Oil Lamps

My mother has had a pair of hurricane lamps and a pair of the type with vase-shaped globe on top of a squat reservoir for at least 25 years - I don't remember them not being up (that's giving her until I was in my double-digits for memory; I'm pretty sure two of them were a wedding gift before we were born).
The kerosine pair are rarely used - like, almost never. After a year or two, they will get a little cloudy and there seems to be a little evaporation. The lamp oil pair stay filled with clear oil and are used here and there once in a while because she likes the warm flicker - maybe 2-4 times a year. There is another foursome that get tucked away at the back of bookshelf all year and are filled with Xmas colored oil, and they get burned once a year, sometimes once every two.

They are all on ridiculously secure shelves where there is no danger of knocking them over and no outside heat/fire risk. We are a family of pudgy, clutzy people with large, goofy dogs and regularly somebody gives birth, so safety is paramount to us. However, she likes them and they're pretty and she dresses them up with lace and ribbon appropriate for various seasons, and they have been backup cookers and light for her when battery operated camping lamps were still a lot more expensive and candles were messy.

On the other hand, kerosine and oil lamps are my secondary and tertiary light and cooking sources, so I don't leave mine up or ready.

A couple points to consider besides the aspect of a flamable fuel sitting on a shelf:
When you have a power outage risk, you may want to fill them ahead of time. The wicks need a few minutes to absorb oil.

Don't store the plastic containers oil comes in out in the sunlight. They can get brittle and then crack from relatively short falls and bumps. (On the other hand, I can't see going through the hassle of changing oil over to glass bottles or jars, because they break, and although the jugs are usually thinner plastic, it's just not worth it to us to transfer to a fuel can.)

When you pack them away, if you choose to, make sure to wash them with a dish detergent that will cut grease and oil and let them dry completely.

Kerosine has gotten cloudy here and there, but ever since I discovered that rancid veg, olive and palm or coconut oil can be used as a lamp oil (some smell and faint smoke in some cases) I don't buy much single-purpose fuel oil besides for the gennie.

It occurred to me right after I submitted this that if the instructions on your lamp tell you not to store it with oil in there, that needs to be the default. Some of the containers could be of a material that over extended periods (weeks or months) oil may start to ooze through. Same goes for the oil - if they said not to store it in the reservoir, don't. It could be a type that will evaporate or it might have a risk of gumming up or something. They don't want sued so what they say goes for safety purposes.

Turns out, I don't know where I read that bit about not leaving the lamp full. I looked on the lamp packaging and on the oil bottle and neither said anything about transferring the oil back to the bottle if the lamp wasn't being used very often. So there ya have it. Besides, I might want to use it from time to time because it's nice 🙂

Oil lamps do cast a nice light. For those of you who don't have them at home and would like to keep this option open in case of emergency, I will share with you a very simple plan for making one.

Take a glass jar with a metal lid - puncture the metal lid with a screw driver, a drill bit, or the like - put lamp oil in the jar along with a cotton strand cut from a mop - and feed the end of the cotton strand through the hole in the lid.

With a half liter of lamp oil, a mop, a screw driver, and some canning jars, you could light up every room in your home for a week.

Antsy

I'm pretty sure my Dietz lantern says to remove the oil. I've actually never used the lantern
because I keep thinking of the hassel to empty it.

But I have the lantern and 3 containers of clear lamp oil.

Antsy, when making a jar lantern , would be work better to use a proper
lantern wick compared to a cotton strand from mop head ?

My understanding is that "old school" wicks were cotton. Commercial grade mops are also cotton and up to the task. If you keep the exposed wick above the metal lid really short so that there isn't excess wick burning, the wick will last a really long time (it's the oil that is burning, not the wick). This will also keep the lamp from smoking overly much.

Antsy