MR. Big Buddy Flame thrower?

[cherterr]

Can anyone tell me what is going on w/my Big Buddy heater?

It's been a couple of years, but as I recall, it either has to be on high or low, because I THINK when it was on medium..
the flame would just extend over the top of the one section that was on.  WTH?
Anyone else experience this?  (I read most all of the Mr. Buddy threads and didn't see this)
Thank you.
What can I do about it?  (I was also using small bottles at the time)

 

[66788]

I have a friend who used a Mr. Heater on a 5 gallon propane bottle in a small shipping container home.   While watching TV on his bed the heater began to spit a flame from the element and it grew until it was reaching 3 feet from the heater.    He managed to get behind it and turn off the gas before the whole place went up in smoke.

That would make one think twice about safety.

 

[Mobilesport]

I have a friend who used a Mr. Heater on a 5 gallon propane bottle in a small shipping container home.   While watching TV on his bed the heater began to spit a flame from the element and it grew until it was reaching 3 feet from the heater.    He managed to get behind it and turn off the gas before the whole place went up in smoke.

That would make one think twice about safety.

One time i shut off the propane to a big buddy heater and it continued to run for 5 minutes just from the gas that was left in the 10ft hose , ,,, just something to keep in mind in case you have a fire

 

[ccbreder]

The elements on the heaters get dirty or damp or some kind of contaminated. Then the problems start. Open flame from propane instead of catalytic combustion. Also, the propane bottles must be vertical.

 

[phillipaaron]

Good to know. I never imagined they'd do something like this. Ya, I know, silly of me to think it's not possible.

 

[rvpopeye]

Guess I'll be putting a cover on mine when it's not running.
I had one for my Wave 6 and the Buddy pads look a lot like the Wave did when burning so it makes sense they might be subject to contamination also .

 

[VanLifeCrisis]

ive had this on mine, the pilot would shoot up like a flame thrower. Often its cause my filter is clogged or frozen, i think this creates added pressure. i keep a warm spare and swap it out

Sent from my ME173X using Tapatalk

 

[cherterr]

Mine was more like the flames would just kind of lap up a little over the top of one side. It was weird. I didn't like it. No 'shooting' flames, but it wouldn't have been a good idea to put your hand on top of it. Does that make sense/paint a better picture of what I'm trying to express? AND.. it was brand new. Used a few nights.

 

[Belinda2]

Mine does it also. I have to make sure I am wide awake and have distance from the heater and my extra layers of winter things.
It scares me!!!!!!. I would rather do without the 2 AM heat up. I just rough it out and only used the heater one night of the whole winter because of this.

 

[IanC]

Dang - that's scary

 

[ccbreder]

Title say "flame thrower". The visible flame on startup is normal until the pad is heated and then glows red hot. It is only a second or even less on mine that I see the flame.

 

[907KHAM687]

My Big Buddy had some sort of failure, yellow flames on ignition out of the second burner, about 10 inches above the unit. Not casual yellow flames, they were flapping and sputtering. Turned it off immediate, second burner was black with carbon, cleaned it up with a toothbrush and a can of air. Worked for that winter and the last without issue, although this last winter I only refilled the 30# tank 4 times. It one winter old at that point with no maintenance, and I think the malfunction happened at the start of the season.

 

[DannyB1954]

You should run a filter between the Large tanks and any propane heater. The small bottles don't seem to ever be contaminated, but the larger bottles can be. This contamination flows through the hose, and gums up the regulator in the heater. https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Heater-Po...dp/B000HE8P2O?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0.
I got mine cheaper through Northern supply I think.

 

[highdesertranger]

yeah sometimes the camera isn't handy for that perfect pic. that would have been cool though. highdesertranger

 

[eDJ_]

I paid $10 dollars for one of those filters at Lowe's.     I understand that most of the time using the big tank with the rubber hose is where people run into problems if they don't have the filter. 

A friend of mine was having problems with his and I took it apart for him to check and clean it.   He was prone to storing it in the attic of his garage during the summer.   Sure enough,  there was a small wasp nest inside so I blew that out with compressed air after removing the wasp nest.    It ran fine after that,  so the next year we covered his Mr Buddy in a heavy black trash bag before storing it in the garage attic.   He hasn't had problems since.

But it could be spiders,  or any other kind of bug that would make a nest within one and render it a fire bomb.

 

[rvpopeye]

I've used propane heaters for MANY years.
I ran into an issue with using big tanks and a hose and the Coleman co tech told me to shut it off at the tank first and let the pressure go out of the hose before shutting off the heater.
He also said using a regulator at the tank and using a low pressure heater would eliminate the problem too.

The Big Buddy has a quick connect input for doing that.

The factory instructions for Buddy heaters says the screw on connectors are for 1# bottles , if using a big tank and hose , the filter is REQUIRED ! Buy a spare , they're cheap ! You'll easily save the cost in way cheaper propane.