"Pete C." wrote in message
...
"Dr. Hardcrab" wrote:

wrote in message
...
can i use diesel fuel in a home fuel oil furnace? if so wich diesel
can i use?

Yes, or K-1 (kerosene).

I know. You aren't on automatic delivery and if you run out, what do you
do?
Keep a couple of 5 gallon cans around...

Yes, essentially the only differences between the #2 heating oil in your
tank and the #2 diesel at the pump are the transportation fuel taxes you
pay at the pump and the red dye they put in the non taxed heating oil.
Otherwise they are interchangeable functionally, and the heating oil is
also known as "off road diesel" since it's legal to use in off road
equipment.

That is not entirely correct. I was checking out the use of furnace fuel oil
to power my standby generator. I contacted a number of major oil companies
and got some surprising answers. Apparently, in some small markets, fuel oil
and diesel are identical, but sometimes and in high demand areas they are
different. They both use the same base stock but diesel is required to have
a certain quality and "cetane" level (equivalent to octane in gasoline) to
prevent damage to engines, furnace oil does not and (these are my own words
because they would not come out and admit it) since it only burns oil, they
can ship any old **** they have around that fits the basic specifications
for furnace oil --- this stuff they warned not to use in engines.

So there is a reason other than taxes, that diesel is more expensive than
fuel oil. You can use diesel fuel in a furnace, as it is the good stuff, but
don't use fuel oil in your engine, because it may damage the engine if they
are shipping the junk oil.