Paraffin lamps and cookers

oldbilbo said:
Don't forget about thy shoebox on't motorway.... :D
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Motorway! Motorway! By 'eck, lad, when I were a lad there WERE no Motorways! We'd a killed for a shoebox on't motorway. Nay, we 'ad t'manage wi' a paper bag on't mine road!

Mind, those of you who've met me know I don't speak with a Yorkshire accent, despite being entitled!

Seriously, though, I reckon my LEDs and Eberspacher use less fuel overall than Tilley lamps, hurricane lanterns or whatever, even including what I use for battery charging

And there were no motorways when I was a lad - I was in my teens when my Dad managed to be the first person to drive on the section of the M1 from Wakefield to Sheffield - he happened to be by the slip-road at Wakefield when they took the cones away!
 
AntarcticPilot said:
For me, oil lamps using wicks simply don't provide enough light.
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Mine gives enough for drinking and talking, but not for eating or reading. Which is where the LEDs come in - a nice lamp for atmosphere, with a couple of discrete clusters of warm white LEDs to raise the overall level of illumination and fill in the shadows. I also have separate LED reading lights in all the places someone might sit to read.

Pete
 
prv said:
Mine gives enough for drinking and talking, but not for eating or reading. Which is where the LEDs come in - a nice lamp for atmosphere, with a couple of discrete clusters of warm white LEDs to raise the overall level of illumination and fill in the shadows. I also have separate LED reading lights in all the places someone might sit to read.

Pete
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And that's where we all have our own preferences. For me, if it isn't bright enough to read, it isn't bright enough, and I find it gloomy and "cold" feeling. I don't find dim illumination cosy or homely; to me it is gloomy and dark. Perhaps it explains why I like places with 24 hours daylight :D
 
A good nose on her.

Dear Amulet - you are a lovely little perfect peach of a boat and yes I bet you smell boootiful.
I am a plastic ship but have enough wood and smelly oily lamps to give a delightful nose to my skipper when he opens the hatch and climbs down in. (His family crewpersons think he has been too long at sea and needs some attention up top.)

Pleiades of Birdham
MXWQ5
 
We've used Vapalux Pressure Lamps, hurricane lamps and a wall mounted gimballed 'Fastnet' extensively for years. Daily, for months at a time. All burning the cheapest paraffin we could find (Barretine atm, from garage, £6.40 for 4 litres).

Never had a flare up. Never had even a hint of sooty marks, anywhere, even directly above them (and we run the Vapalux under the table quite often (warm knees)), and never noticed the smell of paraffin except when a little is spilled during lamp filling sessions.

We always ventilate as much as possible, ensuring a flow of air is generated by the heat from the Vapalux. It must work because running this way we get drier and drier inside the boat despite the water vapour the lamps are creating. Perhaps that ventialtion is taking all these particles that are supposedly created, out of the boat - but there's no sign of them around the "out" end of our ventilation either.
 
Zagato said:
Can anyone recommend a good oil lamp I can attach to the wall :)
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I got one of these as a Chrimbo gift a few years ago:

http://search.ebay.co.uk/360508221745

Seems a little cheaply made in some ways but in fact has been faultless and looks great. Runs for absolutely ages on low on one fill, and the heat shield thing meant zero marks on the ceiling even though it was very close.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
For me, oil lamps using wicks simply don't provide enough light. If I had to use an oil-lamp, I'd certainly get a pressure lamp; there is no comparison in the brightness of the illumination; hurricane lamps are fine for giving an olde-worlde atmosphere, but useless as illumination! And I don't see flare-ups as a problem with pressure lanterns; if you use the correct procedure for lighting them, there should never be a flare-up. The only real snag is that pressure lanterns provide a single illumination source, so shadows are a problem. Overall, several good LEDs installed in the coach-roof provides excellent illumination and uses far less in the way of fuel. All of mine on at once take about 6 watts; that is, half an amp; a few minutes of using the engine would make up for a long evening's use. The Eberspacher uses a LOT more electrical power than that.
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We used oil lamps at our holiday cottage when I was young, and had a couple of wick lamps that also had a mantle like a pressure lamp and gave a very good reading light. It is just we have lost the skills. I was taught how to light Tilley and Bialadin lamps when I was 10, yes when you are learning you get a few flareups but once you have the hang of it no problems. A tankfull of paraffin lasted all night, even in winter, and gave excellent light
 
CaptainBob said:
I got one of these as a Chrimbo gift a few years ago:

http://search.ebay.co.uk/360508221745

Seems a little cheaply made in some ways but in fact has been faultless and looks great. Runs for absolutely ages on low on one fill, and the heat shield thing meant zero marks on the ceiling even though it was very close.
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Thanks Bob, bit pricey for me at the moment. Think there is a place near Littlehampton that specialises in all things oil/paraffin/meths etc. I'll give him a call also if I can find his link ;)
 
maxi77 said:
We used oil lamps at our holiday cottage when I was young, and had a couple of wick lamps that also had a mantle like a pressure lamp and gave a very good reading light. It is just we have lost the skills. I was taught how to light Tilley and Bialadin lamps when I was 10, yes when you are learning you get a few flareups but once you have the hang of it no problems. A tankfull of paraffin lasted all night, even in winter, and gave excellent light
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I too learnt to light pressure lanterns and pressure cooking stoves at about the same age! When we were on our first "big boat", my job in the morning was to get up and boil the kettle to make a cup of tea for Mum and Dad. I think I was less than ten when I mastered it. I daresay Mum and Dad kept an eye on me at first ;)

When on my first field trip in Svalbard, I learnt how to start a pressure stove without meths (we hadn't got any; I think it was to do with local booze regulations at the time; Svalbard was entirely run by a mining company, and alcohol was very strictly regulated). It's a bit messy and dirty, but you CAN light one by bleeding off a bit of paraffin and burning it. But I wouldn't do it on a boat; you'd have black headlining in no time.

I last used a paraffin pressure stove in 2005 - they are still standard field issue for Antarctica, as gas cookers are no use in temperatures well below zero. I was pleased to find that i could still do it, and could have managed without the training session! But it was in Antarctica where I became aware of the very real dangers of carbon monoxide, and saw test results that showed that even a well-adjusted pressure stove emits significant carbon monoxide, and that the difference between well-adjusted and lethal is not very great!

I should mention that BAS has an issue with spare parts - the Optimus stoves they use are no longer made, and getting reliable spare parts is becoming increasingly difficult. They have tested other makes, but Optimus stoves perform well under the conditions, and are one of the better ones regarding Carbon Monoxide emissions.
 
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Perhaps Im getting old but when you have been given a lift to school with your Dad watching the white line through the drivers window and myself watching for the kerb through the passenger window whilst surrounded by acrid yellow lung burning smog a bit of smoke from a parafin lamp is nothing.
Never mind the 40 or so cigarettes a day everyone smoked in my office actively or passively back in the 1970s.
 
ffiill said:
Perhaps Im getting old but when you have been given a lift to school with your Dad watching the white line through the drivers window and myself watching for the kerb through the passenger window whilst surrounded by acrid yellow lung burning smog a bit of smoke from a parafin lamp is nothing.
Never mind the 40 or so cigarettes a day everyone smoked in my office actively or passively back in the 1970s.
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Oh the joys of a 50s childhood, I once walked in front of the car with a bialladin lamp following the tram rails
 
maxi77 said:
Oh the joys of a 50s childhood, I once walked in front of the car with a bialladin lamp following the tram rails
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Never mind 50s! In the early 80's I remember some days with fog so dense the driver couldn't see the side of the road. That was in East Anglia, just north of Cambridge, and it hasn't happened since they stopped burning stubble after the harvest. I suspect that, like the infamous London smogs, it was caused by the ready availability of nucleation particles in the atmosphere.
 
maxi77 said:
Oh the joys of a 50s childhood, I once walked in front of the car with a bialladin lamp following the tram rails
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Yes in Bradford they used to burn oil flares at the road junctions to clear the smog-guess the heat lifted it slightly-The only relief was to spot the trolley bus arriving and get on it where because it had doors it was warm and smog free.
 
when i said tilley lamp i was generalising as to a pressure lantern - what i actually have is a Coleman Powerhouse unleaded dual mantle lantern which is perfectly safe, needs no preheating or comlicated lighting procedure and gives amazing light - better than an old fashioned 100 watt lightbulb. ues it does make a noise and yes it does put out a lot of heat - but that's part o the attraction in thw winter!

as to lamp oil - proper lamp oil does not smell. as to oil lamps i have twqo old hurricane lamp types of lamp and a gimbal mounted lamp as this.....

http://www.force4.co.uk/963/Force-4-Fastnet-Oil-lamp---Brass.html

however none of the lamps with wicks put out anything like the amount of light the coleman does
 
I do think when it comes to pre electric days we have forgotten what in my case our Grandparents knew.How to light a solid fuel fire;paraffin heater;paraffin light;trim wickes;clean shades etc etc.
I am very aware that non of my adult children have a clue how to light our multifuel stove or for that matter keep it up and running.
But then again-my daughter involved at the human interface level of a software design company and her partner a Police Officer recently decided to have their telephone disconnected to save money.They were suprised to find that the Computers all stopped working despite the fact my daughter works from home! and did not realise that their Broadband came via a telephone line!
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I too learnt to light pressure lanterns and pressure cooking stoves at about the same age....

...I learnt how to start a pressure stove without meths. It's a bit messy and dirty, but you CAN light one by bleeding off a bit of paraffin and burning it. But I wouldn't do it on a boat; you'd have black headlining in no time.
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I recall it was SOP for my circle of Boy Sprouts in the 50s/60s. Certainly, I and my mates each backpacked a Primus or Optimus 1-pint stove up onto the Scottish Hills at weekends, summer and winter. Didn't carry meths, for that was just one more thing to ( forget to ) replenish during the week, so invariably used the 'little strip of cloth as a wick' soaked in paraffin - and sometimes just a nest of matches - to get the vapouriser tube up to temperature. That was fine for cooking. For light, I carried a couple of candles which I mounted on a plate, but when they were used up, one could insert a spare stove leg into the paraffin vapour-jet, getting a yellow luminous flame instead of a blue 'un.

No-one mentioned carbon monoxide and poisoning then. And the insides of our little mountain tents were not blackened - or burned! Can't speak for the state of our alveoli, but most of the guys smoked Woodbine or Capstan Full Strength, so we wouldn't have noticed a little more CO..... :cool:
 
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