We use a kerosene heater in the bus.

It’s pretty old, but has served us well, considering it has been burning 24/7 since early November.

For the past week, though, it has been working less well. Taking a very long time to light. Smoking more. Heating less. Considering this is our only source of heat, this is worrisome.

So, I did what anyone of my generation would do. I hit YouTube.

One video that came up talked about this particular man’s heater’s wick having gotten quite dirty. He showed the wick in question. It had little balls of carbon all over it. He described the feeling as crunchy and prickly. I decided that was a fairly simple thing to check, so when we turned the heater off to refill it, I took it apart a little.

As he had described, I found little clumps all over the wick.

He recommended a wire brush and a good scraping, so while we werr at the hardware store today, I found a small wire fitting brush

A few minutes playing dental hygeinist to a burner unit, and I tried to light the wick. This morning, it took over half an hour for the wick to fully light and stabilize. After the scrubbing, it took about 15 seconds.

If only all things in life were so easily fixed