Mr. Heater MH18B-California Approved, Portable Propane Heater
by Mr. Heater
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List Price: Our Price: $119.99 You Save: $94.89 (44%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $90.00 (click here) Category: Home See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Mr. Heater MH18B-California Approved, Portable Propane Heater
Customer Review: Broken control knob
Summary: 4 Stars
I have a Big Buddy model. Bought in 2006. Used it once before in Jan. 2009 then tried to use it a second time last week; control knob broke; can't heat shop. Heater works fine, the knobs are cheap and flimsy. You have to press down and turn to click the electronic igniter. Pressed and turned 3 times, knob broke. It was about 30 deg. in the shop at the time. The plastic gets cold, gets brittle, then breaks easily. When else would you use the heater, when it's warm and the knob wouldn't break? Out of service and cold shop for two weeks. Ordered replacement knobs from their website, half of the knobs were the wrong ones, called customer support, they said the part number had changed (where do you find that?). They are sending replacements. In the meantime, I got a 1/2" hose clamp, tightened it slightly around the good replacement knob shaft for strengthening, and coated liberally with epoxy. Maybe this will hold.
One interesting sidelight; there was a flier in the box when I opened it asking you to go to their website and fill out a customer satisfaction survey. I don't usually fill out surveys but I did in this case. I checked "extremely dissatisfied" on overall quality and service. The next day, I received a phone call from customer service following up on my comments and I told them the problems (order screw up and cheap, flimsy knobs). They said they would pass my comments on to engineering and the order departments, and send out additional knobs. I will now have 6 knobs for future breakage.
Customer Review: Noisy Fan
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased a unit new and connect it to a 20 lb tank. I really like the unit to just help warm our living room a bit when watching TV. We run it on low and on that setting a tank lasts as advertised (I think around 48 hrs). Now for the downside. If you don't use the fan, the warmth is significantly reduced and when you do use the fan, it is noisy! It has a high pitched "squeeling" that is very annoying to someone who wears hearing aids and even for a non hearing impared person, it is an annoying distraction from hearing what's being said on TV (It sets about 6 feet from us and between us and TV). The room is so quite when you shut it off! Since this was a comment from other users - prior to me purchasing it, apparently the problem has been around for awhile. For me, that means there is no excuse for them not resolving it by now. I was border line on giving it a 3 star - just because of the noise. Since they have total control over resolving this downside, it would be easy to avoid reviews like this and get a 5 star. It's a no brainer and frustrating to me that they don't. Don't they have someone dedicated to reading reviews and addressing negative comments by improving their product? If they don't, they ought to.Customer Review: Works well for small rooms
Summary: 4 Stars
In order to decrease my insane electric bill, I bought this propane heater which was recommended by a co-worker. I have a 1200 sq ft house and I placed this heater in between kitchen & living room. The max BTU of this heater is 18,000. On the coldest days (about 30 degrees here in Florida) I would come home from work and my house would be 55 degrees so I turned the Mr Buddy heater on full blast. It would bring the temp up 10 degrees in about an hour or so but I couldn't get it any warmer & the heat wouldn't even make it to the bedrooms. I believe a bigger heater of about 30,000 BTU would be more effective for my house. All in all, not a bad heater...for smaller sq footage.... but my biggest complaint about this heater is the internal fan. The fan helps spread the heat out but in order to use the fan you have to have 4 D cell batteries, well the batteries wear out fairly quick and kind of makes the heater less effective without the fan. In reading more of the manual, it says you can use a 6 volt plug for the fan. Well why was the 6 volt plug not recommended with this purchase? I think I will be returning this heater for a bigger one, but like I said.... Not a bad heater for small areas.Customer Review: Quick heat when its needed
Summary: 4 Stars
So far I like it. I would have given it all five stars had it came with all the accessories, but those have to be purchased separately. To get the most out of this heater your really need the optional accessories. In my opinion they are more of a must than accessory and will hike you initial purchase price up a bit, but once everything is in place and you're ready to go this is a nice little heater. It is very easy to operate and the fact that it is portable makes it a winner in my book. It certainly produces heat and feels great when you are sitting in front of it; however, it doesn't seem to warm the room. In all fairness I have not tried it in a smaller confined space such as an RV, Boat, tent or small room. I am certain that it will start to show off a bit more in those settings. I initially wanted to use it in my foyer to warm the drafts and since there are open spaces' going up the stairs the heat dissipates quickly. I have since changed tactics and now use as a personal heater where I sit. This keeps me from having to run my money hungry monster (HVAC) as much and I'm sure that eventually I will get a return on my investment.Customer Review: Great for the garage
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this heater to run in the garage during the winter when I wash my car. The heater has no problem heating the garage into the sixties when on full heat. Once the garage is warm, I can maintain the heat at the half setting. I have a standard double car garage to heat. As others have mentioned, the fan doesn't really work that well, but I'm not standing next to it anyway. The purpose of the unit is to heat the room and it does that fine. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the installation of the batteries was difficult. The unit takes two rows of batteries and the springs for the 1st row of batteries gets in the way of installing the second row. They should of staggered the batteries or put them side-by-side. Other than that, this unit works great.