Contrary to popular belief, the use of domestic fuel isn’t just for powering heating devices. It can also be used for the operation of other types of equipment.
Here’s we’ll break down the primary uses of domestic fuel but also on the restrictions associated with this fuel.
The Main Uses of Home Heating Oil:
Home heating oil (learn more), classic or superior, is primarily used as heating fuel.
It thus allows the operation of low-temperature condensing oil boilers and mixed boilers (for example combining fuel oil and wood) dedicated to heating homes, premises in specific communities, or swimming pools.
It will also be noted that there are oil stoves, which are used as additional heating.
Domestic fuel oil can also supply certain professional appliances such as:
- Stoves;
- Generators or hot air guns, which are mainly used in the industrial sector;
- Paint booths that can also be used to spray glues, varnishes, and other liquids
What Cannot Be Done With Home Heating Oil?
Domestic fuel oil is a product with characteristics similar to those of diesel. However, it is prohibited to use domestic fuel oil as fuel, whether for a passenger vehicle or an agricultural vehicle.
While the use of fuel oil as car fuel has always been ruled out, this has not always been the case for agricultural vehicles.
Violators face a fine, confiscation of the car, and imprisonment of up to 3 years. The fine can be exceptionally high as long as the number of kilometers driven and the difference in unpaid tax can be taken into account.
Note that domestic fuel oil is colored red and “marks” the engines. This makes it easier to identify unscrupulous users.
What You Absolutely Need to Know About Home Heating Oil?
Energy consumption and the emission of pollutants are inseparable. All domestic heating installations running on electricity, wood, gas, or fuel oil generate pollutant emissions, which depend on the fuel used, the technology used, the type of boiler, and its settings.
These parameters affect the quality of combustion and, therefore, the number of pollutants emitted.
Quality improvements have been made to fuel oil – learn more, but this fossil fuel remains particularly polluting.
1. Fuel oil, a notorious pollutant
Domestic fuel oil is a notorious pollutant made up of a mixture of hydrocarbons, additives, and colorants obtained from petroleum refining.
It is a flammable, harmful, possible carcinogenic fossil product that is dangerous for the environment. Its combustion emits many polluting substances, in particular for air and water.
2. Always sulfur
The sulfur content has been reduced, but this compound is still present. Oil companies have improved their refining processes to produce fuels with reduced sulfur content for premium fuel oil offerings.
For these products, the maximum sulfur content has been reduced from 2000 ppm to 1000 ppm, as transcribed by European Directive 99/32 / EC.
Further reductions in this content are requested by Europe for the years to come, with an alignment on non-road diesel at ten ppm.
Even if progress has been made on domestic fuel oil to protect the environment and thus reduce its environmental footprint with CO2 emissions reduced by 20% compared to old installations as well as the entry into service of delivery trucks that consume less diesel, the ecological assessment of the global domestic fuel energy chain is not sustainable.
3. Effects on human health
The effects of heating oil by contact, vapors, and combustion have an impact on human health.
For heating professionals, frequent or prolonged skin contact with fuel oil (industrial fuel oil, heavy fuel oil, or domestic fuel oil) can cause various pathologies (skin diseases, cancerous lesions, etc.).
Its ingestion is likely to cause aspiration pneumonia. A build-up of fuel oil vapors can irritate the respiratory tract and mucous membranes.
The lungs constantly absorb pollutants from direct or indirect contamination. Individuals are more or less sensitive to these attacks.
Some of these pollutants are called VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), organic means “which contains carbon”.
4. Effects on the environment
The problem of the combustion of oil, domestic fuel oil, diesel is linked to atmospheric pollution: microscopic particles suspended in the air enter the lungs and are responsible, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), numerous pathologies (7 million deaths in 2013 according to WHO figures).
Even the personnel responsible for delivering domestic fuel oil are exposed to fuel fumes: it is preferable to operate in very ventilated areas and avoid storing the fuel tanks in volumes close to inhabited areas.
5. Toxic fumes
The first prevention advice on fuel oil concerns toxic fumes:
- You must avoid inhaling fuel oil vapors such as diesel fuel when filling your car’s tank or tank.
- The domestic fuel oil tank must be located in a well-ventilated location: avoid garages and rooms communicating with living areas, as toxic vapors can pollute the ambient air.
- An oil tank must be tested every ten years.
6. Change energy
Tip: connect to natural gas when possible. Suppose the piped natural gas network (formerly called city gas) is present.
In that case, it is preferable to connect to it because the price of natural gas is very competitive, and the quality of combustion makes it possible to limit atmospheric pollutants to contribute to improving air quality.
It is also possible to use a wood pellet boiler, which is the cheapest fuel with logwood.
The enormous progress of pellet boilers places these devices at the level of gas generators: reliability, automation, regulation, ease of use, maintenance, upkeep, etc.