I learn From My Mistakes

[JohnyMac]

This past Tuesday our electric went out at about 1230 hrs. eastern. I flipped a few switches and my new solar system kicked in. Our freezers and Rinnai instant water heater just hummed along with no issues. Our fresh water is on a separate solar system so of course that was running also.

By 1530 hrs. the electric had not kicked back on so I dragged out my Aladdin lamps.

I lite the first one and even though it was full of kerosene, the wick would not catch a match. I felt the wick and it was bone dry. Yupper bone dry.

To get the wick to take a match, I had to pour a small amount of kerosene on the wick and let it stand awhile. This was the case with all of my full Aladdin lamps. In some of the lamps they needed more than one application of kerosene before they would take a match.

I would not think in a million years that this would happen however, it happened with each of my lamps.

Options are,

> To lite each of my lamps once a quarter, or
> Keep a small bottle of kerosene handy with a eye dropper and understand that before I have to lite my lamps I will need
   to 'prime' them.

Okay, lesson learned and passed along.

 

[Nemo]

Try keeping the wicks twisted all the way down.  Gently swirl the oil in the bottom around and splash it up the wick.

Wait a minute or 2 and it should be good.  Thats how we keep ours here and it generally works.

Nemo

[RB in GA]

I do the same as Nemo with my Dietz lanterns and my old el heapo glass ones.

[Felix]

Always retracting wicks has worked for me.   And I too learned from a mistake... :-)
Always, when feeding a new wick in, standardize rotation, righty-tighty/lefty-loosy type of remembrance.   That way, when it's dark, you're in a hurry and it's cold before getting the woodstove going, odds are improved that you won't sink a retracted wick loose into the reservoir and have to refeed it from scratch!

[JohnyMac]

All good advise.