George wrote:

Pete C. wrote:
Twayne wrote:
RBM wrote:
"Lee" wrote in message
...
A friend has a backup generator that runs off of natural gas, and I always
thought it would be nice to get one when I got a new house. Fast forward -
I have a new (old) house, but it heats by oil and there is no gas nearby.

The power has gone out several times this summer, so now I'm wondering
what the options are. Are there any generators that use oil? I know there
are propane generators, but was thinking it would be nice not to worry
about another tank and delivery schedule.

Any recommendations? I need something *simple* to use. So far the outages
have lasted around 6 hours. They are annoying in the summer, but I'm a
little concerned about more occurring in the winter.
It won't be as cheap as a NG/LP generator, but a diesel generator will run
fine on heating oil, runs at half the RPM's of a gas generator, and will
last much longer


Well, it'll run fine on #1 fuel oil; not other numbers. #1 is actually
kerosene but with a little less filtering since it's not used in
automtives. You might have to clean the filter a little more often with
#1, gut it's an easy job.
If you heat with #2 fuel oil, do NOT use that unless the genset is
specifically designed FOR #2 fuel oil.

HTH

#2 fuel oil and #2 diesel are the same thing. #2 fuel oil gets red dye
and is exempt from transportation fuel taxes. #2 fuel oil is also known
as "off road diesel" as it is commonly used in construction and logging
equipment that doesn't operate on the public roads and is exempt from
the transportation fuel taxes.

That used to be accurate but the low sulfur mandates have changed
things. When they dispense diesel at the terminal they also have to add
extra additives to improve the lubricity. Diesels depended on the sulfur
for that. Now that most of it is gone they need to compensate. So when
they dispense diesel there is an on road version that has the additives
plus the dye and then there is an offroad version with the additives and
no dye.

Well, first off, the off-road / heating version gets the dye, not the
taxed transportation fuel version. Second off, the sulfur lube issue
exists for older engines, and you need to add the additives to the fuel
you use for them, because it is not added at the terminal since new
diesel engines use different materials to account for the loss of
lubrication for the injector pump.

Here is some real information ULSD and it's issues. Again remember
that a newly purchased diesel standby generator set will have accounted
for the ULSD issues, and also will log perhaps 100 hours of run time per
year.

http://www.chevron.com/products/ourf...lume1_2007.pdf