Diesel, as sold at many gas stations, is an acceptable replacement for home heating oil in virtually all furnaces. Both diesel and heating oil No. If you’re on the verge of running out of heating oil, or have run out, pouring diesel fuel into the tank can hold you over until a delivery is made.Click to see full answer. Correspondingly, is diesel and heating oil the same?Crude oil is refined into various oils such as home heating oil and kerosene. Heating oil is diesel fuel. It is dyed red to indicate that it is not legal to burn in a diesel vehicle because the red dye indicates that there were no road taxes paid with it.Subsequently, question is, can I use off road diesel in my oil furnace? Dyed diesel and off-road diesel these days are typically ultra-low sulfur diesel. So heating oil sometimes cannot be dyed diesel (when used for off-road equipment or agricultural use) but dyed/off-road diesel can always be used for heating oil and conform to the necessary specification required by heating oil furnaces. Similarly, you may ask, can I mix diesel with heating oil? If you do run out of heating oil for your furnace, you can make your way to any gas station that sells diesel and put the diesel fuel in your oil tank. Both of these can be used in your furnace without a problem, and they will burn just as good, if not better than some heating oil that is available today.What’s the difference between diesel fuel and home heating oil? Power Differences Home heating fuel oil is slightly heavier than diesel fuel but shares similar heat-producing properties. A diesel engine produces approximately 139,000 BTUs (British Thermal Unit) of energy per gallon, the same as heating oil’s 139,000 Btu per gallon.