Maybe I'm just asking the right question wrongly.
 

I have a small unheated hangar that I work in sometimes late at night. Now that we are in the deepest throes of winter here in SoCal, the temps are near 50F at night, and I am getting cold while working.

I have a small kerosene heater. I am on fumes. No one (speaking Mexican or Ingles) knows what the 'F' I am talking about.

Home Depot, Gas stations(with attached mini-marts or not), WallyMercado, none of these places have kerosene.

Any ideas? Say the phone book. Nope. Fuel distributors suggest putting #1 diesel. Not gonna do it.

Someone has it.

type kerosene into Google and check the right side of the page.

I would check with places like Praxair or Surburban Propane. They might be able to give you more direction if either do not carry it.

I hear mostly of portable propane heaters. Ice fisherman swear by them. Would that not be more convienent and perhaps even safer?

Terry; yes, but the guy next door to me has one of those, and it consumes a propane cannister a week. The last 5 gals of kerosene lasted me a season.

Surburban Propane sells propane, had no idea what kerosene was. Said to try Coleman Camp fuel. Wish I could do that and sue for the explosion, but not worth the effort to my heirs.

The Google thing I tried this morning. Got online places, and saddlery and billiard supply places. None had it. REI says try Coleman Camp Fuel or white gas. Right.

Am still striking out. May try an Ace hardware place if I can find one that speaks english. The one in Van Nuys speaks only Cantonese. I know you think I am kidding, but call them, is a kick. You wonder why Jay Leno has no trouble getting humor from walking the streets of Los Angeles? Geez.

Wow, that sucks. Hardware stores here keep it right next to the propane. Are there any Mom and Pop hardware stores anywhere near you? Any camping shops? Anything like Gander Mountain or Bass Pro?

Good luck.

I am wondering if maybe California has stopped selling it. All the camping places are pushing camp fuel (it's not the same). The can I have is marked solvent / fuel. Maybe I am asking the wrong question.

I don't know of another way to ask for kerosene. Its a simple enough question. The 'no es speaka english' thing would give me the red ass in short order. What about 'lamp oil' from a candle shop? Is that any different than kerosene?

okay... I researched more than I wanted to know about kerosene heat and cooking. :) Perhaps you will have more luck hunting for it with different names.

....Of course you must use pure kerosene fuel. This product has several names: 1-K (clear), or #1 stove oil. The main difference is price. Clear 1-K is sold in small containers and generally priced at more than $3.50 per gallon. No. 1 stove oil is delivered in bulk by heating oil distributors to your tank...at about $1.50 per gallon for quantities over 100 gallons. There is generally a surcharge of 25 cents per gallon for deliveries of less than 100 gallons. No. 1 stove oil also has a red dye (since July, 1998) to indicate the road tax has not been paid, as it can be used in some diesel engines. The red dye does not change the burning qualities...it just looks weird.



Home Oil Company Of Anaheim
1422 W Broadway
Anaheim, CA 92802
(714) 535-2126

Apex Design Technology Inc
2850 E Coronado St
Anaheim, CA 92806
(714) 688-7188

Us Merchants
1066 S La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90035
(310) 855-1946

The last time I bought deodorized kerosene for my parts cleaning tank I had to get it in Mojave.

Terry; sounds like you and I went down the same road. US place was closed. I just found a OSH place in Granada Hills that has a 5 gal. can for $32. Am gonna go get it. Thanks everyone, I knew the brain trust here would know.

Re: Maybe I'm just asking the right question wrongly.
 

Um, suffer?

:D

Yes, I understand completely, here in Houston the time is currently a frosty 56* and will get all the way down to 53 tonight (hope the roads are clear in the morning)

Yesterday the wife and I had lunch at an outdoor cafe.

D@mn this arctic weather!!

Good luck with your search. Together we can torture the snowbirds.

Success! What a difference when you go to a store where they know their $hit. OSH had it in the same 5 gal can that I got when I bought it used a year ago. Is why I didn't know where.

Get this. This is pure ****** California. Any place that sells kerosene heaters or cookers cannot sell the fuel. Sell the fuel, cannot sell the devices. Is supposed to prevent someone from blowing themselves up. Makes no sense to me. My mistake was calling the places (Home Crapo, Lowe's Brainless, REI Campforless) that sold the devices.

Someone in the state capitol was drinking a little too much Sterno when they came up with that one.

Thanks everyone. Now I can defend myself against the arctic winter outside.

waaaaa......it's 50 degrees out..........waaaaa:rolleyes:

kidding of course.......but give me a break LOL

I have to admit, having lived in Fairbanks and Minneapolis and Duluth, I do appreciate where I am at now.

Just hop out of the next 757 you fly and drop 5 gallons out of the tank.

When I was in the Navy, we did a 2 week detachment to Panama doing anti-drug flights in P3s out of Howard AFB. Being Navy, we were housed on the Rodman Navy base just down the road from Howard, and had a little diesel van assigned to the crew to get back and forth. Because the van belonged to the Navy, the Air Force guys wouldn't let us get fuel, they told us we had to gas up on the navy base, which was only open for like 2 hours per day, at a time that made it a royal PITA to get fuel.

For two weeks, we made fueling the van part of our preflight. Once our normal preflight stuff was done, the Ordinanceman and I would take the fuel sample tool (a metal tube with a probe on one end and a quart jar on the other), and pull 3 or 4 gallons of fuel from the plane and dump it in the van.

That little diesel van ran great on JP5.:D

Tom

Michael,

www.gaspricewatch.com

Put your zip code in the left hand side and specify no radius and hit go. Then once you get the results go to the center of the page and specify "filter by" and use Diesel...

Joe A

Curious. How big is a small hanger? By definition, a hanger is a place to store an airplane or a few. Hangers are what car guys aspire to have, not a garage.

BTW, it's easier and cheaper to heat a smaller space. Is there any way to modify the space?

Sherwood

Sherwood;

Yes, I have a small (15'x30') space cordoned off with thick mylar plastic. Mainly for dust control. Is the spot I work in. The rest has motorcycles, cars, sometimes an airplane. When I went looking for a garage to rent, what was out there was ridiculously expensive, had restricted in and out rules, etc. I ran across a friend who had a friend who had a twin-engined size T-hangar for rent, but kept having trouble with tenants. It is inside the felony fence at an airport, and 'civilians' just didn't get the right-of-way rules. He was glad to get someone that was good for the rent (not cheap, but reasonable), and I was glad to have the access and space. Has worked out well so far. What scares me is what I would do with all the projects I have consolidated in one spot if I were ever to lose it.

Michael.

Sherwood,

It all depends on your local regs. I have a hangar in Phoenix and use it for the same things that Michael does. Security is tough and no one gets in without a pass that takes a background check to obtain. Police hangar is 200 feet away and its a felony to go in their area, so "bad people" stay away.

Some airports require an airplane, "or pieces of one" stored in the hangar. Some airports restrict what else you can put inside, from requiring only airplane's and parts to anything you want.

While I would not want to see someone rent a hangar where space is limited (its a 15 month to 6 year wait in Phoenix) if you can find one it sure does make a nice place to keep all your toys! A good friend of mine lives and works in Carlsbad but keeps his plane in Phoenix as SoCal is too high priced on hangar space, so if you find something good, grab it.

Joe A

#1 and Kerosene are the same.

#2 Distillate (used for electric power generation), #2 Diesel and #2 Home Heating fuel are the same.

The difference: Taxes.

How well does kerosine work as a parts cleaner?

Flash point is not right. Mineral spirits is what I use but kerosene or Jet A will do, just be careful with it. Get a parts washer unit at Harbor Freight.

Joe A

Already have a parts washer i usually fill with Carquest Purple Cleaner.

Any compatibility issues?

wow -

I read this thinking I can buy kerosene at just about every gas station around and I worked in my 40 degree garage saturday morning wearing some sweat pants and a tee shirt.

use a little electric space heater if it drops much below 40..... Worst I have done is a timing belt for a friend when it was 19 degrees out and all I had was the heat of the halogen light I was using as a light source.

Kero is usually easily available near farming areas, since quite a few farmers still use kero tractors.

Seriously, why not just buy some Jet-A? That's all it is.

POP,

Glad to see you return to the forum. When are you going to go return to the "expensive dinner" thread and apologize? Will make it easy for you, here is the link!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=262073&perpage=20&pagen umber=2

Joe A

PS, with Jet A costing in some places as much as $6 a gallon, diesel is a whole lot cheaper if you are just washing parts or putting it in a space heater.