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Yeah I have one of the larger 23000 btu units, like this. It works very well. Honestly, tho since I have a Honda eu2000 for my Furnace I rarely use it. But I have loaned it to people in need. It's easy to light, can heat a couple rooms no problem. I think I bought it from Home Depot During the big snow storm a couple years ago.
 
I have a MR HEAT bazooka heater that burns kero, I use it for outdoor heating out in the shop, works great, but requires a 110V outlet to run the fan.

Most of these things tend to burn about a gallon per hour, which is quite a bit of fuel. My personal preference is franklin stoves, they burn wood, which can be down-right cheap especially in the PNW, however they need to be "installed" with a flu stack, the best way to go is to have the flue make a horizontal jog, as this will give the gas more time to transfer heat to the room before it goes up and out the pipe. The franklin is going to make things a lot more comfy, and has fewer issues (no worries about CO or CO2) than the kero heater.

On the other hand, if you rent, dont have a fireplace, live in an apartment... the kero heater is probably the way to go.
 
Depending on your heating needs you could try and kill two birds with one stone!

Consider a kerosene lantern. I have several of them. The heat output does not sound like much but believe me, they will heat things up. My large central draft lamp produces about 8000btu, the rayo #2 medium size lamp produces about 2500btu, and my Aladdin produces about 2000btu. Thats not bad. You also get to have light! However they will not even come close to generating the heat that a heating unit will.

Just something to consider.
 
From the article:

Warning! A kerosene heater does not have exterior ventilation so you must leave a crack of a window open, especially in modern, very well insulated homes. Make sure you have a working CO detector as well before operating a kerosene heater. Dont be cheap about this. Your life is sure worth the twenty bucks or so a CO detector costs.

Have heard a LOT of news stories of people getting killed this way. I owned one a long time ago and would run it in this shack we had for an hour then turn it off till it got cold again and repeat. I did not sleep with it on though.
 
We've owned a 9,500 BTU kero heater for 36yrs. It's been a real comfort for us. I once lived for 8 days with no power using it! Just packed my wife and son off to my moms (she had power) and camped in the living room, after curtaining off the rest of the house. Opened the door and curtain twice a day for an hour to keep the pipes from freezing. Also set the faucets to drip. Kept two windows cracked, opposite sides of the room, a pair of 1/2" openings weren't even noticeable in the face of the level of heat produced. I had to sit around in a T shirt to prevent sweating! Add in a transistor radio, reading material and light sources, most comfortable! Was able to cook on top of the heater too. It burns about 1.5 gallons per 12hrs. We have to run it on low, lest we cook ourselves! Ditto with the OPs article about having a carbon monoxide detector, always a concern pre detectors! Good luck with yours Peter! We love and trust ours!
 
From the article:

Warning! A kerosene heater does not have exterior ventilation so you must leave a crack of a window open, especially in modern, very well insulated homes. Make sure you have a working CO detector as well before operating a kerosene heater. Dont be cheap about this. Your life is sure worth the twenty bucks or so a CO detector costs.

Have heard a LOT of news stories of people getting killed this way. I owned one a long time ago and would run it in this shack we had for an hour then turn it off till it got cold again and repeat. I did not sleep with it on though.

OLDNEWBIE has it right. We don't sleep while ours is lit! These things kill a lot of people every year! I think that CO detectors significantly reduce the risk, but "never turn your back on one!" We trust ours not to fail at producing heat, not that it won't harm us if we get sloppy with procedures!
 
One of the nice things is that Kerosene never goes bad. You can stock up when you find a good price knowing that it will last.

Once a year Ace Hardware has a super coupon day (usually around Christmas) where they offer any one item below $60.00 at half off. For the last three years I've used that coupon to purchase a 5 gallon canister of kerosene.
 
^^^ Back in the previous century, the kero shop where I bought my heater ran a long line of poo about kerosine only lasted 8 to 10 months! I believed it for about 8 to 10 months! My experience is it lasts indefinitely. I'll qualify that with the point that my heater relies on a wick to draw fuel. I don't know how it would do if it had to pass through a small orifice on a pressurized system.
 
Grew up with kerosene heat for both power outages and on boat. Use one now because I can run it with out the noise of a generator attracting less attention. One thing I not seen posted is start and turn them off outside to keep the smell down. Funny people used to use kerosene for light. heat and to cook for years and its kind of fallen out of favor but its still works just fine for all these uses.
 
They tend to smell when you light them or turn them off but the odor is pretty low once the are warmed up. I use one off and on in the winter it actually does a nicer job of heating my small house than the furnace. I place mine in my fire place and open the flu for lighting. The heater will warm the brick masonry to an uncomfortably hot tempture and.will stay warm to the touch for well over 15 hours after shutting it down, letting me sleep without it on. Upon occasion I 've noticed the air get stale and had to crack a window to get some oxy back into the house.
 
OLDNEWBIE has it right. We don't sleep while ours is lit! These things kill a lot of people every year! I think that CO detectors significantly reduce the risk, but "never turn your back on one!" We trust ours not to fail at producing heat, not that it that it won't harm us if we get sloppy with procedures!

That is the biggest danger. Asphyxiation.
 
A lot of the odor can be reduced on the wicking type heater by carefully and slowly raising and lowering the wick. Especially lowering the hot metal sleeve that the wick rides on ever so slowly so that it cools as it lowers. If you just hit the off button the nearly red hot unit just drops into the tank sending up a geyser of unburned hydrocarbons. It will choke you out!
 

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