Buddy Heaters

[FIRECAT]

Wanted to get a back up heat source for the ice castle in case of furnace failure. Picked up the new Buddy wall mount 10,000 BTU heater. Brought it back, flames would shoot out the top on the high setting. Tried another one, 26 degrees, no wind, took 3 hours to get to 66 degrees on high. House is new 8x16. I know i could put a fan behind it but i"ve seen other models cook you out without a fan. Would the Big Buddy be a better choice? Once again only gonna be used as a backup and maybe in the garage once in a while.

[magnum mike]

The Big Buddy is a great choice. 18,000 BTU on high.

[otterman91105]

You can still mount the big buddy on the wall there are spots on the back to hook on wall. If that's the one you go with.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

I had one of the ProCom wall mount heaters (10k btu's) and it would easily get the house over 100 degrees if you would let it. Check one of those out from Northern Tool or Fleet Farm for around $125.

[gonehunting]

Does anyone run the fan on their Big Buddy heaters? Is it worth the hassle of worrying about charged batteries etc? If the fan works good I will give it a try. I just have never run it and was curious.

[magnum mike]

The fan makes a HUGE difference. I always have batteries when it's cold. I just went over a post about converting to a rechargeable 6V battery. Looks like a great idea.

[RiverChuckNorris]

Fan's nice when you need it. I run it just when needed and only use one set of D's per season.

[BartmanMN]

I do not run my fan every time, but I've had the same batteries in it for years. Hit the button this year when I prep'ed everything and started right up again.

[aanderud]

I just bought a big buddy (I hope it performs better than the one I used in the past that I wanted to smash with a baseball bat). I figure with my kid going out more and more, I'd like something a little bit safer. It's not much safer but he's slightly less likely to burn himself on it.

The prospect of spending money on expensive D cells didn't sound good at all, so I did some searching and found another forum where someone mentioned using a 6 volt rechargeable battery (it was mentioned earlier up above). If you're using a hose to a larger propane tank, and you don't need the propane storage area on the right side of the unit, it's no problem. You just pull the spade connectors off from the existing battery compartment and run them out the hole (which is already present) into the right-side propane storage area. You will need to make a couple of short extension wires (just crimp on a male and female spade connector on each end of an 6 inch wire and you're set). The hole right behind the battery in the picture (second one up from the bottom) is where I pulled the existing spade connectors through and then you see my red and black extension wires. I only had red connectors, unfortunately. Oh well, I wasn't going to make a special trip to find a black one for the black wire.

The battery I ended up getting was the UB645 battery (6 volts, 4.5 amp hours) at fleet farm. It was on sale this week for $5.99 (normally 9.99). Considering a 4 pack of D cells will cost that (or more) at most stores, I'm ahead money -- and I haven't even recharged it once. Between that and a couple 6 inch wires to make two spade-connector-extensions, it was done. I added the velcro strap to keep the battery from falling out or rattling around.

If you want a bit more runtime on the battery, walmart has a moultree battery made for a deer feeder on their HSOforum that's 12 amp hours for around $13. It would last 2.5x as long per charge as this $6 battery. But, I didn't feel like ordering it and waiting for it to show up. Fleet farm is 1 mile away and I like giving them money when I can, since they're about the ONLY store in Carver. LOL.

[doomanmxz99]

Have a big buddy and I use the fan all the time. 1 set of batteries per season could get 2 im sure but I always forget to shut off and when I get home I hear it running and shut off. I am sure I have logged about 25hrs a season on just forgetful running.

[BigDogRob]

I love mine, I use mine in my portable all the time and even deer hunting one year when I learned that if you dont remember to shut off the power switch for the camper furnace the battery drains quickly, and without an inverter I couldn't recharge the battery quickly. Fired up the big buddy, and cracked a window and still got a good nights sleep. I took mine with on our trip to LOW last year, and probably will always carry it along just in case. When driving a few hundred miles a guy don't want to have to cut your trip short from an easily preventable problem... I know some people have had problems with them, but prying mine from me before death would be a feat for anyone!