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KEROSENE COOKERS or STOVES

In an ideal world, everyone would have a kerosene stove.  I consider a kerosene kitchen stove to be central to the concept of being self-reliant.  Every year the electric power goes out for almost everyone during storms or hurricanes.  Without the ability to cook and heat a home, many people evacuate to a motel - and spend more per day than the cost of a kerosene stove!   Absurd, but it happens almost every day somewhere in the country.  And what about a manufactured event, like the avian flu?  Government plans already on the books call for people to be quarantined in their homes.  Smart people will want to self-quarantine to avoid unnecessary exposure to pathogens.  But what is to stop terrorists from then knocking down an electric transmission tower in a remote area?  Given that the electrical grid is tied together, an entire region would lose power.  And who would break quarantine to fix that problem?  Without a kerosene stove for cooking and a little heat, millions of people could suffer terribly.  Many would be forced to go to a shelter, a crowded shelter, and thereby almost ensure they would catch what the least resistant person in the shelter was spreading about.  No thanks.

At right is a photo of my kerosene stove kitchen circa 1998.  On the left edge you can barely see my Butterfly #2418 double burner. Under the cooking stand in the middle is a Butterfly #2628.  The right hand stove is an Alpaca, long since replaced by a more efficient Butterfly stove.

Generally speaking, there are two types of kerosene stoves - the wick type and the the pressure stove.  Wick stove can be either multiple small wicks, a single wick standing on its edge (gravity flow Butterfly design), or take a standard heater-type circular wick.  I have purchased and used most of them, including with the Korean made Alpaca, the Indonesian made Butterfly (models 2457, 2628, 2413 and 2418), and various pressure stoves such as the Butterfly #2412.   At one time I even imported Premier stoves from India to supply the North American market, so I have had a lot of experience with kerosene stoves.

WICK STOVES

The Butterfly #2413, #2416, #2417 and #2418 models are extremely unique, using a sturdy wick standing on it's edge, with gravity flow from a glass reservoir flowing through a simple cone shaped shut off valve to control the amount of fuel flowing to the wick.  These are the same style of stoves in widespread use in rural American before WW II, then called "wickless" stoves.  Wicks last years, but you should have spares. The Butterfly multi-strand stoves use what is essentially a cotton mop strand as a wick, the number of wicks being used depending on the heat output.  When the top of the wicks becomes cakes with carbon, it is easy to pull them up a little, snip off the top edge with scissors, and you have a brand new burning surface. 

For more information, see Butterfly #2418 Operating Instructions.

WHICH STOVES DO I USE?

For the past eight years I have had a #2418 double burner set up on a sun porch, all ready to use when the electricity goes out.   I have had a #2457 for many years, as it holds the #2421 Butterfly oven perfectly.  That leaves me with two burners on the #2418 for cooking meals, while the single burner #2457 is off to one side, busy baking bread.   I gave my mother a #2418 single burner about 8 years ago, and she still has it and uses it whenever the electricity goes out.  I gave my daughter-in-law a Butterfly #2628 about seven years ago, and she has used it whenever the electricity is out.  I gave them those stoves because they are reliable and will work perfectly even when pulled out of long-term storage during an emergency.

My newest stoves are the Butterfly #2487, 16 wick stove (right), and the Butterfly #2698, 22 wick stove (far right).  The #2487 is a good compromise stove and easy to light. The #2698 is by far the best stove I have ever used for heavy duty canning and baking, boiling water, etc, as it produces 14,000 BTU/hr.  The #2698 is strong enough to easily hold a waterbath canner!

Butterfly #2487

Butterfly #2698

Reviews of all of these stoves are at the links below.

Now, a complete off-the-grid Family Preparedness Emergency kit!

John at St. Paul Mercantile asked me to recommend what should be included in an actual working Family Emergency Kit.  I chose those items I have actually used for at least a decade and know to work well in emergencies. I had to hunt long and hard to find those items years ago, and now they are available in one nice package at far less cost than buying them individually.  (Continues below)

   Click on photo to enlarge.

St. Paul Mercantile is now offering a Family Emergency Kit with everything you need to cook, bake, light your home, listen to the radio, and produce clean drinking water. The kit includes 1) a #2418 Double Burner Stove, extra fuel bottle and 8 extra wicks, 2) a #2412 Brass Pressure Stove that is small and compact so you can quickly pack it if you need to leave your home suddenly, 3) a #2421 Oven that you can use on your double-burner stove to bake bread and meals, 4) a #828 Pressure Lantern with spare glass globe and a dozen extra mantles, 5) 3 "railroad" type lanterns for reading or lighting a table, 6)an emergency AM/FM/Shortwave radio that also picks up weather and emergency bands, plus it can be powered by AC, batteries, solar power, or crank power, 7) an incredible fuel filter funnel; 8) a hand crank LED flashlight, and (9) an Aqua Cera water filter to remove bacteria from virtually any water source to make safe drinking water.

The first item required is a good, reliable everyday kitchen stove.  That would be the #2418 double burner stove.  See the photo at the top of this page?  On the left side you can see the edge of my #2418 double burner stove, and that photo was taken nine years ago. My review and operating instructions are here.  The second item needed was a good portable, any-fuel stove - the Butterfly #2412.  More info here.  Third, frying isn't enough, because the staff of life - bread - requires baking.  The double-walled #2421 Butterfly Oven is the answer. More info here.  The fourth item required is lighting. The Butterfly #828 rapid start lantern was designed to illuminate a field kitchen with any fuel available anywhere in the world, so it will easily light up a room as well as electric lights.  More here.  Walking around in the dark is not too swift, and railroad lanterns are safe and very fuel efficient.  The items above use fuel, and fuel found in an emergency can be contaminated.  Hence, the fantastic filter funnel listed above. I was thrilled when I found that funnel 8 years ago!   Communications are important so you know what is going on in the world.  The AM/FM/SW radio in the kit can be stored for years, then work when you need it on either solar power or winding the crank for a few minutes to charge the internal batteries.  And finally, a proven reliable water filter completes the kit, as safe drinking water is imperative.

All kerosene cookers and heaters will smoke and smell a little when first lighted, as the burner unit needs to heat up to provide maximum efficient. Just open some windows for a few minutes and the air clears quickly. Likewise, when you turn off the unit, it smells a tad bit, and opened windows solve that problem. DO NOT blow out a kerosene cooker when you are through using it: turn down the wick and let it burn out by itself, which takes a few minutes. The burner unit contains unburned hydrocarbons (kerosene), and if it cools down naturally it burns them up with few fumes.   For more information on fuels used in kerosene stoves, read my kerosene fuel primer.

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Kerosene pressure stoves such as the Butterfly #2412 share common features with gasoline torches of old -- the generator is preheated by burning alcohol in a cup, then the stove is lit.  Unlike the silent operation of a wick type stove, the pressure stoves do produce quite a bit of noise when in use. Except for the pressure pump, pressure stoves have no moving parts, are made of solid brass for years of service, and will burn virtually anything that pours -- but only kerosene or Low Odor Mineral Spirits should be used indoors because they produce almost no carbon monoxide. The only "problem" with pressure stoves is keeping the jet clean, but if the fuel tank is rinsed out once a year and only filtered fuel used, that usually isn't a problem. Besides, they come with jet picks or cleaners.

 

For emergency use, a kerosene pressure stove has some advantages. The Butterfly #2412 has the unique advantage of being a "take apart" design - even the fuel tank has a cap which is stored on the pump handle, making the Butterfly #2412 a fantastic stove for emergency use if traveling.   I know one fellow who used a Butterfly #2412 on his sail boat for over a decade without any problem...he chose this stove because it would burn any fuel he was likely to encounter anywhere.  I keep one stored in my motor home at all times.  For daily use, however, I prefer the silent Butterfly wick stoves, as any pressure appliance is going to make noise in use.

Setting Up A Butterfly Stove includes instructions that apply only to multi wick stoves such as the Butterfly #2457 and #2628, not the gravity flow Butterfly stoves such as the #2413 and #2418.

VERY UNIQUE

Special and unique Instruction Manual for 1927 Ward's Windsor Kerosene range, courtesy of Farmerik.  This is a 5.86 MB .pdf download!

BUILD A SUPPORT STAND FOR YOUR STOVE

None of the kerosene stoves are sturdy enough, in my opinion, to support heavy loads like a full pressure cooker or water bath canner.  What portable stove by any manufacturer is designed to hold a 16" wide pot weighing over 35 pounds?  That large a canner would not even fit on a Coleman gas stove!   It is relatively easy to build a cooking stand for a single burner stove to support any size or weight of pot or pan. The double burner Butterfly #2418 is an exception -- it is intended for daily use for years with normal size pots and pans, but is a large stove and quite sturdy when assembled properly.

This is really basic, straightforward building, like an erector set from years gone by, and requires few tools. A properly maintained kerosene cooker with a strong support stand to relieve it of any strain should last for decades of constant use.

 

USING A KEROSENE COOKER AS A HEATER

Kerosene cookers can be used as an emergency heat source. I have used the Alpaca, Butterfly, Premier Sr. and Swastik stoves as heaters in my greenhouse on extremely cold winter days. And yes, I have used them in the house for heating as well. The burner unit on a cooker lacks a flame plate on top, as do kerosene heaters: the flame is designed to impact a solid surface directly at the cooking surface. I use an 8" x 8" x 3 5/8" concrete block (or a round steel plate) on top of the units when using them for heating. The flame is adjusted to a bright blue, with no yellow showing, and the concrete block acts as a heat sink, moderating and dissipating the heat. Don't laugh -- it works.

The Alpaca needs to be burned at nearly maximum heat output, however, or the fiberglass wick will foul with tar balls and burn poorly. In fact, I've had them literally go out when used for extended periods of time as heaters because of tar ball buildup on the wicks. Then the tar balls need to be crunched with a pair of smooth, paddle bladed pliers just so the wick can retract!  I don't like the Alpaca....  With a multi-wick stove like the Butterfly, you can simply snip off the top of the wicks, pull them up a little, and have a fresh surface to burn. You don't do that with an expensive Alpaca wick! 

Butterfly #2457 on left with a concrete  block.

Butterfly #2628 in center holding a 1/4" steel plate.

Alpaca on right heating a diffuser plate.

It would be a mistake to think that any kerosene stove can equal the efficiency of a "pure" kerosene heater for heating, as they cannot do so, period. But they do provide heat and can be used for that purpose in an emergency. Let us assume that the electric power is out, it is winter, and you do not want to attract attention to yourself by using a wood stove and putting up smoke signals, and you have a kerosene cooker. At a maximum of 8,500 BTU output, the cooker is not going to heat an entire home, but it will heat a large room well enough to keep it comfortable. I would not recommend sleeping with a cooker going simply because they are not as safe and efficient as a heater, but if the choice is freezing to death, well....be very careful, have the stove well away from any bedding, curtains or combustible materials, on a firm base (not sitting on a rug), etc.

There is, in fact, a safer way to use a kerosene cook stove as a heater, and that involved the use of a drip pan or spill tray under the stove.  All kerosene heaters have a drip pan, so it only makes sense to extend that safety factor to kerosene stoves. Blitz makes an 11 inch wide galvanized metal "Pet Food Tray" with a 2" raised lip which is perfect for use under a kerosene stove. Wal Mart sells them for less than $4.00, which is very inexpensive insurance.

As with any appliance that uses oxygen in the process of combustion, be sure to have several windows cracked an inch or so to provide adequate ventilation.

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