right at 9 AM this morning and told them that I was "well under a quarter of a tank" -- a bit of an understatement. They were really good about it and delivered 200 gallons while I was at work today. So I'm happy to officially be out of the woods and done rationing my heat and hot water.

I'm on natural gas so I don't have to worry about deliveries.


But if the electricity goes off, so does the furnace. However I've found that my gas fireplace will keep the entire house above freezing no matter how cold it gets outside. It's my backup.


Adam - ever consider a centrally installed wood stove as an emergency backup? Even a small one could keep your house above freezing for a few days.

Dennis Nicholls said:

Adam - ever consider a centrally installed wood stove as an emergency backup? Even a small one could keep your house above freezing for a few days.

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Thanks for the suggestion, Dennis, and it's a good one, but I'm in a rental. If I ever do buy down the road, Natural gas for heat is definitely going to be a criteria in my search.


My parents switched from oil to natural gas a few years back, and they love it. However, my dad really enjoys gathering and splitting firewood, so they also really use their wood fireplace a lot too. Saves on the heating bill, too.

Adam Lenhardt said:

I heat my home with a 200 gallon above ground kerosene tank. It's a very small cottage and normally I use about 350 gallons for the whole cold season,

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Hmm....at $3 a gallon that's $1050 or more per season. If that's only 60% of your normal rate, that's $5 a gallon or $1750 per season. Heating with oil sounds like a racket to me.


I pay $0.73 per therm for gas. My January bill was $170 for a 2K square foot house. I was curious so I got out my check registers and added up the past 12 months of gas bills: $785. That's for heating, water heater, and cooking with gas.