Hi, Sheila.
I had a Seaward Hillerange kerosene stove on my previous boat, an A28 #200. It had a small tank in the starboard cockpit locker which had to be pressurised with a bicycle pump. Fill the tank not more that 3/4 full. You have to leave some air space above the kerosene so that the tank can be pressurised. The tank must be pressurised in order for the stove to work. I found the stove was easy to use and burned very cleanly if you followed the proper lighting instructions.
When lighting the stove you need to put a couple of ounces of alcohol in the bowl underneath the burner. Light the alcohol but leave the kerosene burner turned off. The alcohol should burn for at least a minute. Once the alcohol has almost completely burned it will have heated the kerosene burner. You can then open the kerosene burner control valve and get a blue flame similar to a gas stove. Opening the kerosene burner must be done before the alcohol completely burns out. If you prefer not to use alcohol, you can always use a gel fuel like Sterno. Make sure it is placed below the burner and not on it.
The operation of the burners are such that the kerosene is vapourized by the initial heat of the alcohol and then continues to be vapourized by the heat of the kerosene burner itself. If you get liquid kerosene coming through the burner you have not heated it sufficiently before turning on the burner. If you are getting flare-ups, pulses or blow-outs, it's probably that has not been heated sufficiently, or you have low pressure on the kerosene tank
.
The only problem I had with the unit was that is was necessary to use good quality, clean, low sulfur kerosene, otherwise the burners would plug with soot. I also had problems with the stem packings for the burner controls leaking. Once the original parts were replaced in the unit and I learned how to light it properly, the unit ran quite well with lots of heat. The unit is easy to service.
I got my parts from A & H as well. This was back in June of '95. I don't think you could find nicer people to deal with. No playing telephone tag or hassles when buying parts. They mailed the parts to me with an invoice and said If by chance the parts were wrong just mail them back to them. If the parts were correct, just mail them a cheque. I was surprised that they didn't want any credit card numbers, minimum billings or all the other stuff you have to go through to get small items. I would highly recommend them to anyone.
I was checking my boat files and I still have the part numbers and service instructions which A & H had provided me. If you would like I can copy them and mail them to you. I will send a copy to Keith for the website as soon as I get a few minutes.
Regards
Perry & Gloria Basden
Windsor, Ontario
A34 #233 s/v Alohalani
