Talk:Heating oil

Needs work
This page needs work to get it up to par with entries for other petroleum products, such as gasoline and diesel. The chemical content section is good, but lots of other information could be provided that would be of use to the reader.

Also, the red diesel thing - red diesel in the UK is just ordinary diesel that has had red dye added - there is a high tax on diesel here, but farmers can use cheap diesel in tractors - this is the fuel that is marked with red dye; woe betide the farmer though caught at the monthly mart with red diesel in his land rover when the excise man comes dipping!

Same in Seattle, the heating oil seems to be the same as diesel or is close enough to work. I actually had a neighbor who would take it out of his house's tank and put it in his truck from time to time. Unfortunately, he got caught during an inspection, it was discovered that his fuel was the "wrong color." he received one heck of a ticket and had to pay something around $10,000 fine and a misdemeanor on his permanent record. 216.231.36.203 09:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC) bdelisle.


 * I noticed a "citation needed" next to and elsewhere as "red diesel" is mentioned. Here is a source in Dutch where the Dutch Ministry of Finance officially mentions "rode diesel" which is Dutch for "red diesel". Translation of the last sentence: "The low-taxed diesel/gasoil is dyed red to track and prevent abuse". This is the same stuff as heating oil; in The Netherlands heating oil is called "huisbrandolie", in Belgium (and presumably France) it is called "mazout". Putting this stuff in your diesel-fueled car is considered a financial crime and will be dealt with accordingly; however it will not be mentioned on your permanent record. --Brinkie 11:10, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The "United States and Canada" section needs to be fleshed out. I've made some minor tweaks to it, but there's work to be done. Keeper of Maps (talk) 17:12, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Human Health Risks
It seems like a lot of site refer to health risks from exposure to residential oil leaks. What are they, exactly?

Other
"Northwest" where? Does it mean northwest UK, USA, China, The World? Sladen 15:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Changed to northeastern United States. ("Northwest" did not appear in the text, so I figured you meant "Northeast".)  -- Coneslayer 17:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Cost comparisons are useful and should be retained
Anonymous user 64.126.142.74 claimed it justified to remove the cost comparison with natural gas, saying "$ figures vary too much across the country and make it pointless..." I don't agree, and find it exasperating that the user makes his statement anonymously. He goes on to suggest linking a spreadsheet, but does not do so. I suspect this is a self-serving interest. --algocu 22:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Costs comparisons do not belong.
Too many people have used the article as a forum to push one fuel over another by inserting cost comparisons with no real meaning. The article should be about the composition and uses of heating oil.

To insert a section with imaginary dollar figures and call it a cost comparison is meaningless and shows bias towards whichever fuel the editor choses (by manipulating prices). The only way to have a meaningful cost comparison is for the end user to enter the current price of the fuels they want to compare, mulitply that times the efficiency of the apparatus and then mutilply that times the BTU content of the fuel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heyjpark (talk • contribs) 16:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

K-Factor and Degree Days
There's a wonderfully detailed section here about K-Factors and the Degree Day System, but there's no context given for what any of it means. I'd like to help clean that section up a bit, but I don't have any context for what it means. Would someone in the know consider trying to add a sentence or two at the start of the K-Factor section explaining what it's all about? Fogster (talk) 23:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC) and when the temperature is high it moves faster

Tanks in Irish gardens
I removed the sentence "Large oil tanks can be found in most Irish household gardens." because it doesn't ring true. Possibly it might be the case in rural areas, but most households are in urban areas where, in my experience, it is not the case. It's uncited anyway.--A bit iffy (talk) 10:23, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Wut?
"Where other fuels are not available, it is sometimes referred to as the unit cost per unit (BTU=British thermal unit or BTUH / h per hour),"

I have no idea what this means. Is heating oil referred to as the unit cost per unit where other fuels are not available, as though I could call in an order for 300 gal of unit cost per unit? What is the H in "BTUH/h per hour"? How about the h? This reads as though it were written by an 11-year-old plagiarizing from a bad Chinese translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.102.142.211 (talk) 01:03, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

28 sec & 35 sec oil
I'd like to see some info about the two different oils available in the UK and a definition of the 'seconds' meausurement. 79.79.248.69 (talk) 18:29, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

"United States and Canada", mistitled section, should it instead just be "Canada"?
In this article it claims, "Heating oil is mostly used in the northeastern United States, with the majority of that heating oil coming from Irving Oil's refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, the largest oil refinery in Canada." This claim contradicts all else I've previously read online on the source of heating oil used in that region. Everywhere else says that most of the oil used in North East United states is refined inside the North East of United States, which seems logical, and all the rest comes from other states within the USA, mainly the Gulf coast. The most typical quote I could give you, on what I've read before about this, is that, "Refineries in the Northeast have supplied about 40 percent of the region's gasoline, 60 percent of ultra-low sulfur diesel and 45 percent of the heating oil. Imports and deliveries from the Gulf Coast make up the rest." No mention of Canadian refineries kindly doing the refining job on behalf of America. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.108.214 (talk) 03:30, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Heating oil #1 and #2
Kerosene heating oil is #1 and diesel heating oil is #2. If someone wants to try and fit that in somewhere. --Wikideas1 (talk) 05:40, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Energy conversion seem to be wrong
Online calculators say that 145 000 BTU are ~153MJ, not 37.2MJ