Let There Be LIght

Posted on by hollyfrostgoldportpress

A Guest Post by Orvan Taurus of https://elegantungulate.wordpress.com/

Alternative/Kerosene Lighting
Chances are a good many already know all this, but not everybody does. Also, a reminder
won’t hurt. And it’s not like I know everything, so maybe comments will provide some (pardon) enlightenment.


First, yes, electric light is superior when available. There’s no fuel that can spill, no vapors
that can explode, and the convenience of switches. Even backup, for dealing with a blackout, electric is superior at least as long as the batteries last. Add a photovoltaic (“solar”) panel and you can even recharge in daylight. Also, there won’t be the risk of a mess or fire from Fluffy or Fido or Timmy getting rambunctious and knocking a lamp or lantern over.


So why bother with anything else? There are a few possibilities. The trivial one is a desire for a particular atmosphere, much like the candlelight dinner or bath. More seriously, if you do have backup power in a blackout, especially if it’s quiet, you might not want to advertise to neighbors or passersby that you have power. Let them see the yellow of lantern flame and assume you don’t have a battery bank or a quiet generator somewhere. In the colder months, the heat they produce can be useful. It won’t be enough to heat the house, but a couple might be enough to keep a smaller room closer to livable. And a lantern can warm (not actually cook, just warm) food and drink. Warmer coffee or tea, or warm soup would be welcome if the furnace fan isn’t running.


Lamp and lantern seem to be used almost interchangeably, but a lamp is generally something set in place and left there rather than moved around and a lantern is made to be carried so it can be readily moved. Lamps can fit in as décor, Lanterns… well, the most practical have been called “barn lanterns” as they were considered more suited for use outside the outside where looks were not important.


Here’s a simple lamp:

It’s fairly obvious that this is not something practical to carry around. Its use is fairly simple, but not quite as straightforward as someone new to it might expect. To prepare for use, it is
filled to with kerosene (or Klean Heat, or an equivalent kerosene-alike).[1] The lamp is then
left for at least 20 minutes to let the fuel soak into the wick.


To light it, the glass chimney is removed and set aside. Then the wick is adjusted to have
some wick exposed just above the burner. This is lit, and the chimney put back into place.
The wick is then turned down into the burner (paradoxically, the flame will grow for a moment as this is done) until there is a low yellow flame. The lamp is left running low for several minutes to let the chimney slowly heat up. If the flame is brought high right away, there is risk of thermal shock cracking the glass. Then, after several minutes the wick can be turned up. It might be wise to do this in steps, just to be sure of slow heating. The flame will soot if it’s too high – and as things heat up the flame will grow a bit as things flow more easily. It’s best to not go for the brightest (tallest) flame, but a bit below that where the lamp can run without sooting.


To put it out, turn the wick down to get a minimal yellow flame and carefully cup a hand
behind, but NOT TOUCHING, the chimney and blow a puff across the top of the chimney. The turbulence will do the job of blowing out the low flame. Then, let the lamp cool before doing anything more with it.


If the lamp had been sooting, the chimney might need cleaning and thorough drying. Take
things slow, it is glass after all, not as thick as most drinking glasses. This is a time for hand washing, and drying, with the final drying in a drying rack or on a towel.
The flame will take the shape of the wick. That is, if the wick is cut flat, the flame will be
generally flat. If the wick is cut to a peak, the flame will have a peak. Wicks are usually cut as flat as possible or with a gentle ‘crown’ curve. Some do like the peak cut. I would say to avoid a V-cut as then the flame edges very easily become sooting peaks at surprisingly low flame.


There is a range of useful light levels. A yellow flame can be low to high. Higher is brighter, of course. It also makes for more heat and uses more fuel. It is possible to turn things very low and get a short edge of blue flame. This doesn’t provide much light as the carbon isn’t burning and incandescing. And when carbon isn’t burning in full, it’s undergoing partial combustion… which means carbon monoxide. At the low level, this isn’t very much, but it is there. At too high, there is soot and that also means incomplete combustion, and carbon monoxide. The soot is unpleasant, too. If your lamp reminds you of an older diesel, turn it down! A moderate to high yellow flame is about ideal for light production without soot or monoxide.


Lamps and lanterns come in varying wick widths. The wider the wick, the wider the flame and thus the bright the lamp or lantern. Wider wicks call for kerosene or a kerosene-alike.
Narrower wicks, and small round wicks, can use liquid paraffin but this comes at the price of brightness. The liquid paraffin will have less of an odor, but be only half as bright. The flame can only be brought about half as high before sooting.


Refueling must be done cold, and never, EVER when there is flame. Even if there is a
convenient cap so that the chimney and burner can be left in place. Why? Sure, you could
toss a lit match into a cup of kerosene (why are you doing that?) and, like with diesel, the
match would go out. But that’s liquid kerosene. That space above the liquid isn’t just air. It’s
air and kerosene vapor. The vapor can and will explode. The burner is made to keep the flame far enough away from the air-vapor mix to avoid problems. Adding fuel to running lamp or lantern means the liquid level rises. That pushes the fuel-air mix up out of the fuel reservoir and into… the flame that will set it off. BOOM!

A selection of lanterns:

These are all made by Dietz (now made in China…though “with original USA tooling” for what that’s worth). From left to right: Jupiter (#2500), Air Pilot (#8), #76, Comet (#50). Jupiter is the largest model and Comet the smallest Dietz makes. Some… more experienced… folks might recognize the Comet as what was standard for Scouting back when Scouts were still trusted with fire.

These all work the same way, with minor variation. The variation is which side the “globe lifter” lever is on, and if the burner cone rises with the globe or not. It’s not that important, all combinations work. Like with the lamps, the fuel is added to a cold lantern and given time for it to soak into the wick.

To light it, the wick is turned up just enough to be seen over the burner, the globe lifter is pressed down, moving the globe up. The wick can then be lit. A longer match or grill lighter can make this easier. The globe is lowered and the wick turned down to below the burner to get a low flame to allow the globe to slowly heat up so as to avoid thermal shock. After that, operation is similar to the lamps.

To extinguish the flame, the wick is simply turned down until the flame goes out.

All the warnings for lamps apply. NEVER refuel while burning. Take things slow and easy. Too high a flame means soot.

The advantage of this design is not just that the handle (which is NOT the ring on top) means it can be carried around or hung from a hook – which keeps it out of the way, but that the flame will not be blown out even in very windy conditions. That’s how the design got the nickname “hurricane lantern” as even severe winds wouldn’t blow out the flame. Another advantage is that if the lantern is toppled over, it goes out. You might get a mess and darkness, but that beats a fire. However, this “safety feature” is only partly true. If conditions are windy enough, even a tipped over lantern will continue to burn. I have experienced this.

Width of wick, again, determines greatest useful brightness. The Comet can put out maybe 4 candlepower, and the Jupiter up to 14.. maybe 18 if pushed.

The #76 might be the best “all rounder” with the Comet better for smaller frames and portability, the Jupiter best for the most light and heat (and burn time) at the cost of space. The Air Pilot seems a nice compromise between the #76 and the Jupiter – and being perhaps less popular, less tooling wear, and just feels a bit better than the #76. That said, if the #76 is your choice, you might wish to consider paying a few bucks more for the German-made nigh-equivalent “Baby Special” Feuerhand #276. The #276 has accessories available such as a reflector to aim more light downward, and a setup for warming (not cooking) food or beverages. I have such and water got to about 175 F and not a degree more. The globes and wicks for the Dietz #76 and Feuerhand #276 are interchangeable – though the Feuerhand globes are made of low-expansion borosilicate (less likely to crack from thermal shock) glass. There are warming plates available for other lanterns, as well. I have one for the Jupiter. Again, warming rather than cooking.

That’s the quick(?) overview for common kerosene lamps and lanterns. I’ve not covered a few things: mantle lamps, pressure lamps, a kerosene-electric (yes, really) lantern, nor butane or propane lamps or lanterns. Nor cooking oil lamps, which are older than candles.



[1] Under NO circumstance can gasoline (camp fuel, white gas) or alcohol be used – that would turn it from a lamp into a bomb – with you up close when it is lit and it will go off immediately. Despite some claims, cooking oils won’t work. They are too thick to make it up the wick in sufficiency.

97 thoughts on “Let There Be LIght”

  2. “Hurricane lamps” also used to be the lamps used aboard ship, hoisted into the rigging to tell others nearby there’s a ship there.

    Your mention of propane lamps made me think of “Primus” stoves (or Svea, another well known maker). Those are essentially gas fixtures that work by taking liquid fuel and evaporating it in the burner. When I was a kid we had Primus camp stoves, which used denatured alcohol for pre-heating and kerosene fuel. I still own a smaller Primus backpack stove I carried as a boy scout; that one is fueled by gasoline (yes, really) and is preheated by forcing a bit of that gasoline out into the preheating dish by warming the fuel tank with your hands. I don’t remember if there are lamp variants (presumably using a mantle, like propane lanterns do). Ah… Wikipedia mentions the Tilley Lamp, and that page links to several others of the same design.

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  3. After a tremendous thunderstorm, and days without electricity, I would sit at my kitchen table, and read by the light of a hurricane lamp until I went to bed. It was a unique experience, and a lesson in life.

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  4. I keep an oil/kerosene lamp (I usually use lamp oil, and that reminds me I need more) at the “FOB” in the event the electricity goes for more than a few minutes. Used to have a lantern that I picked up cheap at Wally World too; wonder if it’s still at home. If not, might hit a few antique stores around the FOB (there are a lot of ’em around here) to see what I can score.

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    1. Aye, that’s one of the mantle pressure lanterns. I have a couple kerosene pressure mantle lanterns.. I admit white gas scares me some. I have heard of alcohol pressure lanterns, but those were mainly a European thing. Even in during the times of rationing, gas petroleum was plentiful enough in the USA to not need to go that route.

      That said, I’d like to have a proper (not the “burns just long enough for the YouTube demo”) alcohol pressure/mantle lantern.

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      1. The gas-pressure lamps and their propane cousins, are very safe. Big thing is having a supply of the correct mantles, and knowing how to remove, replace, tie and burn in.

        They do put out a bit of heat, which even in warm weather, like after a hurricane, isn’t bad as it’s a dry heat, helps remove humidity.

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      2. The German BrytLyte lanterns are “burn anything” lanterns that the Germans developed during WWI – they’re pressure lanterns like the Colemans – that will safely use any flammable liquid, but the heavier paraffin oils will require a lot more frequent cleaning. They are, however, painfully expensive, but they do work well, parts are available (and pricey), and there’s a “food heating option” top-mount gizmo for them and a large diameter reflector option to direct light downward.

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        1. Having read up a bit on the history of BryteLyte and how it is now marketed and what it is… I will be staying WELL CLEAR of such. I suspect that while they can burn anything, burning some of it safely is wishful thinking. It’s one of those things that seems to work, until it blows up or such. “But it work all those time before.” Yeah, like the space shuttle…

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          1. I do not disagree; I have a couple and have never used anything but standard K-1 kerosene in them. I do know a couple people who have sucessfully used Coleman lantern fuel in BrtyLytes, and one who tried denatured alcohol with no problems, but K-1 is cheaper and more “shelf stable.”

            And, it’s not portable, but we stayed in a small vacation cabin once that had wall-mounted propane mantle lamps in the open main area and both bedrooms. The cabin was built to use propane for cooking and occasional heat, so it seemed reasonable to put a little more piping in the walls for lighting. I understand those units were originally designed for RVs and house trailers, but they worked quite well indoors if you didn’t mind the heat they generated, and a 100 gallon propane tank outside seemed to last a few years between fillings. Better than hauling little bottles or 20 lb cylinders around, anyway.

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            1. Oh yeah, kerosene is generally rather shelf-stable. But if it might be stored for seriously long times, Pri-D (advertised for long term storage of diesel) is worth a look. And yes, there is Pri-G for long term storage (5 years?) of gasoline, too.

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  6. Nice write up. Thanks

    We used a Coleman lantern with their fuel when camping (with the Scouts and just family camping) when growing up.

    For some reason we never got kerosene lanterns or lamps for power outage, even though we had a large kerosene tank to fuel the two stoves we used for heat.

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    1. We grew up with Coleman white gas stove and lanterns. Was sorry to see the 3 burner stove go to charity. By then we already had 3 of the newer Coleman stoves that use pressurized propane.

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  7. No argument and many people will have legacy traditional kerosene lamps that survive mostly as decorations.

    I’ve had better results with Tilley lamps living off grid in a cabin that could have passed for being on a sailboat for accessories. I’ve also used old carbide cap lamps for ease of use with little maintenance if little light.

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  8. I have a couple of lamps that I inherited from my mother. They came in handy when we lost power for a few days and hand to warm some milk for some animals we had in care.

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  9. Good info!

    The soot can be nearly impossible to clean off the ceiling, so do adjust carefully. I failed to do so once and the sootstain was there 20 years later despite repeated scrubbing. (Sorry, Mom….)

    The “Standard Oil” company came about by providing Kerosene that was totally free of “petroleum distilates” aka gasoline at a reasonable price. Cheap and/or crappy contaminated oil tended to cause lamp explosions, often burning down the house. Standard Oil also figured out how to burn the “waste” gasoline in useful engines around their refineries, and soon the automobile became a gasburner. They also came up with the idea of “pipeline” versus train or truck to move petroleum, further drivign down costs and reducign spills. They also saved the whales, who were hunted to near extinction mostly for lamp oil. Cheap Standard Oil kerosene saved the whales, not leftroids.

    Now, if you do want a little electric light, and have those partially charged 9-volt batteries left over from your smoke detectors, here is a neat way to get a minimalist micro-flashlight that lasts a very long time indeed: The Pak-Lite!

    https://www.9voltlight.com/

    Amounts to a two LED block the size of a six-post lego brick, that snaps onto the top of a 9v, with a low-off-high switch. I bought some of these three years ago. They are still running on the original batteries. ~1200 hours on a full 9v. Not cheap, but if you want lightweight long life light, this is it.

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    1. Those do make neat little flashlights. I have them in various rooms. They aren’t a lot of light, but enough to not trip over things and get to a better light source.

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      1. If one thinks in terms of “camping light for finding the privvy at night”, they work very well.

        I plan to acquire some red LED ones next, as above plus “..and not screw up your night vision”.

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        1. I have heard, but haven’t beel able to experimentally verify, that red lights do not protect night vision. Apparently what you need is a dim, multichromatic green light — and you know you have the brightness at the right level if you could see things, but everything seems black-and-white. This is likely good for reading, but I’m not sure if this is practical for a walking light.

          I say I haven’t experimentally verified this, but I have had a few times where the lighting I had was just right for me to try it out. By “experimentally verify”, though, I mean setting up various types of light to deliberately see how they affect night vision.

          Having said that, there’s a logical foundation to this: the rods that handle night vision can only see black-and-white, and any light bright enough to see color is bright enough to over-saturate the rods.

          I have also heard that the best light to prevent interruptions to circidian rythms is orange — the preferred military color for panels — and the worst is blue — the most popular color for civilian panels, because it gives them a “futuristic” look.

          I haven’t experimented with this, either, but when I was falling asleep in a cabin, looking at the orange glow of the wood-burning stove keeping the cabin warm … and thinking about how humans have been friends with fire for hundreds of thousands of years … the notion that orange light doesn’t interfere with our sleep cycles suddenly made a lot of sense!

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  10. Everyone in my age group knew all of this. I feel so old…

    Still have two of the three lamps that my parents had. I even know where they are – not accessible in the dark. Not that I have any kerosene around here. Accessible are the four battery powered LED lanterns. 100 Ah batteries on them, and I do have a solar charger that can do one at a time (never used it after testing; IIRC it did one battery in the morning before the clouds built up again).

    They actually last a bit longer than I recall the kerosene did. OTOH, in my small town, we did have much longer blackouts after storms than I’ve had here in Tucson.

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    1. Right there with ya. I’ve still got an old smithed lantern around somewhere, probably on a hook in the garage. Couple of kerosene lamps in the house for just in case. Just in case the phone, the headlamp, and the flashlights are borked/not found.

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  11. Blowing off steam…. Xenia, Ohio’s most heinous murderer, the railroad spike murderer, is now out of prison temporarily.

    This guy has been filing motions for all the time he’s been in prison, and he finally found a visiting judge that would listen to him.

    He wasn’t convicted on DNA evidence, see, because the county knew perfectly well that if a man kills his girlfriend, his DNA present on her body doesn’t prove much. The other DNA present was from people who found and tried to save the poor woman, so again that doesn’t prove much.

    This judge decided that because the DNA didn’t prove much, even though it hadn’t been used to convict, then none of the other evidence of the railroad spike murder mattered.

    (Btw, this guy didn’t just spike his girlfriend’s head; he also did other things to her lady parts. That’s what makes it really heinous, but it doesn’t show up on true crime shows for obvious reasons.)

    Nobody in the county is happy about this person being on the streets, because he was a dangerous criminal _before_ he committed murder, and he also does all kinds of white-collar hobby crimes.

    But yeah, crusading judges are awesome.

    https://www.whio.com/news/local/it-seems-unreal-victims-daughter-speaks-out-after-railroad-spike-murderer-released-prison/JMWBUDNDXRAAJG4HJQGYE7RMKQ/

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    1. The annoying thing is that a lot of the people who worked on the case are now dead, so hopefully the county preserved good notes on the progress of the case.

      On the bright side, all those motions and appeals by the murderer probably meant that the files were kept full and in good order.

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      1. My dad is betting that the guy doesn’t stick around for his new trial, unless he’s convinced that he’s so smart that he’ll get off and get compensated.

        But I wouldn’ t wish the guy on another state or country, either.

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    3. Sounds like that fellow needs to have a quiet, fatal, accident. I’ll let you guess which one(s) I’m talking about. Poor fellow gets drunk hand has a boating accident in the Ohio river, perhaps.

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    4. This is the kind of thing that pushes us into “the purpose of the justice system isn’t to punish criminals, but to protect criminals from the public” territorty that Glenn Reynolds likes to point out from time to time.

      I have seen people say “see, that’s why judges are on the side of criminals” — but it should be noted that when the criminal justice system fails to “protect” a criminal … it always ends with a punishment worse than getting in, or staying in prison.

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  12. I think I still have a Deitz Jupiter lantern in the shop/barn. Got it over 50 years ago…

    I have a couple of Coleman lanterns, but perhaps due to decades of disuse, they tend to be erratic in brightness. Both are in the storage shed and were tried when I was building a pumphouse. Had to cover the doorway due to weather, but the Colemans weren’t gonna do it. Waited til the next good weather morning for good old thermonuclear lighting.

    Speaking of mantles, there’s another breed of kerosene lamp, the wick and mantle variety. I had a couple of Aladdin lamps when I lived in Silicon Valley; the Orchard Supply Hardware was a dealer before they got Borged into Sears. The mantle didn’t survive the move to Oregon, and I didn’t know where to look for replacements. However, the company is still alive and sells parts through various outlets, some happy to sell online. Have to look, I might have one or both of those lanterns on hand.

    These are bright, comparable to a 75(?) watt incandescent bulb. Getting too enthusiastic with the wick will form soot on the mantle, but turning it low will (usually–there’s a limit) will cause the soot to burn off. The downside is that parts (wicks, and especially mantles) are expensive. One on-line outfit sells replacement mantles for $24.95. This is in a frame, so it’s a bit more elaborate than the Coleman mantle-inna-bag. Fitting a Coleman mantle to an Aladdin frame is left as an exercise for the student. New lamps and parts for various older models seem to be available online. The perverse can get the electrification kit…

    (Search on aladdin kerosene lamp.)

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      1. The last time I did it, I think I had considerably less arthritis and tendon issues in my hands. There’s a reason why we have battery lanterns and lots-o-flashlights on hand.

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    3. One text on non-electric lighting mentioned trying to use Coleman mantles on the Aladdin and added something like, “…as a bonus, if you are not practiced at cussing, you will be an expert by the end of this.”

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  13. Way off topic….but I just realized this and havent seen it anywhere that I recall.

    They dont hate Trump for Mean Tweets….they hate him because the tweets were truthful and created instant recognition of that truth.

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  14. I grew up with kerosene lamps. We had some when our kids were young too. Also a kerosene heater.

    For some reason my wife is terrified of propane and natural gas stoves, kerosene lamps and kerosene heaters. We never had the stoves though I did have a propane grill. Once the kids left home, the lamps and heater disappeared.

    My kids are afraid of them too.

    I do not understand it.

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    1. Well, propane and natural gas can be hazardous if mishandled, but no more so than any high-energy-content fuel. I avoided having propane appliances in our last house (natural gas wasn’t available); it had a basement and propane, unlike natural gas, is heavier than air and tends to collect at the lowest point, with a combustible mixture usually hovering at the top. We have natural gas now, which isn’t a problem in a slab home; propane would also be OK, except for the cost.

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      1. Sister & BIL have propane in their main home (stove top, grill, fireplaces, and pool/hottub, but not heat) and at their new beach (no pool/hottub) house. Not used for heat because Washington state only has public utility power (a lot less than Oregon, even the PUD’s, we had direct comparison in ’85 between WA and OR, doubt it is any better now), and is way less than natural gas or propane for house heating. They like open flame for cooking. The main house has an open basement, on 3 sides, the beach house is two story with raised foundation.

        We have natural gas for heat. Would like it for stove, but when we finally had natural gas as an option we’d just replaced the stove a couple years before. When it failed it was another $2k to run the gas line that far and retro fit. Nope.

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        1. No basement – propane OK.

          Basement – propane usable, but be careful; low Earth orbit is nice, but not if you don’t want to go there!

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        2. There’s a natural gas pipeline that passes by, but the odds of connecting $TINY_TOWN to it are slim to negative. Most heat in the house is electric, though we have a propane wood-stove-looking gas heater as backup. $SPOUSE didn’t care for the electric range, and since we had the propane, we went with a gas stove. Both of use grew up with gas ranges, and the San Jose house had gas, so it was nice going back.

          Outbuildings use propane, kerosene, wood, or electric. (And combinations of any two.) On the rare occasion that $SPOUSE uses her shop in the winter, she leaves the propane heater on its 50F setting and uses an electric heater to get comfy. (Very rare occasions; getting safer winter access is on my honey-do list.)

          The propane heater for the pumphouse went wonky and the obvious fix was expensive and didn’t work, so I use two milkhouse heaters. One is on the solar system, and the other is on the mains supply. If I get the round tuit, I’ll have another try at unscrewing the propane heater. Not sure my last guess at the issue was correct, so I have some alternatives to try. OTOH, swapping propane tanks for that building is less than fun, so propane would be a backup.

          The shop/barn uses kerosene, but the thermostat (min setting is 50F) is heated to keep the place around 38F. When I’m working, the wood stove gets started. Need coat and gloves in the morning, but it’s sweatshirt or heavy shirt after lunch. I had an unvented kerosene heater in the San Jose shop, but it caused a rust problem for the tools. No unvented heaters in that building, thank you. (Have a propane one that I’d use in the garage if I had to do emergency repairs in winter. Hasn’t happened yet. Yet!)

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          1. Sister’s new beach house the builder bought the smallish 10 gal (I think they said) tank they’ll use (I guess propane company comes out and refills?) because that was “what was done” in beach town. But the huge tank for their house is rented (definitely gets filled by propane coming out). Tank at beach house isn’t the danger the tank at their main home is. The problem is wildfire danger VS not. It is technically possible small beach town, given the mountains and forests around it, to be overwhelmed by wildfire (Longbeach, Washington, across Columbia from Astoria, Oregon). But their main home, Brush Prairie/Hockins Washington is definitely a possibility (they had a class 3 evacuation in 2023 from a fire NE of them). They’ve cleared around the house to the edges of most their property line (back 1/3 to half of the 5 acres isn’t cleared). But the “brush” on the hill above the house, closest to the garage, and the propane tank, isn’t cleared, because not their property. PTB cleared the neighborhood when they did because the fire would endanger evacuation before it endangered the neighborhood itself. One way in and one way out.

            Oh. Regarding wildfire danger. One of hubby’s golf buddies just bought his retirement home in La Pine area (didn’t say where exactly, hubby either doesn’t know or just didn’t tell me. For reference hubby’s folks retirement home was next to La Pine state park in a development.) I guess he can’t get fire insurance on it. Needs to find a specialty casualty insurance option. (Why that wasn’t part of the purchase requirement? We did when we bought our place even though we are in a town. Ability to get a loan, and ability to get fire (all) insurance, were just a couple of the contingencies listed.)

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            1. There was a fire about 10 years ago in the area. I still had my personal radio set up with the main Firecom and ODF & Tac channels, so I was listening in. At least one of the houses that was lost had a propane tank that was way too close to brush & trees. Oops.

              I’m not fond of the fact that our tank is located so if it ever exploded, one end of the tank would go through our bed. Alternate location not an option, so we keep brush away (makes note to give some weeds an introduction to Mister Pulaski).

              I’ve seen smaller tanks at the Costco in Bend that are fat upright cylinders, probably good for a hundred gallons. Our biggie is a 300 gallon, pretty much the only type I’ve seen around here. Medford might be using the smaller tanks, too. I run $SPOUSE’s shop heater with 40 or 50 pound tanks. If I get the pumphouse heater to work, I’ll stick a 25 pound BBQ tank in the propane cabinet and use it for backup heat.

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              1. Waaaaaay back, in the early-mid 1970’s there was a place that had propane… and had an old unused cylinder by the road as advertising. Remember, this was in the days of or just after Apollo.. the cylinder was on-end, with nose cone and fins. Yeah…

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              2. Yes. Sister and BIL keep brush and weeds away from both tanks. But have no control of the brush on the hill slope above them, no matter how far away it is. The main house one is set that should it blow, the house is be protected as much as possible, baring a wildfire, then it won’t matter.

                Don’t really know the sizes, other than the home one is long sideways, while the beach house is an upright version and much smaller. The main house they fill every 1 to 2 years (I think). They’ve been there 20+ years. The beach house was just completed beginning this year.

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                1. Yes, ours is one of the long ones, typically 300 gallons for residential purposes. (The town store has a rather bigger long one for retail refills.) Looks like the vertical tanks run 120 gallons.

                  We’re stuck with the orientation, since the land slopes and to be close enough to refill, it has to be in line with the bedroom. The good news is that problematic trees are long gone (previous owner kept trees right near the deck; I think he was trying to hide the house) so even a really bad fire is likely to stay well away from the tank and house.

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            2. We’re redoing our homeowners insurance (for manufactured homes, American Modern covers in fire danger areas–no idea who covers fire areas for stickbuilt houses) and the manager said that there’s been a lot of insurance companies backing away from covering in the fire areas. Your friends should talk to an independent agent in the area. Yeah, not putting the insurability requirement in the purchase agreement was a bad move.

              We used to have a lot of trees near (sometimes overlapping) the house. Took them down and the closest tree is now 30′ away. When Oregon’s SB-360 was passed, we checked and our place doesn’t fall under the law (too big a property), but we used the guidelines to make sure the place was as firesafe as practical. Which is why the barn has a decade’s worth of firewood in the shelter.

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            3. Long Beach is about halfway up the peninsula, with limited number of roads out, so technically you could isolate a bunch of people by setting a fire at the base of the peninsula. But hard to see how you get devastating wildfire on a peninsula with temperate rain forest.

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              1. It can be done, since that forest is resinous conifers and once they take fire they will keep burning.

                Once the fire squads are on it fires on Wetside tend to be more easily controlled. That reminds me, I need to check on that fire up on the peninsula (near Brinnon).

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              2. Exactly. “Technically”. Has happened in the past (series of Tillamook fires). Really difficult. Tsunami, OTOH … The house is < 1/3 mile from the beach over the low dunes. There are lots between them and the dunes. Not many.

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  16. I will note that SOME modern oil lamps are made to look quaint, not for light. One newly-mfd. model we purchased recently turned out to give less light than a good taper candle, which is ridiculous. Look in antique shops for old lamps made to actually give light.

    SPEAKING of taper candles…they give off an amazing amount of heat. I have, in the time we lived offgrid, brought liquids to a high simmer over one. (Use a rack to hold a small [half-pint] covered metal container three inches or so above the flame. Place room-temp tea in the mug and light the candle stub. Wait half an hour to forty-five minutes before scalding your tongue. Yes, the mug will soot up like crazy.)

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    1. Rub soap on the outside of the mug before putting it over the candle and the soot will come right off.

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      2. Basic “campcraft” trick. Soap the bottom of pots and pans before placing over the fire. Makes de-soot much, much easier. With damp hands, rub a bar of ordinary bar soap. (Ivory is good). Smear on the bottoms and sides of pots and pans. Wash hands and get to cooking.

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  17. Good, informative post; thanks! We always had decorative hurricane oil lamps (small, but useful for at least some light in our frequent winter power outages). And I still have a couple of cheap kerosene lanterns, plus a Coleman-fuel pressure lantern and catalytic heater left over from our now-defunct camping days (the latter of which will probably never again be used; I live just south of Phoenix 😉).

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    1. The Reader notes that making candles is far beyond the skill set of the typical socialist.

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  19. I’ve seen that “joke” many times, but this post contains some useful background history that has not gotten out-dated since it was written. If anything, it has been confirmed. The most current counter-example, after Trump 1.0, would be Milei in Argentina.

    https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-truth-about-socialism-it-doesnt-care-about-the-middle-class-its-about

    “Socialism has little regard for the middle class. It’s all about securing and maintaining power for the ruling class.”

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  21. I have a couple of lamps, but I’ve always run them on lamp oil. (I suppose I could also run them on the tiki torch fuel, but that has citronella in it). But if they have the flat wick, I suppose they could run on Kero too. One particularly long blackout, I used one to heat a pyrex bowl full of clam chowder.

    I grew up with the Coleman stuff, and I wish I could have gotten my Dad’s old stoves, since they were made a much sturdier metal than the current generation. We also had single and double mantle lanterns, and the gas heater that I think he never figured out how to properly use.

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    1. As far as I know, lamp oil is essentially #1 kerosene with optional scenting. Dad had a Coleman catalytic heater, originally for the tent, but it moved to the tent trailer when we bought one. After Dad died, the camping gear went elsewhere, some sold, some to family.

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        1. It is. It often says so on the label. And if it claims “odorless” it’s paraffin. I’ve used one lamp oil that was claimed to be kosher (I had no idea kosher was an issue for lamp fuels) and once I had it burning and stepped away for a bit. When I go back I was hit the smell of the ‘odorless’ fuel. It had that smell of just blown out candle, only milder.

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          1. Sits corrected. Looks like lamp oil is more heavily refined and is suitable for indoor use. OTOH, 1K kerosene is used for indoor (unvented–not any more) heaters. My Toyostove uses red, high sulfur kerosene, but that’s well vented. The odor is similar to what assaults the nose in some airports.

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            1. I’ve used the Kleanstrip version of 1K and wow it was eye-searingly nasty. The kerosene I got from the “gas” pump was almost infinitely more pleasant. I have two huge jugs of the stuff… that I use in the pressure lanterns where it is sealed when not in use, and burned to a fair-thee-well when in use. I have zero intention of ever buying that crap again.

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              1. Sold the kerosene heater before we moved to Oregon. It smelled, but wasn’t that nasty. I wonder if somebody “improved” the specs.

                The former owner left a gallon of the stuff behind. Not sure if it’s gone or lurking on a shelf. If I find it, I’ll have to find a use for it. Cleaning parts, most likely. Haven’t used liquid fire starting fluid in 10 years.

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              1. This. For a close friend, I turned a pair of olivewood bases that hold small “confetti light” oil lamp inserts. She uses the kosher paraffin oil in them. They burn about 2.5 hours – perfect for the evening. No odor that I was ever aware of. 

                Liked by 1 person

  22. It’s not the fire they don’t trust Scouts with. It’s the glass. For real, the number of lanterns that have gotten smashed on accident when I’ve been on camping trips is probably why they’ve moved to electric—that and the fact that you can get some pretty powerful electric lights these days, far superior to the sad dim flashlights I grew up with.

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  23. When I was growing up my Mom sort of collected kerosene lamps, and candle sticks, but since she grew up at the end of the depression it makes sense now. When we moved out to the farm my sophomore year she gave away at least 20 or 30 of them, but we still had at least 20 or so left, they came in really handy our second winter out there, had a big ice storm and lost power for almost 2 weeks.

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  24. Coleman lanterns in scouts, parents used natural gas lanterns for camping. I could not find any pictures online so I guess that model is defunct, you used to screw the lantern into a sealed gas canister and just buy replacements and It had a cloth mantle that would occasionally shatter into ash. But very bright light, 100 watts+ equivalent.

    Sad to hear scouts are no longer trusted with fire/glass.

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      1. I stopped visiting REI Coop after they got shirty over Vista Outdoors, (How dare a corporation support hunters and shooters? Sniff!) but I recall seeing another make of lamp. As best as I can recall, it was Primus, and it used their (proprietary) fuel canisters.

        All of my camping stoves and one of $SPOUSE’s are liquid fueled, two of which are Svea/Optimus (same burner, different tank configuration). Also have a Coleman multifuel one, but getting it to run on kerosene requires starting fluid or tablets. Nope. $SPOUSE got rid of her multi-burner Coleman in favor of a propane one. We have a supply of the 1 pound tanks, and I picked up the adapter so I can run a 20 pound (or larger) tank.

        My old Coleman stove served to melt lead alloys for cast bullets years ago. Wasn’t going to get rid of the lead bits and the grill was warped, so I had to get rid of it. Still had some fuel in the tank, and it burned well after 25 years of neglect. Impressive setup.

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      2. I’ve seen a similar one for propane tanks, though the one my parents have has a taller… neck? It put the illumination about 4 feet off the ground at any rate.

        We used it for light on the building pad the summer that we poured the foundation – it was too hot to work during the day so we were getting up at 4 am to do stuff before it got hot.

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  25. I just saw a few minutes of the Democrat convention (on Fox, of course) and I don’t get why they’re whipping themselves up into such a frenzy over a one-horse race. They shot the other horse, the result is now predetermined, and the only question is how long it will take the nag to stumble across the finish line. ‘Tis much ado about nothing.

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  26. Definitely a go-to summary of lamps and lanterns for the not-so-very familiar — good enough it’s pretty hard to add much.

    Candles deserve a mention, but unless you have a chimney for the candlestick (uncommon but they do exist), they’re really sensitive to drafts, even compared to a simple lamp. The problem isn’t only the flicker, it’s the sooty smoke-trail if the flame ever wavers badly.

    The “warming with a lamp” does work very well. This can be done as simply as borrowing an oven rack, propped up very sturdily bridging over the top of the chimney (need ceramic or metal pots or plates for this). We even got a little “sizzle” once after a few minutes.

    Maybe someday there will be a small thermoelectric generator to go in the top of a chimney, too — even 5 W output could make a 1 A USB charger. (Solar is easier, yes; but try that in an ice storm or a tropical storm, two major causes of serious power outage.)

    “Lamplight Farms” used to be a decent and widely available line of oil lamps, with lots of extra “goodies” like wicks and spare burners and chimneys, but they’re not so common in stores anymore. Does anyone know of an equivalent/better brand, today?

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    2. They are around, but now it’s likely going to be a matter of ordering via Amazon or Walmart. There is also W. T. Kirkman ( https://lanternnet.com ) that sells their own stuff (generally quite expensive), Dietz, and sometimes Lamplight. They do have a glass chimney candle lantern – I have one. I wound up drilling a few tiny holes in the base for air intake to suppress flickering.

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  27. And here is where ancient tech, as taught to me by my father, can be made better.

    All gas/kerosene/propane lamps (and lots of electric camp lamps) can be made far better by using reflectors.

    For downward light, like over a table area, a disposable aluminum pie pan, cut to fit over the top and the bail (the wire handle) will reflect a lot of light downwards, an amazing amount of light. We used to use this technique when shrimping or night fishing off of a local bridge back in the day. Dad learned to do this growing up in SW Louisiana during the Depression and War Years.

    Same thing for a lamp that is against the wall. All that light going towards the wall is wasted. Looks nice but… A reflector, like a disposable aluminum casserole pan or even some foil over cardboard, will increase the usable amount of light. And reflect the heat into the room.

    Always fuel during daytime and outside when possible.

    One of those old-school Coleman fuel funnels with the wire strainers to block trash is excellent for refueling.

    And if you are using a wick lamp, have a designated pair of scissors just for trimming, as the lamp black will stick to everything.

    It’s very much worth learning this ‘lost art,’ as it is both useful and kind of fun to use the old ways.

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      1. The $5.00 hanging-on-card-strip ‘kitchen scissors’ are ideal. Basically poultry shears but you can’t take them apart. Cheap, but good enough to cut most fabrics quite well.

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    2. Mirrored sconces. When I find them at thrift stores I grab them, especially if they’re the big clunky kind meant to hold a fat pillar candle on a shelf. You can put your lamp on the shelf and voila, mirrored reflector.

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  28. grew up using those old “oil” lamps, we actually used to burn diesel fuel in them at the cabins, but at the house we always had kerosene, i have a bunch of different ones now many years later, at the moment they all have lamp oil in them. They work quite well, my favorites are my big deitz lamps, really nice and can take them outside to light things up. well worth having around, light can be a huge psychological issue. Being depressed at the end o the world because you are in the dark would sure be a bummer!

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      1. You can’t really blame Lee Valley. They try. But everything is made in China. Even Harley Davidson.

        Which is okay with me, can’t stand Harleys. I got a Beemer. ~:D

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