Which Ceramic Heater Is Best?

The Buddy heater does have problems with high elevations, but the Olympian heaters are rated for up to 12,000 ft. Our boondock camping is no more than 7,000 ft and mostly less than 5,000. I hadn't thought much about the heater being right by somebody's feet since that's where the furnace is in our TM. A cat heater without a fan would be less heat on your feet than what you get from the furnace when it kicks on. With just the two of us, most of the time, we don't usually sit right in front of the furnace. Good point though. Thanks, Jim

[Bill]

Originally Posted by Freedom

I hadn't thought much about the heater being right by somebody's feet since that's where the furnace is in our TM. A cat heater without a fan would be less heat on your feet than what you get from the furnace when it kicks on.

Ummm, I don't think so. A furnace warms a whole bunch of air, and blows it into the room. None of the air is too hot, because there is a lot of it being warmed.

The whole idea of a radiant heater is that it doesn't warm the air. It sends out the heat in a beam, like the beam of a searchlight. Anything that the beam hits gets warm. If it hits the opposite wall of the room, then the beam has spread out pretty much, and a whole large section of the wall gets a little warm. But if you moved the wall up to within, say, 2 feet of the heater, then the beam is concentrated all in one spot, and that spot will get MIGHTY warm!

I haven't used a cat heater in the TM (I don't trust the low-oxygen sensor in a closed space). But I have one in my camp in Maine. I know that if you get close to it, you can get burned. I always set it up in the middle of the room, away from all furniture and recumbent people.

Not to be too negative about it all, but be sure you know what to expect.

Bill

So just how do you go about installing a cat heater in a closed space so that it draws the oxygen from the outside instead of depleting the oxygen that is inside the trailer?

I'd want to maybe leave the roof vent open and at least one window cracked.

[grill-n-go]

The small Buddy Heater manual specifies 9 sq. in. of ventilation during operation. I crack a window about 1" which is more than enough. I DON'T open the roof vents because (my theory ), heat rises, I don't want all the heat going out the roof. I think the TMs have enough "leaks", combined with one approriately cracked window to ensure there's plent of oxygen around. For us anything below 70 degrees is cause to panic, .. we use our Buddy Heater very often and lived to talk about it.

The manual also specifies 24" clearance in front of the heater, it definitely needs it. Bill's beam analogy seems correct, we do however keep the back of the heater pretty close to the wall.. and lived to talk about it.

Have had the heater since Jan of '04 and used it around a dozen times.