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My friend wanted help to put down a permanent weed solution for his back fence. Is it normal to use diesel fuel as weed killer?
Wow, what a great idea! Not only is it bad for the environment, it's pretty damn illegal. If I were the neighbor (or the mail man, meter reader, etc) and smelled diesel along the fence (and diesel stinks quite noticeably) I'd call the EPA in a heartbeat.
What in the world is wrong with the accepted commercial products made specifically for that purpose?
Well normal weed killers only last a few months so he wanted to basically stop anything growing again. And the weed killers are full of weird chemicals anyway so one might be as bad as the other. It felt pretty wrong doing it though, was just wondering why it's so 'bad'?
Many have used this in the past, but only if you have little regard for the environment
I hope no one smokes back there. They're gonna be in for quite a surprise!
It takes quite a bit to ignite diesel fuel. That's why diesel engines run about 20:1 compression. No cigarette will ever ignite it. It's fuel-oil. Dead grass is a bigger fire risk with a cigarette than diesel.
Once it does ignite, it burns hot and is hard to extinguish.
Effective, but not a good idea. Diesel is oil. As everyone else mentioned...about as eco-friendly as dumping waste oil down the storm sewers.
Won't it just soak down into the ground? What damage might it cause (apart from stopping the weeds)?
Well...being oily, it doesn't really break down. Like anything that "soaks into the ground," it can find its way into the water table...especially since oil floats on water. Big rains would lift it and it would run down the storm sewers.
Its one of those things...imagine if everyone in say, Manhattan treated their weeds this way. 20 gallons of fuel oil (give or take), spread by 7 million people...140 million gallons of diesel dumped into an area with a 20 mile radius. That's more than twice Exxon Valdez.
...but everybody would have weed-free fence lines...
There are better alternatives.