Mixed diesel & petrol in central heating boiler ?

bonzodog2

A friend who has a garage has a quantity of mixed petrol and diesel, from foolish/unlucky people who have put the wrong fuel in their cars. I dont know the proportion of petrol to diesel (maybe this could be estimated from the specific gravity ?)
I want to know if I'm likely to burn the shed down if I try to run the central heating boiler on this mixture - or might it run too hot or explode etc.

2 stroke

Don't know for sure about central heating safety though I have done it myself.
If its mostly diesel you can run a diesel car on it. If its mostly petrol try 10% mix with diesel in deisel car. I have driven 200 miles on a 20% mix once with no problems. I was worried that engine might not start when cold so I topped up the tank with diesel 5 miles before reaching my destination.

stapeler

You're right, it would probably burn the place down depending on mix. Or possibly put a bigh hole in your boiler....I'm sure you could add more diesel to it and run it in a car/tractor without a problem.

JamesM

Don't even think of it :eek:
You are looking for an explosion in a car engine - you are just burning the oil in a central heating burner. I have never heard of anyone doing it, so I am not exactly sure of the result, but I've seen some bangs when diesel vapour ignites - I would hate to see it, if there was petrol in there as well.
Even if it was safe, the burner would have to be re-adjusted each time the mix changed.
Jim.

2 stroke

Explosions happen all the time in car engines, it's what makes them go.
If the petrol ratio is too high the engine should refuse to start/run. Petrol needs a spark to ignite. The compression in a diesel engine dosn't raise enough heat to cause self combustion in petrol therefore spark plugs in petrol engines. Diesel on the other hand selfcombusts at relativly low temperature. Components in a diesel engine are heavier and stronger than in petrol engines as diesel actualy produces more of a punch than petrol.

JamesM

2 Stroke, I am not quite sure what you are getting at
I am very familliar with car engines - also with oil burners.
You do not want an EXPLOSION when dealing with oil burners and boilers - so you do not use petrol. You can however mix diesel and kerosene. Any change to the fuel mix will probably necessitate readjusment of the fuel / air mixture.
Jim.

2 stroke

James, I think I read your post wrong. I thought you meant that a diesel engine would explode if you put petrol in it.
I definitly would not recomend mixing petrol for an oil burner even though I have done it in the past. For one thing I doubt household insurance would cover any accidents as a result, probably consider it reckless behavour.