Great Product
This heater is excellent and the perfect fit, for a certain set of requirements.
If you have electricity, use an electric heater. Don't bother with the hassel of propane. The cost isn't too different and the hassel factor is much higher than electricity.
I also don't recommend using the small canisters. That's an inconvinient way to go as well.
BUT. If you don't have power and need a cheap, safe heat source that you can run while you sleep, this is the best one made. Buy the 12' hose, place a 20lb propane tank outside, and run this heater all night with just a small crack in a window or door (just in case!). You will get > 100 hours of heat out of a tank of propane! Less than a buck to run it all night.
Highly recommended under the right circumstances.
The purpose of the fuel filter....
Once and for all, here is the purpose of fuel filter for this heater. When you use this heater with a remote tank & rubber hose, it is imperative that you always shut the tank off first & let the heater run until it burns off all the fuel in the lines. YOU MUST DO THIS EVERY TIME. If you simply turn the heater knob to the off position, what you are doing is trapping 100 PSI of propane in the rubber hose. When high pressure propane just sits in your rubber hose, it literally causes the rubber to leetch a light oil that is part of the chemical composition of the rubber. If this oil forms and you have the filter on the heater, the filter will catch it and seperate it from the gas. If you do not have the filter, the oil will quickly work its way into the heater & destroy both the regulator & control valve. The heater can be repaired, but these two components will need to be replaced.
Use some preventive maintenance measures....
I use this heater when I camp in my trailer, and it works great especially when used in conjunction with a 20-lb. propane tank. If you do use a 20-lb. tank, however, I STRONGLY recommend that you use the fuel filter (around $10 and yes, this is mentioned in the manual) and also that you always close the propane tank shut-off before turning off the Portable Buddy so that all the gas is burned out. Why? I went through two units that started shutting themselves off about a year after purchase before I found out that oily residue starts building up within the heater when the previous two suggestions are not followed. Even when I tried cleaning it out (I did a complete disassembly), it was not successful unless the control unit and the regulator are replaced as well. I did find a lot of oily mess within contol unit area, but couldn't get it all so it's just as easy to replace the entire unit. What happens is that when you turn on the unit, it seems to work; but, as the oily residue...
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