gas build up and coleman lamp

[kiowa]

Got a coleman lamp, the kind you screw onto a gas cylinder. I thought it would be perfect for my pop up shelter, its really bright, doesnt use much gas and kicks off a good deal of heat. It recommends not using it in a tent, I assume for fire hazard, aphixiation hazard or both. My shelter has vents and it is not air tight to begin with... what does everyone think?

[Mainehazmt]

they work, for light and heat put off a fair amount of CO and burn holes in tents.....always have a CO detector

[SapperACE]

As long as you've got vents and you're not going to sleep overnight with it on, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[cold one sd]

I used one in my portable shelter for many years. Last year I switched to a UFO LED light with 60 LEDs in it and it is brighter without the fumes and I don't worry about getting the material too hot.

[Fishinguy40]

Don't use it unless you have a working CO detector inside with you!!!

I posted on here a couple years ago an incident that happened to me. To make a long story short... My Colemen propane lantern made me very sick due to CO poisoning. I had used this same lantern ice fishing for several years without any issue. All of a sudden one night a couploe years ago I got very dizzy, queezy feeling...ended up going out on the ice for fresh air and ended up puking all over the place. Same thing happened to the other guy with me.

Next day I setup the lantern in my portable in the garage and put the home CO detector with LED readout inside. The unit pegged out at 999 ppm of CO in less than 2 minutes!

So be careful. My portable has vents at the top and I had the side window pockets open for fresh air and still got sick!

[lovebigbluegills]

I use a sunflower heater on a propane tank, and use to use a lantern also. I always left my door zipper open all the way across the top and at least one of the side vents. And I never banked my house "perfect," I always left a spot on each side for a little added ventilation.

Edit--I've switched to the leds now, and couldn't be happier. They are a whole lot brighter, I don't have to worry about breaking/melting my line on them, and I haven't burned my hand on them yet.

As mentioned in every post above, you can never be too safe when it comes to carbon monoxide.

[OnAFly]

I used one last winter without a problem. Did an ok job of heating my one man port. I always kept the vents open and made sure they had plenty of flow through them.

I was thinking of going with the LEDs this winter, but I'm not sure what to do about heat then. A buddy heater is a little big for my one man and the little buddy that attaches to the 1lb propane tank doesn't have the CO detector on it either, so I would be in the same boat as with the lantern, except I would be out $70.

[kiowa]

thanks for the input everyone. where can i pick up a CO detector? are they expensive? I would still like to try the lamp, my wife has clamped down on spending because were expecting... the short of it: I'm going out this year with what i already have!