On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 19:50:08 +0000, Andrew Heggie wrote:

I posed the question on uk.rec.engines.stationay, few responses but
a bit of consensus. The heating oil (28 sec) will run in a diesel
but some extra lubrication will be required for the injection pump.
I think because its cetane rating is wrong it will not ignite as
well, one poster had experience of it tarring up an engine.

Well I don't mind adding a bit of petrol and a dash of 2 stroke oil,
though it would be nice if it ran "neat". I can appreciate that
heating oil is not intended to be an internal combustion engine fuel
so one should expect the odd snag.

Your suggestion of derating could work well, especially if it meant
the injector could be optimised, I think you would have to inject at
the current timing and maybe shorten the time to injection cut off.

All I know about diesels is the basic school boy stuff. Are those two
tweaks easy, the timing I guess is but the second?

If I were planning a standby generator I would stick with petrol if
I thought it would run 40hrs a year,

I agree that petrol for small infrequent use gensets is probably best
but it erks me to pay around 50p/litre for Duty on road petrol when I
have a couple of thousand litres of 28sec at less than 20p/l
available... I don't think there is an easyly available petrol version
of red diesel, I'd like some for the strimmer and lawn mower anyway...

propane if greater and diesel if full time (in which case there
would be no need of the domestic heating system).

Propane could be an option, at the moment we cook on electric and I
hate it. So at some point a couple of 47kg propane cylinders will
appear along with at least a gas hob.

CHP would be nice but the economics don't quite add up the right way,
not to mention the non stop noise.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail