Does anybody know if kerosene/fuel oil heaters are still available? They used to be found in every hardware store, every Sears store, and every appliance store. What happened? Are they outlawed or something? I have a tank full of K-1 kerosene. I've tried to heat with a couple wick-type Kerosene heaters. They foul so badly with carbon that the wicks need cleaned weekly and need changed every two or three weeks!!! Way too hard to be fooling around changing wicks at sub-freezing temps. And its ridiculously expensive.

This year, I wanted to find and use one of the vented, non-wick heaters -- but could not find them reasonably priced anywhere.

-- f fisher (f.fisher@emailaccount.com), December 21, 2001

Answers

I saw a kero-sun at Ames. I would think that Hardware stores would carry them.

-- Rick (Rick_122@hotmail.com), December 21, 2001.

We just bought a kerosene heater at Sam's club and have also seen them at Home Depot.

-- Anita in NC (anitaholton@mindspring.com), December 21, 2001.

A few years back friends of our heated their mother's apartment with an on the wall type of kerosene heater. It was great and I remember it heated wonderfully. We have looked for this type...it was attached to the wall of the house...and can not find one like it anywhere. It wasn't the portable kinds that you can fill and move from place to place like we have now for chilly spring nights when we don't want to start the wood stoves. If you find out where you can find any let me know. Good Luck and Happy Holidays !!

-- Helena (windyacs@npacc.net), December 21, 2001.

Have you ever heard of Monitor heaters? I had never heard of them till I moved to the mountains of NC where they are very popular. They are a vented kerosene heater that, if I understand it correctly, sends a tiny spray of kerosene across a heated electric coil and burns an amazingly tiny bit of fuel and heats very well. I heat with wood, but I know many people who use Monitors and love them. I did a search and they have a website. Monitor Hope this helps.

-- gilly (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), December 22, 2001.

Lowes has them, I would try there. I cant figure why you are having a problem finding them- alot of places carry kero heaters here (and the portable ones are AWSOME- once when I was in Boy Scouts, we went on a camping trip. It dropped to -40 with wind chill. They had brought a 40 by 30 wall tent and like 20 or so bales of straw- we built a wall out of the straw and had a sleeping "chamber" and a cooking, etc room- two kero heaters had that big tent at a whopping 80 degrees inside. Course, everyone who was there from other troops came in- adding their BTUs to the heaters, because we had the only warm place in town.)

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), December 22, 2001.

Those "wick" type (Like Kerosun,etc) are dandy heaters for SHORT term use. The heater must be shut down, taken outside, and tended to EVERY 4 DAYS or so. The wicks will not last more than a few weeks. Some brands are very difficult to change wicks. I want to AVOID the wick type of heater. The ones from monitorheaters.com are much more what I was seeking -- except they are several times more expensive than I hoped. So now I guess I'm looking for the "carburetor" type.

-- (f.fisher@emailaccount.com), December 27, 2001.

We use two Monitor 441 heaters. One for 4 years and the other for two. Installation takes a couple hours. Sealed combustion chamber, NO ODOR indoors, and barely able to detect an odor at the exhaust pipe. Very efficient, and very satisfying heat. Great thermostat with 6 presets and a manual reset for if you lose power. When power comes back on it will operate at the manual reset temp. Not one problem to report. It also uses outside air for combustion. One pipe through an outside wall. It is a pipe in a pipe. Inside pipe is exhaust and the outer is intake. I would recommend a Monitor over ANY heater I've used from coal to wood to natural gas. Over the last four winters we've spent about $300-$500 a year for kerosene at $.90 to $1.40 a gallon. The comfort level with the Monitor is fantastic. Electricity is needed for a fan and circuit board, but consumption is low and the Monitor is very quiet. We have wood/coal stoves at each end of our house for backup heat. Power loss here in Hancock County, Tn. is not a bad problem, but is going to happen. There is a smaller model than the 441, and it has a well designed fuel tank on the heater, or as with the 441 you can hook it up to a fuel tank outside.

-- Paul Moore (boawoman@boastore.com), March 27, 2002.

I forgot to mention the cost of a Monitor. I believe they retail for about $1800 dollars. We bought both of ours from a local dealer at the end of heating seasons for $1200 each, or about 10% over his cost. I would not be sorry if I would have had to pay full price, just really glad to save the difference.

-- Paul Moore (boawoman@boastore.com), March 27, 2002.