ice fishing

[Sled Head]

I am building a 6'6" X 14' on wheels. I know that I want a side vent heater but im not sure if should buy one with a built in thermostat or movable thermostat. Does any one own an "orbis" 15,000 side vent? I know there are sold at Fleet Farm. Or an Empire 15,000? They are both definetly an option and would like some imput to help me out! Thanks!

[This message has been edited by Sled Head (edited 08-23-2004).]

[hawkeye43]

I have an Empire with a thermostat mounted on the wall and that works just fine. the thermostat is mounted about half way up the wall

[beer batter]

I had an Orbis 15K wallmount with the built in thermostat and it worked great (until some coward pried it off my wall last year and left me with a big hole in my shack). The actual thermometer portion of the thermostat was at the end of a wire you could position anywhere around the heater. I put it near the bottom of the furnace so that it would heat the air near the floor to help keep the feet warm.

To me, thermostats on the wall don't warm up the floor areas as well. When you consider where the temperature reading is being taken in regards to where you are sitting, you're probably staring nearly straight at the wall mount thermostat. Hot air rises so the air below that thermostat is not being heated very much. Just my opinion.

[Tahoe2349]

My house and Dads have Empire 10,000 btu with blower attatchments for floor heat/air movement.. They both are 6.5 X 14 and heat them up to shorts & shirt temps. Well maybe my old mans but not mine.. but close lol

[Freewheeler]

Sledhead, I also have an Empire Heater with wallmount thermostat in my Ultra Shack and it works quite well. However the best purchase I made was to buy a cheap two-blade D-cell battery fan to circulate the air inside the house. You can usually find them in the auto-junk section of stores like K-Mart, and Walmart for $5 or less. They are quite do a good job and run for 20-24hrs on 1 battery. When you use your portable[if you have one]you can hang it from the tubingand it really keeps the holes open and the house a lot warmer. You won't go wrong using this set up.