From what I’ve read, for optimal burn the lamp’s reservoir should be kept at least half full (of a suitable oil!)

My lamp refuses to burn well unless it’s almost completely full.

I’m using this type of wick:

Oil is an adourless type from Fadumont or Clearcraft

The draw holes in the burner are clean and the chimney is sized correctly for the lamp.

So what is the problem?

I can only think that the oil is vaping off the section of wick that is proud of the oil therefore starving the flame.

Any ideas?

Give it a go with normal paraffin?

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Would electric lighting not be a better bet?

We’ve got oil lamps in the saloon of the boat and just use bogo standard paraffin – give that a go. we once tried ‘fancy’ oil and it, like you’ve found, just didn’t want to burn. Keep your wicks trimmed and don’t have too much out otherwise you get tremendous amounts of soot build up on the glass and the ceiling above it.

Paraffin burning in our living room sounds awful. I can imagine having a headache and feeling nauseous after a while.

I guess I’ll just have to keep the reservoir full. All is fine when this is the case. The odourless oils do burn well. Olive oil, coconut oil – maybe not!

Would electric lighting not be a better bet?

Probably safer.
I expect in the day oil lamps were the common lighting source there were the cause of a huge number of fires, and today as they’re not really in use as much we dont hear of as many fires caused by them.