Horrible, Horrible Night

[zamboni]

Bought a PakShack friday for early and late ice, when you can't drive out. Well, tonight I went out to use it for the first time, get all set up and did a ver, very stupid thing. I bought a 12' hose for 20 lbs tanks for my Big Buddy, and sitting in the shack I got a decent whiff of gas, but went to light the heater anyway. The whole left side of the heater almost went up, I threw open the shack, shut the gas off at the tank and got a handful of water cupped in my hand out of my hole and threw it on the fire. No melting of the heater and no holes in the PakShack, thank God, but I did learn a HUGE lesson. Less than 5 minutes later I was set back up and confirmed it wasn't leaking and it lit right up, no problems. I can only think a few ppl seen it happen and might have gotten a decent laugh, but it scared the heck out of me!

[52#FLATHEAD]

Wow! Glad you're OK. I saw a Buddy heater catch fire last year & have heard of other Buddys on fire. Wonder what the deal is?

[Lisa Almquist]

Whoa zamboni-not funny at all! Glad you ok! And no gear got torched.

[Shack]

zamboni,

Horrible, Horrible. Glad you are all right. Thanks for the tip.

Between the North D trip and this, what a fall/winter.

I scaled back my post a little

[danwilliams]

I'm guessing a loose hose or filter? Had mine come loose on my lil Buddy a few times. Always check it now.....paranoid.

[zamboni]

Quote:

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I'm guessing a loose hose or filter? Had mine come loose on my lil Buddy a few times. Always check it now.....paranoid.

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Didn't have the filter screwed in tight enough. I just checked my heater here in my house, the door got cracked, other than that, no damage. Yeah Shack, I almost dropped a deuce in my pants, but looking back, I learned a lesson, and I admit I do have to chuckle a little bit.

[Shack]

Quote:

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I almost dropped a deuce in my pants

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LOL

[BoxMN]

My bro in laws lil buddy did that yesterday. First 1 pound was fine. Swapped to next one, and it shot up flames. Carried it out and put out fire, but it is kinda scary at the time, and I am sure looked funny. But we heard a funky longer than normal "fizz" when screwing it on, and surely enough something was goofy.

I will remember that one, if it doesn't sound right going on, it probably isn't. I think it was his cylinder, but we are still not sure.

[hanson]

Definitely sounds like you had a loose connection with your hose, or a cross threaded connection. Always double check those connections.

Glad to hear you came out of the incident alright, with no real damage to any gear as well.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Thanks for the lesson to everybody.. check them conections!!!!!

[irvingdog]

Somewhere out there are 3 icefishermen who were lucky enough to watch me "Stop, Drop and roll on the Ice" after my brand new $400.00 burst in to flames as a result of my old white gas lantern blowing up while in an old Clam 5600.

No beard until the following spring of that year.

[danwilliams]

Every few months..I treat the threads and O rings on my propane fittings with a light coat of lithium grease....think plumber's grease or plain old petroleum jelly (Vaseline) also works just as well...reduces the friction of those coarse threads and preserves the O rings.

Seems to help.

Regarding the little Buddy..by time you have filter and hose mounted..the bend in hose is as low as the heater base. Easy to twist itself loose if not well tightened. Bit of lube helps this.

[Zdaddy76]

Yep, it's likely a connection issue. Never will I try to screw in the hose to buddy connection with gloves on. Need to spend the time to make sure it's connected really well and then turn on the gas and listen to that connection and smell it to make sure it isn't leaking. Usually once I've connected it to the buddy I leave that connection in all year or as long as I can so I don't screw that one up by doing it a lot during the year I just check it every time.

---Zdaddy

[WalleyeWacker10]

Glad your OK! What's the deal with these buddy heaters? Are we not getting the gas tight? Maybe there is a problem with the valve not opening quickly enough or near enough to the pilot. I guess my kids will have to stay way clear before lighting this thing. Thanks guys for all your info

[Bassboy1645]

I think they are dangerous as there operator. But we all tape our saftey switches down rather than fix a busted thermocoupler cuz were cheap like that . but ya know what they say..a bad day of fishin is way better than a good day at work!!

[mojocatt]

Yeah, I've given up on the one pounders and swapping hoses between the buddy and big buddy. I've found it's too easy to cross thread that baby after dozens of swaps.

IMHO the metal on the reciever could be better.

Sit down at the warm work bench, slap the filter and hose on, make sure it fits snug, and leave it on for the season. Do so for each heater. Heck, might not be a bad idea to give it a little teflon tape at the threads.

[slipperybob]

I remember the fireball coleman propane lantern...don't use cheap 1# tanks with bad rusty threads...

[zamboni]

I was using a 20 lbs'er with a filter and hose- the filter wasn't tight enough, lesson learned!

[DzNuts]

This thread will remind me to tightly fasten all my connections after I tear apart my big buddy to clean out the pilot.

Big balls of flames are funny after they are out.

[danwilliams]

Zamboni...

You did well posting this..may save somebody some serious grief.

Don't feel there is anything wrong with the Buddies....just handling propane requires extra caution. JMO.

[fishfart]

Glad your ok Zamboni, with out you, who would take care of the ice ?

[Buck_Hunter04]

I had a new 20lb tank and a mr. heater sunflower do something like that to me. It worked fine for about 5 minutes and then 3 foot high flames came out of the Mr. Heater. I shut off the heater, that didn't work. I shut off the tank and that didn't work either. Finally, I threw up my Otter Lodge fold down and threw the tank as hard as I could. Then I ducked and covered fearing the worst. Thank god the snow on the lake put it out. Needless to say I got my money back on both items!!!

[Jason Hubbard]

lol... I know its not funny but that happened to me also. Brings back memories, need less to say but i had 2 ft flames coming from my little buddy almost lost the house i have a 20 ft hose and it was all out. But just burned the heck out of that side and it fired right back up after i fixed connection. Good thing was gave me reason to buy big buddy.

[OldBear]

That was a close one Zamboni glad your OK. Sure enlightened me and a lot of others to check our connections. Thanks for the post.