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I was confused about the hose options so I contacted Mr. Heater to get the scoop. I have not actually used the hose myself (so the 4 star was arbitrary... not 5 star due to supposed stiffness but seems like the green hose is the way to go for the portable buddy and the quick coupler with regulator is the way to go with the big buddy), but I wanted to share what the company said. (Please note that the product manuals for the Mr Buddy heaters are available on their website at the specific product link). My initial question and the company response follow, including the contact info for the company rep that sent me the information:
Initial question to Mr. Heater:
amazon.com advertizes that the plasticizer-free green hose(f273704) can be used with both the portable buddy and big buddy, but I don't see it listed in the big buddy manual. Is it compatible with both? Also, is the quick disconnect hose (F271803) compatible with both the big buddy and the portable buddy? Does this hose require use of a fuelfilter? If no, why not? Is it made of materials that will not degrade like the f273704 hose?
Response from Mr. Heater:
When you connect any of our Buddy model heaters to a remote propane tank, that tank can have over 120 PSI of pressure inside it.
This high pressure in the rubber hose connected to the heater can squeeze a plasticizer or an oil out of the rubber in the hose and once it gets into the heater it is trapped and will plug up the tubes and cause the heater to be an unreliable unit.
We came up with a fuel filter to prevent this oily substance from getting into the heater when using a high pressure hose.
The hose manufacturers came up with a hose that doesn't have the plasticizers in it so NO filter is needed (our part number for this plasticizer hose is F273704).
BUT the draw back with this hose is with no plasticizers in the rubber it causes the hose to be very stiff especially in cold weather. So you don't need the filter but you have to work with a hose that doesn't like to straighten out or is more difficult to work with because of this stiffness.
As far as the hose with the quick coupler, this is only available to be used on the Big Buddy MH18B heaters. The Big Buddy has two built in regulators but also has a male quick coupler built-in that by-passes these two regulators so if you have a regulated propane supply like in an RV or your house, you can use our hose to connect to this low pressure source (all low pressure is less than 1/2 PSI of pressure).
We also have a hose for the Big Buddy that has the quick coupler connection to the heater and a regulator at the connection to the propane tank, like on a barbeque grill.
Because the regulator is mounted directly to the propane tank it reduces the very high 110 PSI of pressure from the tank to the low 1/2 PSI pressure. Because this pressure is so low it will not be able to squeeze out the oily plasticizers from the rubber in the hose and does not need a fuel filter.
Bradford Austin
Enerco Mr Heater
4560 W160th. St.
Cleveland, Oh. 44135
1-800-251-0001 ex 868
bradford.austin@us-egi.com
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We have only used it once so far, but it (and the heater) worked perfectly. My family of four spent two nights in our tent with nighttime temperatures dipping into the low 40s. Each night, we would turn the heater on high for about an hour before we put the kids to bed. Then, we'd leave it on low until morning. The 10'x14' tent remained quite comfortable all night long. In two nights, we used approximately 1/2 of the propane in the 20lb. bottle (which was full when we started). As such, there was no need to change out propane bottles during the trip. Very convenient -and much more cost effective than using the individual 1-lb. bottles.We used a battery-powered carbon-monoxide detector so that we could feel more comfortable letting the heater run all night. The alarm never went off, and we experienced no problems. This makes me feel much better about using this heater in a tent in the future. Even so, I will always use it only with the CO detector.
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