I was in a gas station which had an orange pump to go with the regular gas pumps and the yellow diesel fuel pump. Upon inspection, it turned out to be kerosene (for about a dime a gallon more than diesel). I also noted that it had a notice on the side of it apologizing for the short hose, and explaining that they would have to charge road tax if they provided a long hose. Sure enough, the hose was about 3 feet long.
What is this intended for?
For people to fill containers for kerosene heaters? This is Cupertino, CA. A fairly affluent area, and one which can get chilly sometimes, but not downright cold. Not kerosene space heater country. And I don’t recall seeing kerosene pumps at gas stations when I lived in colder parts of the country where space heaters were popular (and a safety hazard).
According to Car Talk, adding kerosene to your diesel fuel will help in starting on a cold morning. Then again, if you don’t live in a cold climate, this probably doesn’t apply.
Kerosene is added to diesal for cold starting but nowadays there are diesal additives on the market that work almost as well. We used to use it quite a bit during the winter with our tractors but now that the additives, and the tractors, tend to work just as well in the cold we don’t bother adding too much kerosene to the mix. There were tractors that could run on pure kerosene and my guess is you could force a road-going diesal to use kerosene as the primary fuel if it were cheaper than diesal which would explain why they don’t want longer hoses on the pumps (since the kerosene doesn’t include road taxes). Note WAG in previous sentence.
In my college days, I worked in construction as a trim carpenter. In the winter, an unfinished house gets extremely cold, even in Texas, since it has a roof already and cold concrete floors. So we had a couple of those kerosone heaters that look like jet engines, and brother, can those put out some heat. When it was time to refill the tank, I would just take it to one of those stations that sells kerosene and fill it up. I never noticed a short hose (this was 20 years ago, so maybe the law didn’t exist yet).
There are many uses for these kerosene heaters. That’s why they have it available for non-vehicle use.
I have a boat with a diesel auxiliary and have never heard about adding kerosene but I have heard about adding a small amount of gasoline for better starting in cold weather. I have never done it though. I just spray a bit of starting fluid into the intake and it starts right away.
I do not quite understand why… Starter fluid is sold especifically for this purpose: you spray a bit into the intake and it helps the first few ignitions.
Also, I do not think a small amount of gasoline added to the diesel fuel can hurt. It just raises the percentage of more volatile compounds that ignite easier. The only thing about this is that it is added to all the fuel, not just to start.
I do not think any of the two things is dangerous at all.