Availability of paraffin

blaggard

blaggard

Active Member
Joined
9 Jan 2004
Messages
44
Location
Windwards
Visit site
We are about to set off to the wild blue yonder with our trusty Taylors paraffin cooker. However we have noticed lately that it is harder to find paraffin. Is anybody else finding it difficult to get paraffin abroad? I read in the Imray pilot that it is virtually unobtainable in Spain. Is it any better in the Caribbean?
 
I haven't found what we call 'paraffin' - i.e. the 'Esso Blue' sort of stuff - either in Spain or Italy. You can buy heating oil and lamp oil, deodorised at a premium. I have found it in garden centres and DIY Superstores Leroy Merlin in both countries. Here in Italy it is about twice the price per litre as DERV. I was hoping to find a source of paraffin (i.e. without road duty) to run the Eber this winter but it didn't work out. I searched very hard and made a lot of calls.

Can you still buy paraffin in the UK in reasonable quantities and reasonable price? You used to be able to buy it from the tap in hardware stores and from pumps in petrol stations but I haven't seen either for decades.
 
thanks lemain
I would like to stick to paraffin but it seems to be getting ever harder to find. spent last summer in ireland and only found it in one place (schull). We are in plymouth for the winter and can get it easily enough but prices vary from £15 /5ltr in chanderly to£5 in hardware store.
 
I think that this 'heating oil' would be absolutely fine in a Taylors. It's made for some fairly sophisticated burners, some modulated with thermostats and the real issue would be viscosity. Expensive, tho'.
 
we use kerosene in the Aga, smells the same as parafin, seems to be the same sort of viscosity and costs 40p/l I usually take a gallon or so down to portugal with me to use in lamps o deck, a bi of a fire hazard I know but give off a better light than led's. Mate had a Taylors and we used kero in it all the time with no probs.
 
That's interesting. In the 1970s it was the accepted practice for British yachts when visiting France to order 'Fuel Oil Domestique' for for delivery to the yacht. It was written up in the pilot books and literature. My father only ever took FOD on board in France and the engines (Ford Thornycroft 98hp - 1972 vintage) ran as well on that as they did on 'Red' from the UK or 'Diesel' which he had to buy in Spain and Italy. Diesel is 35 second and heating oil is 28 second. I think that the time relates to the time it takes a ball (defined) through a set distance and is a measure of viscosity. So 35 second oil (diesel) is more viscous. You would have though intuitively that it was the other way round but certainly we always used to take delivery of 28 second oil for the boiler from 2000-2004.

Why can't we run the engines on kerosene (28 second oil) apart from the legal aspect?
 
D
the 28 sec is thinner, it refers to the amount of time it takes for a defined amount to run through a defined orifice. in the olden days we used to mix half a pint of straight 30 sae engine oil per gallon of paraffin to use in a diesel tranny van. allegedly, if you use straight paraffin/kerosene it doesnt have the same lubricity and it will harm the injector pump, diesels will run on "any" type of oil within reason, the only inhibitor is, will it damage the pump?
S
 
I had similar experience when climbing in Germany in the 60s. We couldn't get paraffin for stoves but TVO (Tractor Vapourising Oil) was cheap as chips and available everywhere. Stoves ran perfectly with no noticeable impairment. I understood TVO was a mixture of paraffin, petrol and diesel and commonly used in agricultural diesel engines. It's not now legal to use/mix TVO (unless you run a vintage tractor) but maybe in our fathers' days boat owners had scope to use "initiative" in seeking out economic solutions. It seems that around 1960 diesel engine design obsoleted TVO (or to be cynical tax loopholes were closed!)
 
Thanks for that. I couldn't remember if it was a ball or an orifice! Come to that since all we are doing is to match viscosity then if we take a funnel with a small orifice and pour, say, 2 litres of diesel through it then we just add oil, bit by bit to the kerosene until 2 litres takes the same time...then we know how much oil to add /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Don't tell Mr Plod.
 
Diesels run

on a wide range of fuels, including kerosene. In fact they run cleaner (until the injection equipment starts to seize).

TVO in equipment designed for paraffin (mainly pressure lamps) can be extremely dangerous as it has a far lower flash-point.
When we used it in Tilleys, the vapouriser bulb used to perforate quite quickly, though the light was much brighter.

When I was in Spain, paraffin was quite easily obtainable in ferreteria under the name of petrole, but that was usually prohibitively expensive, deodorised stuff.

Other round-the-worlders have reported on the difficulty of finding kerosene/paraffin - unlike ubiquitous LPG, which appears to have replaced paraffin/kerosene as the 1st choice for cooking in 3rd world countries.

Aficionados of paraffin stoves and hurricane lamps can comfort themselves with the thought that martyrs suffer for their faith.
The demand for diesel, especially in Europe, means that refiners, world-wide, are converting as much of their crude into fuel for diesel engines as is possible and nearly all kerosene is being diverted into aircraft-fuel.
 
[ QUOTE ]


Can you still buy paraffin in the UK in reasonable quantities and reasonable price? You used to be able to buy it from the tap in hardware stores and from pumps in petrol stations but I haven't seen either for decades.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I have a Taylors cooker and get odourless paraffin from Caldo
Label%20Paraffin%20Extra%202004.gif
 
I have a Taylors oven too.. didn't realise it could be a problem this, obtaining paraffin/kerosene abroad..
Someone told me that you can use aircraft fuel.. I suppose that depends upon the availability of an airfield in the vicinity..
 
Over here in Georgia, we used to rely on paraffin/kerosene for heating in the winter (not for boats , for our houses), that was before the gas lines were repaired.
Often the kerosene supplies would run low, however any "contaminated" aviation fuel always managed to find its way on to the market.
 
[ QUOTE ]

Someone told me that you can use aircraft fuel

[/ QUOTE ]
Careful ! Jet A1 might be OK. Avgas, as used by light aircraft, will be like using petrol.
 
In emergency with the Antarctic Survey it was possible to use avtur (aviation turbine fuel) in paraffin cookers and Tilley lamps. It used to be cut with a certain proportion of petrol to give it the correct characteristics, but it is too long ago for me to remember what it was /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif There was a problem IIRC with nasty combustion products due to the additives in avtur.
 
2 years ago, we cruised from Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, Canaries, Azores and back. Although parafin wasn't available every where, with a reasonable stock onboard, we didn't find it too difficult to keep stocked up. Price did vary considerably!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top