Radiant heater OK for shop use?

Carbon monoxide from improper burning could ruin your whole day. Kicking it over without an automatic fuel cutoff might be a bit dicey as well.

Is this a catalytic heater that has no actual flame? If so, they use up large amounts of oxygen. As you deplete the oxygen, your body gets low on oxygen, and it starts using carbon dioxide in its place, leading to you going to sleep and never waking up.

There are catalytic heaters designed for home use. They have an outside source of fuel and an oxygen depletion sensor. Look for the ODS label on the unit.

The problem with this one is that it is tank top, which means that it can fall over or be knocked over and start a fire. It also has the tank in the same room with the heat source, which is not safe. Finally, the lack of an ODS.

-john-

I know that there is a CO2 threat from such a heater but I use one. You need to use a little common sense. Don't use it in a small tightly closed area. I only need to run mine for fifteen minutes to get the chill out of the shop as I don not live in a really cold cllimate. There are numerous places that leak air into the shop so there is always a suply of fresh air.

Dick

Richard Cline remarks:

Not really. But the CO threat can be impressive.

Air leaks are handy. I use two 45,000 Btu Coleman radiant heaters right now, because I'm too lazy to figurfe out how to hook up my furnace thermostat. I've got a set of sliding doors that loses a fair amount of air, but not enough on cold days, which means I need to crack the doors maybe 4" to keep my head clear. I use a CO detector to make sure.

Charlie Self "One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected." George W. Bush

only 2 that I've seen are the Coleman, which I use, and the "heater buddy" or something like that...

If it doesn't say "safe for indoor use, I'd suggest avoiding it..

My wife uses the coleman to keep her hands warm in the shop...

I have a 250w work light that throws a lot of heat, so I clamp it above wherever I'm working.. I feel like an order that's ready at a restaurant, but it's warm..

Our main heat in the shop is the dryer when I do laundry... the dryer has an "indoor" filtered vent that worms the place up nicely... not only do I do the laundry in winter now, I'm always asking if anything else needs washing.. *g*

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

So far on one has mentioned the other product that these heaters produce in abundance, water. If you burn 5 gal of propane you will create a similar amount of water (see a chemist for more precision.) This carries a huge down side potential in the form of condensation and rust on your tools as well as condensation inside your walls and on your windows. Regards Bob

(He meant carbon monoxide. Hemoglobin just loves CO, something like 200 times better than O2. Carbon dioxide excess will mess you up too, just not as bad or as fast as CO.)

No, I meant CO2. A catalytic heater uses gas to create heat without burning. The waste products are water and CO2. If you are burning the gas, then you get CO. The catalytic heaters are advertised as "safe" since there is no flame, but they use Oyxgen. This reduces the oxygen level in the air, which allows your body to start using CO2 in place of the O2, which can cause brain damage or kill you. The big issue is getting enough fresh air when you use one of these things, or having an oxygen depletion sensor. I'd never suggest using an open flame heater in an enclosed location, so those are not even a question of being used.

-john-

"John A. Weeks III" wrote in news:john- snipped-for-privacy@news.mpls.visi.com:

A catalytic heater would burn natural gas, LP, or propane just like a furnace or stove burns it to generate heat. However, there is would be no flame with a catalytic heater. Therefore the same applies as with burning: gas + O2 --> CO2 + H2O.

High levels of CO2 would first make you sleepy, then at even higher levels it would kill you (eventually) by changing the pH of your blood.

Finally, by displacing oxygen, CO2 would kill (at very high levels) by asphyxiation. This is commonly used in medical research to euthanize experimental animals. It is a humane death, without suffering.

True, and the higher the humidity, the more risk, I think?? Gut feeling is that with low humidity as we have, it's not as much problem as a place with higher humidity... Logic says that if the humidity is high, less water is evaporated so less condensation... hmm....

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

I agree, Han.. but I'd think that the difference with a portable heater is that the furnace or stove would most likely be venter to the outside..

mac

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But, but, your body won't start using CO2 "in place of" O2. Most you could do is start driving aerobic metabolism backwards, but the Km is such that you'd be dead of other CO2 effects before that caused any harm. Really. Carbon monoxide does directly replace O2 in hemoglobin.

I'm not disagreeing with you that CO2 in high concentrations is a Bad Thing. I'm quibbling about the biochemistry.

Regards, Rob Lane MIT '79 (Biology)

Well, quibble a bit on the physiology, too. Normally our breathing trigger is CO2 level, so a rise in CO2 would cause an increased rate of breathing - hyperventilation, rather than the insidious falling away that hemoglobin's affinity for CO would cause. Easy to recover from, since CO2 can be blown out of the blood fairly quickly, while CO hangs in for a long time even on

Now if you're a COPD type, triggering on O2 level, 'nother story.