Where can I buy cheap kero?

Do you mean kerosine? If so its the same as paraffin and all DIY sheds should stock it.

For my Tilley lamp I got paraffin from a local garden centre, in a 4l container, not especially cheap, but not the £15 B&Q or Amazon are asking ...

Yes, it is similar, but DIY sheds are a very expensive place to source it. Much more expensive, than simply buying diesel.

Heating oil, is around 60p per litre, diesel around £1.40. I'm wondering where I might source heating oil, in small quantities, at similar low costs.

I think some rural petrol stations may sell it, but I haven't seen one advertising it in a while. Deliveries are min 500 litres by law.

You can buy it online in cans but not especially cheap:

Finally check FB/ebay/etc. When decommissioning my tank I sold 400 l in 25 litre jerry cans sourced from the local hand car wash (formerly containing car shampoo)

Theo

Thanks, some ideas there to try..

You could also just find somebody who uses heating oil and offer to buy some from their tank at some agreeable price. Take your own jerrycan and a little electric pump (a tenner on ebay). Today's price for 500 litre delivery from the local oil syndicate is 54p/litre - offer to pay over the odds and everyone is happy.

Theo

No. He means kerosene

I looked on boilerjuice and they said 150l minimum

There is also Red Diesel - used by both farmers and the boating sectors.

The rules changed a couple of years ago, red diesel can no longer be used in boats (except for heating and generators) or several other traditional uses e.g. diggers on building sites ...

Now much more difficult to buy, especially in small quantities. The rules were tightened up a couple of years ago. I used to use it in my tractor and diesel mower but now, unless you are a commercial user (i.e. actually a farmer) or in one or two other special cases it's not allowed.

Our local garage still has a red diesel pump If you are filling a can and using the fuel for a heater what rules are being broken? Its when you tip into a vehicle tank where you should be using white the trouble starts.

GH

All the ones near us (around Ipswich, south Suffolk) have closed. We used to be able to go to the local Morrisons and fill a few 20l cans with diesel but no longer.

None, but heaters configured to use vehicle diesel as opposed to heating fuel are unusual - as I discovered when we had the 'diesel' boiler on our boat serviced and the engineer was really surprised that it actually was set up to use [red] diesel.

That's what has been tightened up a lot, as a private user I used to be able to use red diesel in my tractor and diesel mower but that is no longer allowed. There's very few legal vehicle uses for red diesel now, just businesses whose vehicles are 100% off road like farmers and some contractors.

Using red diesel for heating is OK but pretty pointless, heating fuel is just as cheap, if not cheaper.

They're not uncommon for campervans and similar - if you already have a diesel tank for the engine you just add a tee in the fuel line to the heater. There are some Chinese ones which seem basic but decent enough.

Quite surprised that doesn't apply to boats too - or do you need a sufficient amount of heat (all winter) that it's cheaper to fill a separate tank? For seaworthy boats there's diesel in every port but not sure about kerosene (unless they fuel gas turbines?)

Theo

I guess that makes sense.

The boat in question had a standard domestic oil fired CH boiler, it had the jets adjusted to work with diesel engine fuel rather than heating oil.

Red diesel is no longer allowed to be used for making your boat go along. In most of mainland Europe you **have** to have a separate tank if you want to used un-road-taxed fuel for heating. In the UK you can still declare what portion of the fuel in your tank is being used for heating and how much for going along. This is very open to abuse of course so i don't know how much longer it will last.

Is it much more open to abuse than a separate tank? Surely it is easy to use a portable pump to transfer from one tank to the other anyway?

I have a wood burning stove in my shed which is ideal if I'm out there all day. However the diesel heater comes into its own when only needed for short periods. They are relatively cheap to buy & economical to run (even at pump prices).

Self contained unit -

- it must exhaust to the outside

- it requires a hefty (IIRC) 15a 12v supply. eg -

You'd have red dye in your engine diesel, easily detected.