Bruce H

My back has been bothering me too much to move my 4 x 6 plywood house around, so I've decided it's time to start using a small portable. My uncle gave me his that he made a lot of years ago and I am looking at how to heat it. Has anyone used the Mr. Heater Portable Buddy or the comparable Coleman heater. They are supposed to be safe indoors without venting.

It looks like the Coleman only uses the little 1# cylinders. Has anyone ever used the adaptors that lets you fill the 1# cylindar from a 20# cylinder?

Bruce

TeeJay

Just buy a hose to hook the Buddy heater up to a 20 # bottle. I use a Buddy heater in my deer blind when it is cold they work alright.

solocamjosh

I work with Propane and heaters, no heater is completely "safe" inside unless it is vented. So leave a little air movement at least, and be careful. The way it works to fill small tanks with a #20 cyl is by gravity to transfer the liquid,and if you have a newer cylindar or one that has been filled in the last 5 years they have what is called an OPD and it has a float in it so you cannot overfill it. This also prevents you from tipping it upside down and having anything come out of it, which youneed to do to transfer the liquidwhen you hook up a "hose" to fill a small can. We actually use old cyl valves to fill the small cans because they don't have floats. Sorry to give you the bad news about the propane. One idea is that you can purchase #5 or #10 pound cyl.(they sell them at a fleet farm or that type store) they have the same valves as a #20 lb cyl. so you could have a "sunflower" or that type of heater. and They are light enough to bring out on the ice if you have a bad back.

Bruce H

Thanks for the advice and help! Looks like the Coleman is out; just don't want to be forever buying those small cylinders. Sounds terribly wasteful to me, in addition to being expensive.

I hear you about being careful about venting. A long time ago I had a 4' x 6' fish house that was really tight. I was out fishing real early one a.m. and using a Coleman lantern for light, along with my home made gas stove. The lantern started getting a little dim, so I pumped it up; didn't seem to help. I was starting to feel a little tired, so I decided to step outside for a little fresh air. When I opened up the door, that Coleman lantern came up FULL bright. I have a feeling I came close to dying that morning! That very same morning I took the stove home and cut a hole in the back and ran a 3" pipe from the back of the stove to a hole in the wall of the house for combustion air; also had the door opened just a crack from then on. Ever since then I've been very anal about venting.

TeeJay

Bruce you can get a hose that screws into a 20 lb bottle (20,10,5,100 they are all the same) the other end screws right into where the 1lb tank screws in. You never have to buy a 1 lb bottle again.

mverhagen28

I'd go with the buddy heater but it you really want to heat up the place go with the big buddy with the built in blower and twice the power