Wiktionary
n. A petroleum product used as fuel in a heating system, that does not require preheating for use.
WordNet
n. a petroleum product used for fuel [syn: fuel oil]
Wikipedia
Heating oil, or oil heat, is a low viscosity, liquid petroleum product used as a fuel oil for furnaces or boilers in buildings. Home heating oil is often abbreviated as HHO.
Heating oil consists of a mixture of petroleum-derived hydrocarbons in the 14- to 20-carbon atom range that condense between during oil refining. Heating oil condenses at a lower temperature than petroleum jelly, bitumen, candle wax, and lubricating oil, but at a higher temperature than kerosene, which condenses between . The heavy (C20+) hydrocarbons condense between .
Heating oil produces and weighs 8.2 pounds per US gallon (0.95 kg/l). Number 2 fuel oil has a flash point of .
Most heating oil products are chemically very similar to diesel fuel used as motor fuel. (Often the same distillation batch could be used for either purpose.) This means that the two can often be successfully interchanged at the point of use. However, the taxation of the two differs in many places, with heating oil being taxed less than motor fuel. This creates an incentive to buy heating oil at a lower price and then use it as motor fuel, avoiding the fuel tax. To make enforcement possible, some visual difference or odor difference must be introduced to the oil. Therefore, red dyes are usually added, resulting in the "red diesel" name in countries like the United Kingdom. In the U.S. the fuel oil dyed red is not taxed for highway use; the dye makes it easy to identify its use in on-road vehicles (whereas diesel fuel sold for motor fuel use is usually green). Since 2002, Solvent Yellow 124 has been added as a "Euromarker" in the European Union.
Heating oil is commonly delivered by tank truck to residential, commercial and municipal buildings and stored in above-ground storage tanks ("ASTs") located in the basements, garages, or outside adjacent to the building. It is sometimes stored in underground storage tanks (or "USTs") but less often than ASTs. ASTs are used for smaller installations due to the lower cost factor. Heating oil is less commonly used as an industrial fuel or for power generation.
Leaks from tanks and piping are an environmental concern. Various federal and state regulations are in place regarding the proper transportation, storage and burning of heating oil, which is classified as a hazardous material (HazMat) by federal regulators.
Usage examples of "heating oil".
In addition to petroleum diesel in these farm grade tanks, some isolated farms and homes outside of town use heating oil #2 in oil furnaces.
The power grid is still down, and in the north-central states the emergency distribution system of heating oil isn't working as it's supposed to.
But as the years went by, as inflation ballooned and the price of heating oil and wages rose, it became more and more difficult to find anyone to help in the house and garden.
Like three months into this icy winter, we had yet to buy a gallon of heating oil.
There were a thousand gallons of heating oil in those tanks and as Sir Giles knew they had recently been filled.
Yes, a thousand gallons of heating oil would certainly do the trick.
Then he was beyond the fallout zone, still running, the blood beating in his head as if his very brain had been sprayed with #2 heating oil and then set ablaze.
Only several years ago, utilities to most major naval installations had been terminated in Ukraine when Russia failed to pay for heating oil.
No wonder people stopped using coal the minute gas or heating oil became available.