Anti-Frozen Ball Technology: Part 3

There are a zillion devices to heat tents, ice shacks, and cold balls with propane but I stick exclusively to the Mr. Heater branded Buddy series products. (I’m talking about portable solutions here. If your RV has an externally vented and properly installed permanent furnace then why the hell are you dinking around with portable solutions?)

Mr. Heater products have three huge advantages that over most portable camping heaters:

1. They have a stupid name. I like saying “Mr. Heater Buddy”. Enjoy the small things.
2. They’re dirt simple and pretty reliable. It’s hard to be too dumb to figure one out, you can operate them with clumsy gloves, and unless you beat the shit out of it, the heater will last years.
3. They’ve got sensors that reduce the chance it’ll kill you.

Did you read #3? Go back and read it again: reduces the chance it’ll kill you. The web site says “Auto shut-off if tipped over, if pilot light goes out, or if detects low oxygen levels.” I’m here to tell you that’s a golden sentence. Also, it fucking works!

I’m not a safety Nazi and I’m only trying to provide information. You can do whatever the hell you want. If you want to cram a nuclear reactor in your jock strap to stay warm I won’t stop you. If you want to stick your head in a glad bag with a lit candle… go ahead breathe as deeply as you want. But as for me… I like that backup safety feature.

A portable heater is one of the most dangerous damn things you’ll ever use. You can walk across a frozen lake with a .308 in one hand and a heater in the other and it’s the heater that is most likely to off you in your sleep. Especially in an enclosed space… which is precisely where you’ll be huddling. If it’s cold enough to need a heater you’re going to seek shelter from the wind… because duh!

In some of my favorite haunts, a handful of ice fishermen bite it every year. A few fall through the ice and freeze but most deaths are asphyxiation. It’s just the risks of life; and it’s not like they were dumbasses and you’re super experienced and will never do the same dumb thing. The first thing oxygen deprivation takes is the brain power to realize you’re under oxygen deprivation. Catch 22 baby!

So that’s a big selling point for the Mr. Heater Buddy series. The twenty bucks you’ll save with a different brand or design just isn’t worth leaving hunting camp horizontally.

I’ve also tested the Buddy heaters in real world conditions. I’ve used them for many years. (I have worn one out.) I’ve seen they start getting cranky if you enclose them too much. I’ve had them lit in canvas topped 4×4 cabs (yes, that’s dumb and I know it). It allowed me to observe Mr. Heater devices as they react to thinner atmosphere in different altitudes. They do indeed pick up on the difference. (At 10,000′ or so they don’t like to stay lit at all… which makes sense. I’ve smoked a cigar or two at around 10K and it hits you like a ton of bricks.

I’ve also used them in more normal conditions. They’re not unbreakable but they’re pretty tough. If you break one you were doing something stupid. I’ve also dropped ’em and seen the pilot light go out. Or if you tip one over the thing will go out. I’ve seen the heater get blown out in a gale and noticed the gas flow is shut off rather than just spewing flammable vapors. All in all, they do what they’re supposed to do.

Nothing is foolproof (and I’m the fool to prove it) but I am a big fan of Mr. Heater brand. I exclusively use the “Buddy” line. They come in two sizes.

The first is the larger version. The “Big Buddy” is what I have and use:

The second one is the smaller version. The Mr. Heater “Buddy” is a good heater on it’s own merits. It’s similar but smaller to the “Big Buddy”. I had a Buddy and used the hell out of it for about a decade before it finally broke. I replaced it with the larger Big Buddy. There are pros and cons to that solution. Don’t let the scale of the photos fool you, the Buddy really is smaller.

In my next post I’ll do a side by size comparison of the two models. You’ll be happy to know that either one rocks. Unlike politics where there’s no good answer, here there’s no bad answer. Your choice is awesome or awesomer and either one will keep you thawed. The details are just picking the best device for your planned activities.

Enough typing, didn’t I say I was hunting… back at it! There may be a bit of a delay before part 4.