Weel. In the US in stovie terms it is 1-K kerosene. Home heating oil is not for stoves. For sure don't use it in a GPA designed for paraffin. You may as well try to use diesel which is also not good at all for a kerosene GPA. Don't try to cheap out on a fuel for your stove and you should be happy for a long long time. I assumed you wanted fuel advice and not a chemistry lesson.
Far from similar in my neck of the woods. This is hardly a question you can ask on an international forum, and suppose to get a quick and easy answer I know that in England or even the UK, these two fuels actually are very similar, and people use home heating oil in their stoves etc. But if you go to other countries, they might be totally different. Here in Sweden, as an example, they are far from the same. Home heating oil is pretty much the same as Diesel oil. You can run your diesel-powered boat, car or tractor on it, but don't use it in a stove!
Same here in the US. I've a friend here in the US who had his furnace changed over to natural gas, and used the old home heating oil tank (and fuel) to run a diesel powered generator. Since he's passed on, there no harm in grassing on him for using the same fuel in his diesel M-B sedan! Murph
Also keep in mind in the US "paraffin" might be considered by some to be lamp oil. In the UK it is what we call Kerosene. I think I have that right.
To be honest @frg7700 28 sec kerosene, which is sold as home heating oil, is perfectly ok in the UK for stove and lamp use. I did have an issue with one lamp with black mantle disease which I initially blamed on the fuel, but eventually discovered the fault to be with the operator.
the pre-packed paraffin is a higher grade low sulphur (iirc) I snagged 500 litres heating oil a few years back, no problems apart from wick lamps where the packed stuff is better I find
I'd probably agree with you @ally regarding wick lamps. Which reminds me I should pick up some for this season.
I am a UK enthusiast. When I started collecting Kerosene powered devices I used pre-packed canisters of paraffin (US kerosene) but as I live in the Highlands and our central heating is powered by what is called 28 second Kerosene I thought I'd give it a go. It's smelly stuff straight out of my 2000L tank but I found a post on here (or maybe CPL) that clamed you could remove the smell by putting Limestone Flour (calcium carbonate) in it. The scientific facts are that it will not and could not work, but as I have tons of the stuff and it's really cheap, I figured I might as well have a go. I followed the guys recipe and waited a couple of weeks, daily shaking the drum I was using for the experiment and ten let it stand until the sediment had fallen to the bottom. I then syphoned the resulting fuel off and tried it in a lantern. I was amazed that the dreadful smell had gone! As it was it has a sulphorous, creaosote kind of smell, but that had gone! I tried it in a number of lanterns and stoves and as far as I'm concerned I now have lantern/stove qality kero for about 50p a Ltr. I don't know why it works and frankly I don't care, but for me, it does. This only applies to the UK. I have no idea what heating kero from other countries is like or if this trick would work. Regards Colin
