Big Buddy = Big Moisture

[Baloo]

I had similar issues here in Tennessee, it is very humid here. The solution was a vented propane furnace. So far it has provided nice dry heat! Even after being away from the ambo for a few days and everything metal has condensation on it. The heater will dry it out in no time at all. I don't miss my buddy heater at all!


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[Cammalu]

Baloo do you mind letting me know what kind of furnace you bought and also how much propane will you go through in a typical cold day?


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[ArtW]

vented furnace, or even electric ceramic heater, neither moisturizes the room air, and I still got condensation on my windows
simply put, cold outside + warm inside + insulated walls = condensation

 

[user 13531]

25 ppm does sound like a basic background reading. In stick homes you can place the detector further away from the appliance source and end up with a zero base line reading. In RV's with smaller living areas the detector is just too close to the appliances to not pickup some residual readings...

Take a look at these... http://ventedcatheater.com/index.html

 

[flying kurbmaster]

vented furnace, or even electric ceramic heater, neither moisturizes the room air, and I still got condensation on my windows
simply put, cold outside + warm inside + insulated walls = condensation

I have a vented dickenson P12000 heater, and I have insulation, I don't use it at night, when I get up on cold days there is condensations on the windows I have all my vents closed, I start the heater wipe the windows with a cloth and they dry out in a short period of time, and stay dry as long as I am heating. I have used an electric heater and found the same out come. If I cook or boil water even with my extractor fan working I can get condensation on the windows  again but again if I wipe them down and keep the heat on they dry out. I have never been in the van below 22 f or -6 c. not sure what would happen if it got colder but I imagine at some point it would get condensation and maybe ice on the inside of my windows unless I found a way to double glaze them which I have thought of as one year I may spend a winter in sub zero weather.

 

[LibertyHound]

I know others have said open windows but a big help for me has been a roof vent. Slightly open for the most part of the day.
YMMV

Safe Travels and enjoy RTR.

Korey

 

[gargoyle]

vented furnace, or even electric ceramic heater, neither moisturizes the room air, and I still got condensation on my windows
simply put, cold outside + warm inside + insulated walls = condensation

Plus the human breathing out moisture all night.

 

[Baloo]

Baloo do you mind letting me know what kind of furnace you bought and also how much propane will you go through in a typical cold day?


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It is an Atwood Everest 7900 series, a 20 pound bottle will keep it heating for 21 hours of constant on. However, it uses a thermostat so it only runs for four to five minutes every 28 minutes with my insulation. If I left it on all day it would last about 5 days. That is roughly 240 minutes running a day at 18000 btu's. It keeps me toasty and dry!


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[RVtrek]

25 ppm does sound like a basic background reading. In stick homes you can place the detector further away from the appliance source and end up with a zero base line reading. In RV's with smaller living areas the detector is just too close to the appliances to not pickup some residual readings...

Yeah, I'm not concerned about the 25ppm reading.  I actually purposefully placed the CO detector less than a foot away (to the side of) the buddy heater.  I wanted to make sure the CO detector was working, and I was really curious to see how much CO the buddy was putting out.

Take a look at these...    http://ventedcatheater.com/index.html

Looks nice, but the biggest they have is 5,200 BTU, and with the temperatures I've been in and the lack of insulation, and the size of the trailer, I really need more than 20,000 BTU.

Also, for everyone that says that I should get a vented heater instead of the buddy unit and/or electric heat: Yes, I agree, that would be ideal.  However, I'm in "temporary/cheap" workaround mode right now and my brand-new trailer doesn't have any holes drilled into the sides or roof yet, and I didn't really want to start doing that while I was on the road.  Also, I'm planning on having an all-electric setup within about a year, and I'll be out of the stupidly-cold weather in a couple days, so my solution of "move somewhere warmer" is pretty much the plan right now.

Right now I'm about 200 miles east of El Paso, Texas, and I'm finally starting to get into some warmer weather.  I'm on my way to RTR, so by tomorrow on my journey while somewhere in New Mexico, I might actually have to start buying ice for the cooler.  That'd be a novel concept!

 

[ArtW]

It is an Atwood Everest 7900 series, a 20 pound bottle will keep it heating for 21 hours of constant on. However, it uses a thermostat so it only runs for four to five minutes every 28 minutes with my insulation. If I left it on all day it would last about 5 days. That is roughly 240 minutes running a day at 18000 btu's. It keeps me toasty and dry!


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Mines the Atwood AFSD20121, 20k btu IIRC
I leave it off when I'm not here, turn it on with T stat set at about 65, then set the ceramic a bit higher than that. Most nights the furnace doesn't come on once the initial chill is killed, but my windows still get condensation
Houston isn't all that cold, but it is humid, I'll wipe the windows next time and see if the condensation returns, but I've never seen an uninsulated glass or cup that didn't sweat with a cold beverage in it

 

[Willy]

5 deg/f here, colder when the wind is blowing, and my rig is toasty warm with the old convection furnace running. ..Willy.

 

[Vagabound]

Borrowing the thread for a minute ... thanks ...

My stupid Buddy Heater quit working last night. I've only had it 2 months, and one of those months it was in the box unopened since buying it at Walmart (Model MH9BX). 

Frustrating because I haven't really needed it so far because I've had electric heat, but soon I'll do a little boondocking, and actually need the heater. So of course it died right at this time. ;-)

The spark igniter works and the bottle has gas (tried multiple).  As far as I can tell, no gas is flowing between the bottle and the heater spark, so, no ignition.

Other than calling Mr. Heater at home in front of his fireplace, any suggestions from anyone?

Tom

 

[Mobilesport]

Borrowing the thread for a minute ... thanks ...

My stupid Buddy Heater quit working last night. I've only had it 2 months, and one of those months it was in the box unopened since buying it at Walmart (Model MH9BX). 

Frustrating because I haven't really needed it so far because I've had electric heat, but soon I'll do a little boondocking, and actually need the heater. So of course it died right at this time. ;-)

The spark igniter works and the bottle has gas (tried multiple).  As far as I can tell, no gas is flowing between the bottle and the heater spark, so, no ignition.

Other than calling Mr. Heater at home in front of his fireplace, any suggestions from anyone?

Tom

Return it to Walmart , they'll give you store credit.
You have 3 months to return  from date of purchase
Tell them it quit working  and you want to return it and get your money back.
If they say they can't return your  money  but they'll give you store credit , say 
" ok , I guess I'll acept store credit and then go buy a new heater"

 

[rvpopeye]

I don't know what might be happening so I'll just tell you how I light mine....
(I'm not exactly sure what the words on the knob are but you'll get the idea.)
First , turn the knob from off to light (nothing happens) wait 5 seconds and turn knob back to off then right back to light. (the pilot should ignite now) Push the knob down a bit and turn to high. (the pad(s) will ignite) wait till the pad glows orange and then you can leave it there or turn down to lower setting(s).

 

[Vagabound]

Thanks for the suggestions. In fact I did two things. 

First, I called Mr. Heater in Cleveland, Ohio or wherever the heck they are. After a rocky start, I began to get a little bit of help from them. 

Their diagnosis over the phone was that the unit has a bad regulator which is preventing gas flow to the pilot light area. 

Also, the tech rep told me that the manual says you're supposed to disconnect the gas bottle every time you quit using it, and if you don't, you can cause it to malfunction. Too much pressure against the diaphragm inside the regulator for too long a period.  If that's true, it seems like a really stupid design.

So, two questions for you all:

1. Do you really disconnect the gas bottle from your Buddy heater every time you're done using it?

2.   I had an enormous amount of trouble getting the gas bottles to start in the threads on the regulator when I wanted to change bottles. In short, I could turn the bottle and turn it and turn it and it would not catch in the threads. Sometimes it took me a minute or two and eight or ten tries to finally get it to catch. 

My question is whether any of you have experienced the same thing, and whether these Buddy heaters have a reputation for being hard to attach the bottle to?

The second thing I did was take the Buddy heater back to Walmart. It took a little convincing, but they were willing to take it back and exchange it for a new one. That was the easiest possible solution.

Tom

 

[John61CT]

Do you really disconnect the gas bottle from your Buddy heater every time you're done using it?

I use mine with a larger bottle, close off at the bottle's gas supply to empty the hose, let the heater go out.

No need to actually disconnect, which yes can be a little fiddly.

Key of course is be gentle and patient the first few times, if you have to push and grunt you're doing it wrong. wait what were we talking about?

 

[Vagabound]

...
Key of course is be gentle and patient the first few times, if you have to push and grunt you're doing it wrong. wait what were we talking about?

Yeah, I started to get confused about that as well. ;-)

I suspected that a lot of people were overcoming this connect / disconnect problem by using larger bottles. Thanks for confirming that.

Tom

 

[John61CT]

Note they don't necessarily need to be bigger bottles; those one-pound tanks designed to be refilled could be used as well, if space and weight are an issue. You could even put a quick-connect fitting in the line if you wanted to, the Coleman-style connections (' 1"-20 ') used by the throwaways have become just as much a standard for small appliances as the ones used for bigger bottles, and lots of adapter kits available for those​ with the various sized RV style "house tanks".

Side note, personally I would not refill the throwaway bottles , doesn't cost much to get the one pounders designed specifically for refilling, get the nice portability as well as much cheaper per-gallon pricing.