Using old kerosene/fuel oil as a boiler fuel question

[homebrewz]

I feel much better double checking this, and thats why I'm making this post.

I have a friend who has about 100 gallons of either kerosene or kero/fuel oil blend.
He switched heat sources to gas and no longer needs it.. While I heat with wood, I still heat my DHW with the oil furnace.
I figure even if it is straight kero, its still safe to burn in the furnace because thats essentially #1 fuel oil.

However, this stuff is also 5 years old. Can I just add some diesel fuel conditioner to it, or should
I just use it as a solvent instead of a fuel?

 

[renewablejohn]

I dont know the difference in the US but in UK fuel oil is 32 sec and kerosene 28 sec If you had an aga stove it runs on kerosene but not fuel oil however a stove which can burn fuel oil does not normally have a problem burning kerosene it just burns hotter. I use kerosene in my tractor instead of diesel as it was made in china were they use kerosene instead of diesel.

 

[steam man]

Over at www.oiltechtalk.com they generally loath transfering old oil to new tanks. There are sludge and water issues. Because of the cost of fuel and disposal cost people want to try and use it. If you were to do that at least do not take it off the bottom and you should preferrably have a way to filter it. I don't know how the oil got to be 5 years old before deciding what to do with it. I'd look at it close to see what it looked like. If it is black looking it may be contaminated with algae like critters and would need a biocide to kill them off. Don't use this stuff-you would be sorry. If I were to use it I probably would take as much good stuff as I could and maybe just add 5-10 gallons at a time before an oil fill up. Oh yeah, have spare filters on hand.

 

[homebrewz]

Thanks for the tips! I haven't seen it yet.. all he said was "its pink" (off-road dye).
I'll take a sample and see how it looks.

I figured it would at least be OK to blend the clear runnings from the tank
with my existing fuel oil. I'll watch out for excess sediment and whatnot.