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Unvented kerosene heaters?

ChrisJ
ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
How are these things even legal!? Isn't this essentially a 23,000 btu unvented oil burner?

http://www.homedepot.com/p/DuraHeat-23-000-BTU-Kerosene-Portable-Heater-DH2304/100045793?N=5yc1vZc4k7#specifications


Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment

Comments

  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,159
    They are legal (at least around here) -- although your description isn't too far off the mark! So are unvented gas heaters. However, they are not legal to use in a bedroom and certain other spaces, and they are -- again, at least around here -- required to have oxygen depletion sensors.

    What they are not required to have, for some unfathomable reason, is CO monitors...
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • icesailor
    icesailor Member Posts: 7,265
    If you install one of those things, do NOT install a CO detector monitor in the same room. It will consistently go off and into high CO alarm and you can't sleep without shutting the alarm off.

    They drag out these things every few years when it gets bitterly cold. They often sell special CO free white kerosene for them. They still stink.

    Actually, the only installation involved is taking it out of the box and filling it up with Kerosene. Some hot shot usually fills one up with gasoline every year when it is still running. Not good.
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
    icesailor said:

    If you install one of those things, do NOT install a CO detector monitor in the same room. It will consistently go off and into high CO alarm and you can't sleep without shutting the alarm off.

    They drag out these things every few years when it gets bitterly cold. They often sell special CO free white kerosene for them. They still stink.

    Actually, the only installation involved is taking it out of the box and filling it up with Kerosene. Some hot shot usually fills one up with gasoline every year when it is still running. Not good.

    The instructions claim you need to install guards and stuff.

    I was looking for venting instructions. None to be found.
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    icesailor
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,159
    Yeah, come to think of it -- you're right, Ice. It would be going all the time. Which is why the things aren't supposed to be in sleeping spaces... or ice fishing shacks... although they seem to wind up there.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    icesailor
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
    I just realized the thing has a wick.

    So it's basically the same thing as my hurricane lanterns, that I refuse to use indoors. Only GIANT!

    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    icesailor
  • Larry_52
    Larry_52 Member Posts: 182
    Great for emergency heat. That's about it. Finding a gas station that sell kerosene during an emergency will make you want to get rid of it. Using some Home Depot equivalent k-1 fuel at 5X the cost a gallon makes you really want to get rid of it.
    icesailor
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    These were my main source of heat over 40 years ago. I lived on the Island of Crete in the Med for 39 months. (Tough duty, I know). These were known as Aladdin heaters to us. They would burn about 12 hours on 1 fill (1-2 gallons??). We only used them when awake. The main thing was to not run them dry or they would smoke like hell and probably get you sick. (CO had not been invented yet ;) ). The wick needed attention as for trimming etc. In 1974 during the "oil crisis". The ugly rich American was frowned on for trying to buy 15 gallons of kerosene at one time. The village of 800 might have had only 50 to 100 gallons on hand. I just wanted to not have the hassle of going down to fill my cans, they thought I was hoarding kerosene. It never froze there, plumbing on the outside of building. But you lived in a poured concrete house.
    icesailorChrisJ
  • Tinman
    Tinman Member Posts: 2,808
    edited February 2015
    Not a fan.

    We go to great lengths to warn people of the dangers of CO poisoning and worse. We are highly critical of professionals who don't install equipment in a safe manner. Because of that, I find it impossible to advocate their use.

    As far as I know they are only banned in a few states but should probably be banned in all states. Most of them, if not all, require x amount of ventilation for every thousand BTU/h so they're very wasteful on top of being potentially very dangerous.

    The only place I've used them is in new construction where the building isn't buttoned up yet. And at the end of the day, they're turned off.
    Steve Minnich
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    No, I wouldn't want to use one today. My house was well ventilated, think as a 3 season room here. We got ambitious and washed the walls one year and was amazed that the color changed, a lot of sooty oil cover up.
  • icesailor
    icesailor Member Posts: 7,265
    Where I used to work, whenever it got really cold (like now) a hardware store brought them out and they couldn't sell them fast enough. 5 gallon cans of the special stink proof, low emitting CO clear white Kerosene. They were illegal in Massachusetts Especially in bedrooms. But you'd go on a freeze up call and they would be blazing merrily away in bedrooms.

    Before the days of Personal CO detectors.

    Don't go on a construction site where the inside painters have their Mushroom LP gas heaters with a personal CO detector. You'll be heading back out the door when the alarm goes off showing 80+ PPM. No wonder painters are all foolish in the winter time and do weed to stay awake.
    Larry_52
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
    edited February 2015
    icesailor said:

    Where I used to work, whenever it got really cold (like now) a hardware store brought them out and they couldn't sell them fast enough. 5 gallon cans of the special stink proof, low emitting CO clear white Kerosene. They were illegal in Massachusetts Especially in bedrooms. But you'd go on a freeze up call and they would be blazing merrily away in bedrooms.

    Before the days of Personal CO detectors.

    Don't go on a construction site where the inside painters have their Mushroom LP gas heaters with a personal CO detector. You'll be heading back out the door when the alarm goes off showing 80+ PPM. No wonder painters are all foolish in the winter time and do weed to stay awake.


    Since when does weed wake someone up?
    Is this new?
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
  • KC_Jones
    KC_Jones Member Posts: 5,722
    Well my father used to be a welder and worked for a short time in steel construction. All they guys he worked with drank whiskey all day so they could walk straighter on the high steel. My father crawled because he was sober. So Chris if people drink to walk straight of course weed wakes you up. ;)
    2014 Weil Mclain EG-40
    EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Boiler Control
    Boiler pictures updated 2/21/15
    ChrisJicesailor
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
    I could see whiskey making you walk better because it relaxes you under those conditions.

    But no where on earth does weed wake you up.
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    bmwpowere36m3
  • Tinman
    Tinman Member Posts: 2,808
    Unless...they're washing down all the munchies with Red Bull???
    Steve Minnich
    ChrisJicesailor
  • icesailor
    icesailor Member Posts: 7,265
    Its my observation that Weed makes you feel however you want to feel. If you're depressed, and you think it will make you feel better and less depressed, it won't. You'll still be depressed. You just THINK you aren't anymore.

    The problem with all substance abuse is the non sober ones have no idea how obvious they are to the sober ones. And the Sober ones have no idea that so many of the people they deal with are not sober. They will make you crazy.

    I've worked with Bakers every day and had no idea they were baked. I've worked with heroin Addicts that I had no idea they were heroin addicts until they either OD'ed, got caught, or got sober. The Litz's are easier. You can smell it on them.

    The Non-Sober spends extraordinary amounts of energy trying to convince the rest of the world that they are all right, but the rest of the world is wrong.

    IME.
  • Jack
    Jack Member Posts: 1,047
    Having just broken the neck off a bottle of Pinot Noir I am not sure I am qualified to speak on this subject...oil fired vent frees that is. Being a Woodstock veteran, all I can say is that the 60's lasted a long time for me. Quite to long in fact!
  • Larry_52
    Larry_52 Member Posts: 182
    edited February 2015
    @icesailor.

    When I used to do finish millwork contracting, young adult years, always noticed painters and spackler's always smoking weed. Every job, different crews, always the painters and spackler's, it was like a job requirement. Had to laugh when you mentioned painters, because it is so true.
    icesailor
  • BobC
    BobC Member Posts: 5,476
    I grew up in the projects in the fifties, They were 4 family frame houses out on a peninsula in the bay.

    I remember painters coming through every 5 years or so painting houses and the apartments. These guys could lay on paint like you would not believe. The painters were always half in the bag, I always thought is was because of the oil paint they used back then but maybe not.

    Bob
    Smith G8-3 with EZ Gas @ 90,000 BTU, Single pipe steam
    Vaporstat with a 12oz cut-out and 4oz cut-in
    3PSI gauge
    icesailorSWEICanucker
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    Oil based lacquer spray was the answer here. Legal even. Cousin in law sprayed lacquer without a mask for 30 years. At times he hired his brother-in-laws to help. They told me that the oil base made them all thirsty as hell so someone would go get a case of beer or more; before lunch time. And sit down for a break and suddenly it is 5 o'clock, damn we will come back tomorrow and finish this. They would come the next day and repeat the same process. Sometimes a 2 day project took a week. The cousin in law today is still upright (seems distant sometimes) and the brothers went into another trade . :)
    icesailorSWEI
  • icesailor
    icesailor Member Posts: 7,265
    I worked with this carpenter dude. Great guy. Good with the tools, well educated. Went to the best schools, was well read. Read every book I wished I had read or someday would. Lived alone. No girlfriend or wife. One night his apartment caught on fire. He was found in it unconscious from smoke inhalation. Someone gave him a shot of Narcan. He snapped right out of it and went into convulsions. They knocked him back out, sent him to Boston, and he died two weeks later because of lung scaring. He'd been free basing Heroin. He'd been a Heroin addict for years. I met a lot of Heroin addicts just like that. Functioning addicts. They can go for years and most never know. Unless you see them nodding off in front of you, you just never know. And if they nod off, you just think they are just tired.
  • SWEI
    SWEI Member Posts: 7,356
    I'll never forget a downtown LA showroom we did back in the '80s for a prominent fashion designer. There was a glassed-in office space (similar to what you see in car dealerships) between some of our speakers and the amplifier rack. I carried my ladder inside so I could lift the ceiling tiles and very nearly hurled from the intense oil paint smell. I said to one of the painters working in there, "Hey -- you guys need to get out of here. This oil paint is going to make you sick." He replied (using a very Cheech and Chong sort of cadence), "No way, man -- this is latex!"
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,583
    I'm going to try and go about this nicely.

    @icesailor, if you want to talk about what you think you know about drugs, I'd appreciate it if you could take it elsewhere. I lost my brother to heroin in 2006 and it's not something I take lightly.



    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    Hatterasguy
  • icesailor
    icesailor Member Posts: 7,265
    ChrisJ said:

    I'm going to try and go about this nicely.

    @icesailor, if you want to talk about what you think you know about drugs, I'd appreciate it if you could take it elsewhere. I lost my brother to heroin in 2006 and it's not something I take lightly.



    I responded to you privately.

    I'll say it again. I'm sorry for your loss.

    I have more abusers in my four generation pedigree than you. And that is a promise. Whatever you think you know about Heroin use, it is most likely wrong. The first time I took someone to re-hab, I wondered if I would be shot in the head. I don't know how many times that person was re-habbed, but it was more than 10. They are clean and sober for over 2 years with at least one AA or NA meeting a day.

    My mother died at age 50. From acute alcohol, barbiturate poisoning or suicide. Take your pick. She was going to a Psychiatrist who prescribed sleeping pills because she was depressed and couldn't sleep. Of curse she couldn't sleep, Drinking a 1/2 gallon of bar scotch a day and working in an office. The shrink agued with me saying she wasn't an alcoholic. We call doctors like that "Enablers". I have four grown children. Four were active. Then, one went nuts because she couldn't deal with the other three were up to. She hasn't spoken to us in 15 years. Its our fault that her life got FU'ed. Another one has had three car accidents when she was UI. But always manages to talk her way out of it. The last one, she was having DT/withdrawal convulsions because she tried to stop. That kills alcoholics.

    You haven't forgiven your brother for being sick. I'm a pediatric cancer survivor. No one has to forgive me for being sick. Your brother had a disease whether you like to call it that or not. You think he didn't suffer? Addiction is the only disease that says that there is nothing wrong. Except for that hidden voice in your head that is always telling you that you are a worthless piece of shipping, and the world would be a better place without you.

    Like my old friend Sue used to say. All it takes is a shred of honesty to get sober or to forgive. Just enough to rub between your fingers. Then, pray for the ****. Your brother had that honesty. He just didn't know how to use it. Some people could have shown him. You need to forgive him.

    15+ years in Alanon (Not AA) will teach you a lot about people. Things that other people don't understand. We're not all junk. Sometimes I wonder why I post here as much as I do. I think about stopping. Then, out of nowhere, someone says something and its all worth it.

    If you don't like what I say, don't read it. I have no personal animosities toward anyone.

    JUGHNECanucker
  • Fred
    Fred Member Posts: 8,542
    I hold to the premise that God doesn't burden us with more than we can handle. He knows the metal we are made of. I'm not a religious person but I believe. It's all we have. So sorry for the stories told here, @Chrisj and @icesailor .
  • RobG
    RobG Member Posts: 1,850
    I always considered the military's pot bellied stoves as one of the most dangerous pieces of fuel burning equipment. Any heater that can operate on virtually any fuel with the turn of a knob is a little bit scary. They do at least have a flue though. I wonder what a combustion analyzer would read on one of these?

    http://military-tent.com/hmuwotestnew.html
  • icesailor
    icesailor Member Posts: 7,265
    The only saving grace with those military heaters was that the buildings were so cold, and leaked so much air, you always had fresh outside air to breath.