Kerosene's Rising Sun

By John S. DeMott

A sizzling way to beat high home-heating costs

Fed up with heating oil costs that ran to $1,000 a season even in relatively temperate Virginia, Betsy and Bob Smith of Richmond last fall invested $220 in a portable kerosene heater. From the day they turned it on in their split-level home, their average oil consumption for central heating began plunging, down to 77 gal., vs. 180 to 200 normally. Says Betsy: "It's working like a dream. It has half paid for itself already."

The Smiths do not regard themselves as members of an elite alternate-energy fraternity, as do many users of airtight wood stoves and expensive solar heating systems. But they are joining a new energy movement. Roughly 3 million Americans will be turning on kerosene heaters in their houses this winter. By 1985, 8 million to 10 million U.S. households are expected to own kerosene heaters to keep cold out and heating bills down. The new machines do not replace central heating but are used as space heaters to warm up just one or two rooms.

Distilled mainly from oil but refined also from coal, kerosene was widely used for lighting and to some extent for cooking and heating in 19th century America. It lost favor as a way to heat homes with the spread of natural gas, oil heat and rural electrification in the 1950s. To Americans in their 40s and 50s, the smell of kerosene still stirs Depression-era memories of farmhouse living rooms with linoleum-covered floors and bulky kerosene heaters from Sears or Montgomery Ward in the corner.

Kerosene heaters are now among the fastest selling appliances in the U.S. Prices range from about $170 to $300 and up to $800 for very large models. With the heating season half over, the Houst & Son hardware store in Woodstock, N.Y., is sold out, and the manager has been told by his supplier that no more units will be forthcoming before spring. In Chicago, Kim Keebler, manager of Littman Bros., an energy store, says, "We can't keep them in stock. Once we get them in, they're gone within days."

Feeding the market are breathtakingly high central-heating bills. The price of heating oil has gone up more than 100% since 1979, and the cost of natural gas more than 40%. Although homeowners have been putting in new insulation, more efficient furnaces and caulking around doors and windows, fuel bills keep going up.

The new heaters are a far cry from the smelly potburners of old. Low-slung and liftable, they burn kerosene with near perfect efficiency, meaning that nearly all their fuel is converted to heat. An average-size heater putting out enough heat for a medium-size room on a moderately cold day will run for 19 hrs. on about $2 worth of kerosene.

The heaters stand free with no flue, although ventilation through an open door or window is recommended. They produce hardly any odor, although new out-of-the-box heaters generate a slight smell of oil and paint that their makers claim disappears after the first tankful of fuel is used up. All models have automatic shutoff devices to guard against fire if they are jarred or tipped over.

The new heaters are another import from Japan. The Japanese developed the high-tech models in the 1950s to replace hazardous charcoal braziers that were used in 19 million Japanese homes for heating as well as cooking. Most of the machines are made by seven companies, including Matsushita Electric, Toshiba and Hitachi, and sold in the U.S. by eleven distributing companies.

Both the Americans and the Japanese were slow to recognize the potential of the U.S. market. The Japanese briefly considered a heavy sales effort but abandoned the idea. It was felt that America's central-heating mentality would not accept them. The man who brought the heaters to the U.S. was William Litwin, 51, a former Pan Am pilot and president and founder of Kero-Sun in Kent, Conn., the largest U.S. seller of kerosene heaters (1981 revenues: about $100 million). In 1975, while on a trip to his native California, Litwin saw his first kerosene heater on a cousin's cabin cruiser. Impressed, he went to Japan to see the manufacturer, Toyotomi, and persuaded the firm to provide him with 200 heaters for a trial sale. He already ran a wood-stove shop in Kent. His wife Marcia came up with the name Kero-Sun.

Rising energy costs and Kero-Sun came together at precisely the right time. By the end of 1976, its first year, Kero-Sun had sold 6,000 heaters. Last year it imported 830,000. Litwin says that this year 1.5 million units in the nine Kero-Sun models will flow out of the company's four warehouses around the U.S. The company has 57 distributors and 10,000 retail outlets in the U.S.

Litwin now has a gaggle of competitors, all importing Japanese heaters. Some of the names: Aladdin, Radiant King and Turco. One of the main problems faced by Litwin and the other importers has been to convince municipalities and state legislatures that the machines are safe, unlike the models of the '30s and '40s. The companies have been largely successful. At the end of 1980, ten states had bans against kerosene heaters. Now only four do. Underwriters' Laboratories, which tests consumer products for safety, has given most of the heaters its approval.

The dangers with the heaters are not so much with the devices but with their incorrect use. If operated for long periods in rooms with no ventilation, asphyxiation can result from carbon-monoxide poisoning. Use of gasoline instead of kerosene can cause explosions. Kerosene advocates point out that if instructions are followed, the heaters are no less safe than toasters or power tools. Moreover, they say, in Tokyo, where 90% of the houses have kerosene heaters, there occur only some 7,000 fires a year. In New York City, with hardly any kerosene heaters, there are 128,000 fires.

--By John S. DeMott. Reported by Anna Constable/Atlanta and Robert T. Grieves/Kent

With reporting by Anne Constable, Robert T. Grieves

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