Old heating oil?

mookie3333

I have about 100 gallons of heating oil that's ~4 years old. Doing a little research online, and it seems that the stuff does expire after ~2 years. The plan was to pump it out and dump it in my brother in law's tank since he lives nearby. Should I just dispose it?
Thanks guys.

Jamie Hall

Expires? Say again? While there are several possible problems with old oil, such as sludge or slime formation and loss of lighter fractions, if it's filtered and mixed with new can't think there'd be much of a problem (gasoline is another matter -- stale gas, particular with ethanol, is a real headache).

"just dispose of it" is a remarkably difficult option, although you might find a place with a waste oil burner which might take it.

ethicalpaul

How many years did it sit in the ground?

EBEBRATT-Ed

I would dump it in and burn it up and put some "HOT" oil treatment in with it.

Others will say no it's hazerdous waste

It can be your brother in law's Christmas present!!!

JUGHNE

And do you like your brother in law?....as far as the "HOT" treatment goes?

dopey27177

The worst thing about that old oil is there may be some water in the oil.

If you go to use it do not mix more than 10 gallons per full tank, that will prevent white smoke from occurring (the water in the oil)/ Keep a couple of filter cartridges available in the event that other particulates in the oil

Jake

BDR529

Well, 4 yrs ago was in the bio fuel window. Could have some fungus.. Does it smell funky? or Kerosene-ish?

STEVEusaPA

It's waste oil to me. Why take that oil and contaminate another take. Like @Jamie Hall said, find a place with waste oil heater-mechanics garage. They may want to come get it. Otherwise you're filling/humping/dumping 5's all day.

426hemi

Diesel fuel doesn’t expire. It doesn’t go bad like gasoline if it sits for a few years. If it has water or sludge or rust contamination that can be an issue but a few filter changes will fix that problem. Drain off any water and burn the stuff. It’s a oil burner not a modern diesel engine. What is going to happen a plugged $5 nozzle or a few $.50 filters? Not like your going to take out a $10,000 set of injectors and pump. 

STEVEusaPA

Sure it does.

retiredguy

As I have stated in the past, I rarely worked on small residential systems. My expertise was in larger boilers that burned almost anything such as nat gas, sewer gas, #6, #4, #2, #1 oil, lp, coal both hard and soft, even saw dust. I have burned oil that was over 20 years old with no problems. I just had to make sure that it was clean oil with no water or bacteria in it. Most of the oil storage tanks were in the 10,000 to 20,000 gallons size. If I encountered "bad oil", I would call a company to clean it.

vtfarmer

STEVEusaPA said:

Sure it does.

Can you cite a specific example? In my decades of resurrecting old diesel machinery from auctions, junk yards, and fence rows I've never seen diesel fuel/heating oil "go bad". Sure, it can grow algae, get contaminated by water, or be dirty but a good polishing rig (water separator followed by progressively finer filters) will solve that. Assuming it's clean and has no water in it, it'll run a diesel engine/burn.

If you can describe a situation where you pumped oil out of someone's tank that was X years old and filtered/separated it then tried to use it and it didn't burn it will be a first I've ever heard of such an outcome (and I know a LOT of people who rescue/run old diesel trucks and machines). Maybe what you mean is the effort to get any contamination out usually doesn't outweigh the value of the old fuel? I could see that - I deal with this enough that I made myself a polisher of sorts (just extra filters on one of my transfer pumps), but this is not something the average homeowner would have/do.

The longest from fill to use was on this 1945 D4 dozer I rescued in upstate NY about 15 years ago: according to the heir of the estate it belonged to the machine had been sitting for about 30 years, so the fuel in the tank was at least that old and it burned fine (I ran it through the Beckett AFG burner on the maple syrup evaporator I had at the time).


The oldest I've run in a diesel engine was in this IH1486 I bought from a retired farmer a few years ago: it had been sitting with both tanks almost full of diesel for about a decade when I picked it up. Fresh fuel filters, engine oil and filters, and drain the condensation out of the transmission housing and it fired right up. I cut hay on that fuel later that year and there was no difference in either power or smoke from the ten year old fuel to fresh fuel I filled it with when it ran low:

Robert_25

mookie3333 said:

I have about 100 gallons of heating oil that's ~4 years old. Doing a little research online, and it seems that the stuff does expire after ~2 years. The plan was to pump it out and dump it in my brother in law's tank since he lives nearby. Should I just dispose it?
Thanks guys.

Why don't you just burn it? I have burned 4 year old heating oil at home with no issues (mine was in an indoor tank).

Jamie Hall

You can't kill those old diesels. They can be a bit difficult to start cold, but... they'll run.

I think part of the confusion here may be that we are really looking at four -- not two -- different fuels, with different characteristics. Two pairs. The common one which almost everyone is familiar with is "gasoline" -- which comes in a variety of grades, of course, but two big groups: with and without ethanol. Both degrade with time, but the with ethanol flavour has an added quirk. There are two degradation mechanisms: gum formation and loss of light fractions. Gum formation comes about because some of the hydrocarbons in most gasoline aren't totally stable on their own, and form longer chain polymers over time which are... well, gummy. These are what gum up things like (in the old days!) carburetor float valve needles and various metering channels and, in modern situations, fuel injector nozzles and pintles. Sometimes quite irretrievably, as they are insoluble in almost everything. Their formation can be reduced -- not eliminated completely -- with various fuel stabilizers (check your auto parts store). The loss of light fractions occurs rather quickly, actually -- a few months, depending on storage and temperature -- but other than making for very hard starting that doesn't cause much or an impact. The additional quirk with ethanol is multi-pronged. First, it attracts water which winds up in solution rather than separating out. This is actually not all that bad a thing, except that it does accelerate corrosion of cast metal parts (think carburetors). Unhappily, the ethanol itself is incompatible with many of the older o-ring and valve seat compounds and degrades them. Not a problem in newer equipment, but those of us who play with classic machinery have to be aware to the problem and simply plan on replacing a bunch of stuff. Much of the effect can, again, be eliminated with various proprietary fuel treatments.

Diesel, on the other hand, also comes in two flavours: biodiesel and straight. From what I have read the two really aren't much different in terms of storage and aging problems, although there is a suggestion that biodiesel may have a little more trouble with bacterial and algae problems. In either case, it seems that there are some micro-organisms (algae and bacteria) which actually like to eat the stuff, and they tend to form clogging gum like stuff. But it isn't gum in the same way as the gum in gasoline, and it can be filtered out (though heavy contamination will clog filters pretty fast). There are fuel tratments which will slow formation, but none that I know of which will eliminate once it's there. The other main problem is water. While usually it will settle out, not all of it will -- and what's left can form ice crystals suspended in the fuel. These too can clog filters, sometimes rather dramatically (there was a British Airways Boeing 777 which crashed because of this!) -- and again, there are fuel treatment which reduce the problem. Water which hasn't been removed can cause serious damage in diesel engines, but in continuous nozzle type burners shouldn't really cause much worse than a flameout. The last problem is again a cold weather problem -- the heavier components of diesel literally freeze into wax when it gets too cold, and the wax will clog filters as well. Winter blends try to reduce the amount of this wax, and again some fuel treatments can help.

STEVEusaPA

@vtfarmer There's the point..."A good polishing rig". With that, everything will be fine. Without that anything bad is probable.