Mr Heater Buddy

I have one of these small heater buddy heaters, a 1 pound propane bottle will last about 4-5 hours on low. On high the bottles will tend to freeze up after 1-2 hours when the are still 1/4 full.

I have the Big Buddy model which has two heating elements and a fan. It takes two small propane bottles. Using both elements it will get the entire front area of my coach comfortably warm within minutes, it seems. But using both elements is too much because the propane will only last about 3 hours and the coach gets way too warm, so one element is really enough for the front area. The heat does not reach the back bedroom as well. I keep the driver and passenger windows open a crack for ventilation and I have two CO detectors in the coach. We also use it for ice fishing and usually wind up just wearing t-shirts while we sit in the shelter. I'm very happy with it.

I have the Big Buddy with the hose and hook it to the Barbeque 5 gallon bottle, it heats the whole house in a flash, never use it in the RV the heater in the RV is more than enough for the 24 foot C, the house is 3200 square feet and it warms the house in 15 to 20 minutes depending on the out side temp, if you do get one get the hose and the adapter for the house current, saves on batteries, they are worth the money.

navegator

We have owned and used the BIG BUDDY 2 panel heater hooked to either a 20 LB or 30 LB tank for 6 years now. Heats our Stick home and also our older 33 foot camper. Never had a problem and the LP last many days on low heat setting we have never used the high setting. Be lost without ours. Best of Luck

We use one. No problems so far. you gotta leave a vent cracked open just in case. They do produce allot of extra water vapor inside, but nothing thats a big deal. A bottle will run almost six to eight hours on low and four to five hours on high.
We have a 23 foot trailer and Low will keep us snug at freezing and above, have been in below freezing, but nothing below 30 degrees and the Mr Buddy works great for us!
With that being said,,it is a open flame heater and we do NOT go to sleep with it running, we use it to take the chill out and run the furnace when sleeping.

We have a brand new Mr Heater, plan on using it soon. I think I'd rather use it with the small bottles only cause i don't want a large 20lb tank inside our hauler, even tho we have the setup for the larger tank. Let's see how it works. I'm still worried about safety with a stand alone heater running while we sleep that's not the haulers built in.

Quiet operation is the advantage here. Cost of propane and battery draw is not important to me.

Safety is.

I have a Mr Buddy (small one) and it keeps my small 25' camper toasty, and with the bedroom up front much of the heat travels up there and we're nice and warm.

I hooked mine up to the low pressure line feeding the campers heater so no small bottles to worry about.

BUT, you still must circulate some heat into the underbelly by running the stock gas heater in conjunction with Mr Buddy in the camper. If not you could wind up with frozen tanks and water lines.

I have been giving some thought to that issue and may install some fans that will direct coach heat down into the basement without the need for running the furnace.

Ron W

I use the small Buddy Heater in my 24ft camper; It's great at get the chill out of the camper first thing in the morning.

I use the furnace for general heating but the Buddy will heat up really quickly. 1lb bottle is good for ~3 hours.

No complaints - works as expected.

I use the small Mr Buddy Heater as backup heater in my off-road camper... The heat is fine but it does produce alot of water. I have mine sitting in one of those large camp stove grill trays (WALMART)...


I get around 6 hours of heat from one of those 1lb canisters running on low...

I have mine sitting on a high shelf which is kinda close to the roof fantastic fan which I open up the vent abit to allow fumes to disperse.

This is one of the downsides to the Mr Buddy heaters.... Sort of strange to crack open a window vent to be able to use them. Even doing this we don't sleep with the Mr Buddy going - just get under the covers when we go to bed for the night. My battery bank does support running one of those lap heated blankets which we use as a bed topper...

My POPUP has the big propane furnace installed but it is way too much heat for our small foot print trailer and we have it set very low to only come on if it gets down in the freezing temps outside. The noise from the furnace fan is very loud and wakes me up every time it comes on...

I really would like to replace the on-board propane heater and loud fan for one of those vented CAT propane heaters. I have a perfect spot to mount one on the outside of a door much like shown in these two photos from google...



Another idea for my small footprint popup trailer would be the Hydronic Heater using the hot water from the hot water heater tank.


This really has merit and you would only b using small muffin type fans for heat and propane kicking in ever so often to keep the hot water going. This is a closed loop for the hot water so it would not demand much propane to keep it hot I would think...

This is photo how one dude used it in his small trailer... Reports from him said it worked great up in the mountains...


I was going to order one of these hot water water heaters to use. This would fit just fine where the propane heater is installed in my popup. Aqua Hot has two version of this - 100 and the 200 models. Kinda neat having the heat and fans in one small box...


I also hear alot of campers will unzip the two halves of the sleeping bags and use those on the beds for great sleeping. You could actually zip up during the night if it gets really cold as well I guess haha...

gotta have some good PLAN Bs I reckon...

We camp off-road alot with no hookups and haven't froze up yet...

Roy Ken

I own two Mr Heater, One of them, the portable, I had used in my old trailer (and boat while fishing). I used the small Coleman bottles, but I refilled them as needed. I would keep one in the freezer while using one. When I ran out of fuel, I would charge the bottle us by using the adapter which is available and a small tank of propane, like a 5 pound bottle.
I got the Big Buddy for the new trailer and had the dealer put in a quick connect to the larger propane bottles in the trailer. I bought the 12 foot hose which has a quick connect on one end and the female 3/8 female flare on the other. I had to reduce the 3/8 in to a 1/4 in. It works well. I have only used it once so far, but it does the job without opening windows.
The thing is, I don't go to sleep at night with it on, but that is me.