Quote Originally Posted by nhengineer View Post
Greetings,

Hopefully someone has already tinkered with this idea and will supply some helpful information. My fuel oil tank is in the cellar; dirt/mud floor cellar. I'm purposely not on automatic delivery. That way I can control when and how much oil I get.

Problem is, at 74 years old, I have to schelp down really creaky cellar stairs and wade through ankle deep mud to check the Mickey Mouse designed level indicator which may or may not be telling me the truth. I may need to do this more than once during an oil fill cycle to make sure I'm not above 1/2 tank or haven't gone below 1/4 tank.

It seems like I could use a pressure sensing device like one used in a top loading clothes washer to illuminate an indicator light mounted next to the thermostat that would be activated when the level goes below 1/4 tank. It would need to address a N/O relay that would close when the washer device thinks the 'water' level to be less than adequate.

It would work in reverse of its original intent of course but, even if the hose were to fail, there would be no danger of oil shorting out the device since oil isn't electrically conductive. It would make a mess on the floor but the floor is already a mess.

Any suggestions will gratefully accepted.
Your solution would work, but anything that can leak eventually will and cleaning up a spill in a muddy basement would be a nightmare -- and if you don't clean it up the stink will be unpleasant. I was once on a technical advisory board for oil heat research. A saying in the industry is: "oil stinks, gas explodes".

Another solution that could not cause an oil spill would be to use an ultrasonic sensor looking from the top to sense the level of the oil in the tank. Such sensors are available very inexpensively, e.g., $2.99 at
https://tinyurl.com/y7zwej58.

You would need some additional electronics, though, and a simple power supply -- which could be just some AA batteries. Perhaps you know of an "electron" near you that would enjoy helping you with this. If you lived near me, I love little projects like this -- but I'm in MN. BTW, at 74, schlepping up and down the cellar stairs is good for you unless you have disabilities or the creaky stairs are dangerous for you. At 76, I no longer zoom up and down the stairs like a horny teenager about to miss a phone call, but I do eventually get there. Did two loads of laundry today -- 4 trips up and down. Changed my sheets today. It ain't Easter yet but I don't like to wait until the last minute, ya know...