Troubleshooting

Here are some tips for troubleshooting issues with your Oil Candle or Oil Lamp.

Oil Candle will not light
1. Be sure that your piece is filled with a sufficient amount of pure liquid paraffin. For certain designs, it is necessary to keep the level of liquid paraffin well above the bottom of the wick.
2. Wicking material may be too low, below the top of the glass wick holder. Remove the wickholder assembly from the oil candle. From the bottom of wickholder, push wicking material up so that the wicking material is slightly above the top of the glass wickholder.
3. The wicking material may be blocked. Remove the wickholder assembly from the oil candle and pull out the glass fiber wicking material. Feel along the wicking material for an area that feels extremely stiff. If you find an area that feels stiff, this may be blocking the fuel from rising up the glass fibers. Gently roll the stiff area of the wicking material between your fingers to loosen the stiff area. Once the stiff area has been eliminated place the wicking material back into the glass wickholder and properly adjust the wicking material. If the wicking material will not push back up into the glass wickholder, try pushing the wick into the wickholder with a common pin. If this does not solve the problem, please follow the procedure below:
  - Fold a length of heavy thread and feed through wickholder.
  - Insert
    wick material into the thread loop. Then pull thread and wick through
    the wickholder until wick is slightly above the top edge of the
    wickholder.
Flame Too High
1. To adjust flame height, blow out flame. Allow wicking material and wickholder to cool. Remove the wickholder assembly from the oil candle.from the bottom of wickholder, pull the fiberglass wicking material down slightly for a smaller flame; push wicking material up slightlyfor a larger flame.
2. The oil candle reservoir may be too full with lamp fuel. The reservoir should be filled no more than3/4 full. If you have a Northern Lights® Easy-Fill FuelTop, you can easily remove some lamp fuel. To remove the fuel using a Northern Lights® Easy-Fill FuelTop, pull the tube up through the cap so that the part of the tube inside the bottle of lamp fuel is no longer in contact with the lamp fuel. Gently squeeze the bottle to expel some air out the tube (making sure that the lamp fuel still inside the bottle, if any, does not rise and come in contact with the tube). While holding the squeeze, place the end of the tube that is outside the bottle into the fuel that is in the oil candle reservoir and release the squeeze. The fuel will be pulled back into the bottle.
3. The angle of the wicking material at the top of the wick assembly may still be too flat. Try cutting the tip of the wicking material so that there is more of an angle. Then adjust the wicking material so just the small tip of the wicking material is above the glass wick holder.
Flame Emitting Smoke
1. Wicking Material is too far above the glass wickholder. To adjust flame height, blow out flame. Allow wicking material and wickholder to cool. Remove the wickholder assembly from the oil candle. From the bottom of wickholder, pull the fiberglass wicking material down slightly for a smaller flame. The height of the flame should be no more than 1 inch.
2. Lamp fuel other than Pure Liquid Paraffin is being used. Please make sure that the lamp fuel you are using is made from Pure Liquid Paraffin. Our Northern Lights Pure Liquid Paraffin Lamp Fuel is recommended. Pure Liquid Paraffin is simply candle wax in liquid form at room temperature.
3. The flame is subject to a significant amount of air flow or wind.