Ok Im looking for a few fuel oil gurus out there to explain the difference between #2 heating oil and "over the road or off road" diesel fuel.

With prices going up all the time what is the problem with running heating oil in my loader tractor and dump truck.

The equipment never leaves the property, the truck is an 89 ford with a IDI 7.3 and the equipment is early 90's.

Ive always thought that the two are virtulally the same except for the tax dyes and now on road diesel having low sulfer.

If it will work without any problems so be it.  I just dont want to screw up an injector pump or burn out a piston.

I think they must be the same, otherwise they wouldn't make such a big deal over the taxed versus the non-taxed.

If your vehicles never leave your property I don't see how they could catch you.

Home heating oil dealers keep careful delivery records and check against degree days, so they might wonder where the oil went if you order more than you need for heat.

But who knows what the Gooberment Nazis are doing. Maybe they cross check.

If you remember, these are the pricks who were sending state cops (or somebody) to MA and NH to follow and arrest CT motorists who bought liquor up there. They were pulled over when they entered CT.

dunno if it helps, but I ran about 15 gallons of road diesel fuel in my home oil furnace this winter when we ran out over a weekend.  No problems to note.
eta:  it was my understanding that the on/off road diesel fuels were just more processed versions of home heating fuel.

Up here home fuel oil is dyed, to distinguish it from what you get at the pump, that way home fuel oil is road tax less.

Man, I thought you guys got your stuff straight from the tap way up there!  

No, home heating oil (HHO) isn't intended to be a motor fuel.  So distributors can sell "junk" fuel as HHO.  We routinely pump out diesel tanks (either because the fuel is almost unacceptable or because we need to remove/referb the tank.  We usually give the fuel away in small tanks and trade it for fresh diesel in big (4000-10,000 gallon) tanks.  They will suck the entire tank, minus any water bottom and blend it with fresh fuel, and sell as HHO, possabally after sitting arround for another 6 months.  Up north we just cross deck the pipes and we can suck a 10,000 gallon emergency diesel tank into the boilers pretty quickly- but here in the south we usually use LP or natural gas for heating.  Most of our critical facilities don't really have an emergency heating requirement, and are perfectly habitial year round  in the criticla area due to waste heat from electronics gear.

it's kind of like non potable water-  The water truck might be filled from a fire hydrant most of the time, but from a creek ocasionally.

We have a contract w/ a local fuel company to keep the generators that backup the data center stocked w/ "fresh fuel".  One day I saw the guy out there so I asked him what he was doing.  He basically said they suck the bottom 700-1000 gallons out, then top it back off.  I asked him what he did w/ the "sucked out" fuel, since I have a diesel truck and tractor.  His response was "we mix it w/ the heating oil and sell it, since it's the same stuff, and heaters don't care if it's old".  Long winded way of saying the same thing as Country_Boy said.



I'm pretty sure you only need to run taxed "road" fuel in vehicles that have license plates, meaning they drive on the roads.  No plates, no tax, no roads, any fuel you want.






 

UP here, we have some kind of "Farm" plate and the stores sell "off road diesel" that is not taxed, well you need to pay state sales tax on it.  The off road diesel is dyed red.  Don't get caught running off road in a regular truck.  I asked my oil guy the #2 vs diesel question once, he said they were interchangeable, but not necessarily identical.   Also, when my father was building a camp, they had to install a temporary oil furnace to heat it in the winter while the propane boiler system was being installed.  Their oil guy hooked it up to a 55 gal drum and told them to just add diesel when it got low .

Don't have heating fuel here. We have green diesel (road diesel) which is ULSD and red diesel (farm diesel) which is also ULSD. Ask any petroleum engineer, diesel is a trash fuel no matter how refined it is. The beauty of the system, Diesel's first engine ran off peanut oil. Generally you can run peanut oil, cotton seed oil, olive oil, soy bean oil (the government can not currently tax straight bio) but it will play hell on your fuel filters. For Texas, if you purchase large quantities (hard to find at the pump but co-ops usually have it) of farm diesel (as in you have a 500 gallon tank or bigger sitting on your property) a state/government official can drop by at any time and take a sample of your fuel tank. If he pull red diesel out of a tank to a vehicle that is registered, then get ready to pay a few $1000 of fines (I know guys who have been fined $1 a mile on vehicles with over 400,000 miles on them). Not to mention the fact that the dye will color the injectors and the mechanic is supposed to notify authorities so they can check and see if the vehicle has the paper work stating it was an ex-farm vehicle explaining why the injectors are red...

Lots of headaches when dealing with the red stuff but it is certainly cheaper.

Some people up here will run heating oil in their diesel vehicles, but not too late into the Fall. Heating oil will gel in the cold.

Lol, what! Who ever told u that? My dear friend is an oil business owner and they do no such thing!

Filter it!

I know my oil company has some algorithm they use that includes past usage as well as what temp it has been recently . But if I call them before my next scheduled delivery they dont say boo and I doubt they are give the . Gov my oil usage data.

tons of guys run Off road  diesel  in their pickup trucks around here for on road use. They put it in their in bed fuel tanks, which is perfectly legal to do. Then when they get home, they pump it into their regular fuel tank (illegal for road use). The DOT never dips tanks on pick-up trucks, so they get away with it.

Do they have an auto fill program? It would make sense for them to track it if they did.



 

My neighbor has a fuel pump hooked into his home heating oil tank. He's been running his tractor and dozer off it for years.

Which is perfectly legal, AFAIK.





 

FYI

From Toyo's site...



EXCLUSIVE!!


TOYOTOMI Heaters* are the only Direct Vent Heaters available that are Manufacturer approved to operate with Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) in addition to K-1 Kerosene and No. 1 Fuel Oil.

Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) has no more than 15ppm (parts per million) of sulfur content. This is the same diesel fuel that is available at most gasoline stations for use in diesel engine automobiles. If ULSD is available for delivery to your home by a fuel oil dealer be sure to request “off road” prices, meaning that federal and state road taxes have been deducted. In order to maintain the best performance, Toyotomi strongly recommends when using ULSD that the heater be serviced at least every two years because the distillation of ULSD is heavier than either K-1 Kerosene or No. 1 Fuel Oil.

If any of the Toyotomi vented heaters listed below are currently in use and using K-1 Kerosene or No.1 Fuel Oil, ULSD can now be used. However, Toyotomi strongly recommends that the unit be serviced prior to using ULSD and subsequently serviced at least every two years.

*Only the following models are approved to use ULSD: Toyostove Laser L-30, L-56, L-60AT, L-73, L-73AT, and Oil Miser OM-22  

90% of the time I've heard of it they were gong after a contractor (not a farmer) and showed up to DIP his tank.  However I had my tank checked one time in florida on a F-350 that may have looked like a contractor's truck (but without an inbed tank)

BTW, you can't use a fuel thief on a pickup- they took the sample form the fuel filter drain cock.

since they are the same thing, diesel does too, unless it's been treated with something.  They mostly use Xylene.

Ops

hmm...interesting...,my HHO is just red dyed #1. there is also red dyed #2(inside tank)
both are interchangable with on road #1&2

No to play Mr. Know it all here but realize the heaters EXPY is talking about are heat exchanger units that exhaust combustion products outside.  They're not the Toyotomi K-1 heaters of old, so don't go trying to burn ULSD in your "top hat" style wick heaters.  Although I am tempted to try and see what happens (under controlled circumstances of course.)



 

Thanks for pointing that out.

I'm curious how the new diesel would run in regular wick heaters too.

Hmmm... I did not know that! Do you think that a few cans of xylene stashed away may come in handy for this someday, if its mid-winter and I need to use my heating oil to run a vehicle?

Lots of petro fluids will work, the simplest to use is gasoline.  I think you need about 5% or so.  I buy a couple big jugs of Power Service diesel treatment, and a pint of their Diesel 911.   911 will dissolve the gel,  fuel treatment prevents it.  I carry a quart of PS diesel treatment year round, and carry a bottle of 911 in the colder weather.

Some distributors add about 20% kerosene (#1 fuel) to their diesel as an anti gel.  It's easy to tell, there is less energy in a gallon of kero than in #1, and your fuel economy will show it.  My truck will drop about 1.5 MPG on winter fuel.

I consider it a small price to pay for the storability and availability of diesel as opposed to gasoline.  Diesel is all over if you know where to look.

Ops

The large oil delivery companies do this up here.  Save's on extra deliveries,thus money, for people who sign up for auto-fill. The small independent guys or for people who order "when needed" don't apply.  Although, I would doubt they care if you run out off oil.

FB