Ask the Experts: do I really need to condition my fuel?

Do I really need to condition my fuel? It’s never let me down before.

“We hear this a lot but unfortunately yes, you do. I’ve brought with me some samples of fuel that we’ve taken from some of our clients, quite recently, and you can physically see how poor the quality is.”

Sample 1: “This is an example of what clean red diesel should look like. It’s bright which passes what we call the clear and bright test. It’s bright, it’s clear and you can see through it very easily.”

Sample 2: “This is an example of a white diesel sample compared to the red pigment sample that we normally deal with. This sample is clear and bright and again is a clean fuel sample.”

Sample 3: “This is an example of a dirty fuel sample. You can see it is dark red in colour it is slightly cloudy also at the bottom you can see a phase of particulate and sediment. If I turn the bottle up slightly you can see this more clearly. This here is the sediment at the bottom of the fuel sample which will also be at the bottom of your fuel tank.”

Sample 4: “This is a fuel sample that we’ve taken from one of our most recent jobs. This is not white diesel, it’s red diesel. This is the water within the fuel tank. This is the red diesel on top, this is the water phase at the bottom, in the middle is the interface where the microbial growth usually exists within the fuel.”

“The questions you have to ask yourself are these:
• Would you want to run your very expensive backup generator on this?
• And would you want to rely on this to provide emergency power?”

“Probably not.”