The driveway has a huge pile of firewood -plenty for the winter. I did get the furnace serviced, but only to be used a backup. If I happed to go away for a few days, I won't have find someone to keep the home fires burning.
It doesn't take much heating oil for that. A minimum delivery would have been more than enough. Yet, I decided to completely fill the tank.
Here's my reasoning. I've got the money for it now. It's better to actually have something physical than money in the bank. Anything I don't use this year I can use next.
In an emergency, heating oil burns just fine in my truck's diesel engine. Sure, it's illegal. Road taxes haven't been paid on it. So what? I'm talking emergency conditions. If I need the fuel to take my wife to the hospital, I'm not going to worry about road taxes.
The heating oil tank safely stores a whole lot of fuel. Can you imagine storing a couple hundred gallons of diesel in 5 gallon jugs? I have a number of empty fuel containers that could be filled from the heating oil tank.
All I'd have to do is shut down the valve at the bottom of the fuel tank. Then carefully disconnect the copper pipe that feeds the furnace. My tank sits high enough off the ground that a fuel jug fits under it. I've actually tried this to see that it works. It's possible to make a real mess of things if you don't know what you are doing. The last thing you want is flammable heating oil all over your basement floor. Be safe.
I did hate to spend the money, but it's a good investment. It gives me options.
-Sixbears
Because It's Friday
30 minutes ago
Something that has a use for more than one 'Plan B' is a very good investment. Heat and transportation are vital to survival. Good to see you are ready for winter.
ReplyDeleteWise thinking, getting it full. Prices don't seem to come down any, but the probability of them going up is quite high.
ReplyDeleteI've heard of folks with diesel boats dumbing their used crank case oil in the fuel tank. I reckon that stuff would burn in a furnace, no? I say this because I just dumped 5 gallons of old oil in the recycle tank at work. Sure seems like it could be put to better use (I know some old pirates who use it for treating fence posts)...
ReplyDeleteI built a cheapo filter for crankcase oil so that I could dump in my heating oil tank. It works -up to a point. As long as the percentage of crankcase oil isn't too high, it burns well enough.
ReplyDeleteUsed to work better with the older oil blends. The new engines oils are basically engineered not to burn. Diluting it with regular fuel works OK. I think as long as it's less than 10%. Gotta check with my buddy who does a lot of this than I do.