Background: Former desert dweller moved to the north. Cold front came through bringing early winter and coincided with my finding this thing on eBay, so I immediately fired it up. Seems to work well, but I know little about them.

It's currently warming the garage for my dogs,  I burned it dry last night and refilled it, still works.  The only 1k kerosene I can find is $10 a gallon, is it possible to burn cheaper fuel like dyed kerosene or will that ruin the thing?

Dyed kerosene won't hurt the heater, but it'll ruin the wicks MUCH faster. If that's your plan, keep a few spare wicks on hand and learn how to replace them.

What about jet fuel? Will that mess the wick up faster? My wife is on a lot of garage sell sites on Facebook and she is on the look out for a heater like this.
(I have a fairly unlimited supply of fuel)

Just remember. A tar crusted wick is not necessarily bad. You need to burn out your wick once a week or every other week. Once you learn how to do it you can make a wick last years. If you use dyed k1 expect to burn it out every week religiously.

Everyone says the dye will clog the wick but I think those people don't burn their wick clean regularly. It most likely causes more tar build up that burns to ash easily.

I am in the learning stages myself. I just disassembled mine and did a wick replacement due to the fact that the previous owner fueled his with diesel. It was surprisingly straight forward. I've been buying them off of craigslist for pretty cheap over the past few weeks. I have two of the heaters so far.

One important thing to remember is that you can't adjust the heat output without causing harmful emissions. Teach yourself how to maintain a good even 1/2" flame and you should be golden. I also am pissed about how much kerosene costs. I thought about using the red dye kero but I've heard it gives off a nasty smell so I'm just going to take it in the pants and use clear pump K1. Use a Mr. Funnel at the pump to make sure you aren't getting water in the kero too.

When you say 'burn it clean', how is that done?

Run it low on fuel and take it outside and let it run completely out of fuel until it stops.  Then relight the wick and let it burn out again.

Take the top off the heater like you are going to change the wick but don't mess with the burner itself.  Use a soft tooth brush to gently brush the wick around the diameter one way and check for hard spots.  Usually it will be super soft and very tar free. All of it burned to ash.

Good to know, thanks!

Could some one tell me if the kerosene heaters at Lowe's and Walmart worth buying?
Do you guys think a kerosene heater would be better then something like the big buddy heater?
Thanks.

damn shame about the price of kerosene.

bought a dyna-glo heater several years ago to heat up my gun / reloading room that the central heat (natural gas) didn't really deliver to.
I do a lot of reloading in the winter, and believe me it gets COLD in the mountains here.

the kerosene heater gave off a warm, gentle heat that was perfect.
I could get two nights out of one tankful.

there was a gas station about 40 miles away that sold 1k fuel at the pump.
life was good. then the station closed down.

when I found out what kerosene was selling for locally, I put the heater in storage and am now using an electric space heater that is nowhere near as efficient.

Kerosene is better for heating larger areas. I use k1 to supplement my furnace so i can keep my over all temperature lower and the comfort level where people are higher.

The buddy and big buddy heaters are great for heating up a specific room as they can run with much lower output than any of my k1 heaters.

The dynaglo heaters work fine. They can only run full blast so they are great for whole sections of a home.

I have and use buddy, big buddy, and kerosene heaters every winter.

I have posted this in past threads.



When I had an apartment over a shut down bakery I used kerosene and propane for my heat, when bakery was working it provided heat so apartment had no heating system.



Kerosene tower heaters were used if I was going to be there long term.  Could warm up the kitchen, living room, and bedroom just fine.  I did not use fans to make temp even in all rooms.



Propane buddy heaters were used when I would be there short term.  



I shut everything off at night, I like sleeping cold and east tn does not have really long term cold.  Several nights below freezing but still not that bad.



Get up in morning, buddy heater in bathroom and if not leaving right away a big buddy heater by the computer for time I was going to be there.



When coming in from work and going to be up for several hours it was worth firing up the kerosene heaters.



I don't know cost of kerosene around here right now but it has gone up in price a lot from when I was using it to heat that apartment.



This year I am renting a place on natural gas but I still have all my kerosene and propane heaters so I have plenty of backup if I have issues with natural gas.



I like the kerosene heaters sold new or an older one that was cared for.  I like the tower kerosene heaters, the rectangular ones disagree with me.



If you buy a new one now watch for used ones in the spring.  Every place usually discounts them in the spring and lots of folks sell theirs in the spring as well.