Customer Reviews

Coleman 5053A751 ProCat Perfectemp Catalytic Propane Heater with Instastart Technology

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I purchased this catalytic propane heater to heat my tent for winter camping with my son for his Cub Scout winter camps. I tried the heater out on a three night camp out the last week of October, 2006 at 7,000 feet in the San Bernardino Mountains. Those nights dipped in the high 20's. The heater worked very well with only a few concerns, which were easily overcome. I placed the lit heater in my tent well in advance of retiring for the evening and 6 hours later replaced the emptied propane cylinder right away and re-started the heater for the remainder of the morning. My son and I were nice and warm when we went to bed and stayed warm all the night through. Sure is nice to be able to stand up and dress in a warm tent in the morning. Next we will be trying the heater out at a snow camp in February with temps expected to be in the low teens.

Reading the directions dismissed any apprehensions of opertion. And yes, as another reviewer commented... the unit does throw out a small fire ball when first lit. YIKES! However, should you read the instructions BEFORE USE... you are forewarned about this and the reader is instructed NOT to light the heater facing anyone/pets/tent or indoors because of this issue. Instructions are not placed with the item for looks you know, you have to read them! OK, it spits out a small fire ball at first. Big deal... nothing too intense that an average human can not adapt to.

As for the "hot oil smell," noted by another reviewer... yes, there is a "smell," that emits from the operating unit. How one describes that smell will vary. Each individual person's sensitivity to that smell will also vary. To me the "smell" was simply like sightly hot metal, as with any other heater, and faint enough that it did not bother me at all. However, should one be rather sensitive to the "smell" it may prove uncomfortable.

The battery operated fan that blows the heated air away from the unit is awesome. The fan does not blow the volume of air like a fan on your desk or counter top might. The fan is much smaller, yet it does greatly aid in the ciculation of the heat. Without the fan on, the heat is simply radiated out and the heat is not evenly distributed throughout the tent. One huge issue with the fan... it eats batteries like a child eats candy. Two "D" batteries will run the fan for one full night. That's it, no more. Recharable batteries are strongly recommended to keep the battery budget in check, because the fan really needs to be used.

Some advise... 1.) Light the heater OUTSIDE of your tent (remember there will be small fire ball emiting from the heater when it is lit). 2.) Start the unit and place in your tent at least one full hour before going to bed. That way your tent will be nice and warm when you go to bed. 3.) Keep a replacement propane cylinder close by for replacement in the early morning hours. Should you allow the tent to cool before replacing the propane cylinder and re-igniting the heater it will take a very, very long time to warm the tent up. Remeber... nights are coldest the hours just before dawn (usally) which is much colder than when you started to warm your tent up the previous evening. Also, the larger the tent (or area being heated) the longer it will take to bring up and maintain the temp. I am going to buy a second heater for my large three room tent. This way I can start one heater well before going to bed to heat the tent, and then 6 hours before I plan to wake up I can start the second heater. With two heaters operating at the same time in my large tent the heat will be easily maintained (hopfully even with winds) but also the first heater will will run out of fuel and shut off in the night and the second heater will continue heating maintaining the temp without me getting up to change out the propane cylinder. 4.) Place the heater in an area of your tent in which nothing will come in contact with it. The heater grid gets very hot and will burn you or any other item that contacts it.

All in all, this ProCat Catalytic Propane Heater is a great heater. It is larger than others on the market (the heating head is larger in diameter), including other Coleman brand heaters. It appears to be the only one with a fan to assist in heat distribution. It puts out a good amount of heart. The only serious failing on this ProCat heater is that the output can not be regulated. The heater is either on full blast or completly off.

Please note though, the more ventilated your tent the less effective any heater will be in heating such a tent, let alone this particular heater. Thus, should you have a "summer family camping tent" that is very well ventilated either consider purchasing two heaters to heat your tent, or in addition to this heater purchase a tent that is designed for cold weather (which is less vented than summer family tents).

Just back from a cold and rainy columbus day weekend camping trip in the White Mountains, and this heater was the item that saved the weekend! on a cool night(45deg.) this easily brought the temp inside my large coleman tent above 70(it was downright hot!). On a raw rainy afternoon my daughter and I could tough-it-out in great comfort in the tent. and the following 35degree morning was nice and toasty inside! This will definitely increase the enjoyment and comfort of your "shoulder season" camping. In an emergency I've little doubt that this could easily heat a 9x12 room.
Lights quickly with no matches, wide base is very stable, fan is quiet and really makes a difference in heating a larger area, no odor/fumes. unit is larger than it looks, standing about 15" tall...but it fits in an old bookbag size backpack for easy transport.

*update 9/04*** After reading a lot of hoo-ha about CO and heaters I tested this unit with my home CO detector. Running for an hour in my closed tent the heater never moved the detector above zero. I'm comfotable that at the, relatively, low reaction temps of the catlytic heater there's simply no CO generated. CO2 is another matter and ventilation is still critical!

I bought this heater in an emergency when out of town and heater went out in my car (and the windchill was -20f) it worked great not that I would recommend it for that use like I said it was an emergency. I have also used this in the tent and it works like a dream, and puts out quite a bit of heat (no more cold damp sleeping bags at bedtime) If I were to change one thing it would be to make the fan more powerful (yes I would be willing to put in more batteries even)<br />
<br />
Kat<br />
BTW for the guy with a gripe about the can not lasting 8 hours the box states UP to 8 hours and actually it does last that long on a fresh can on the lowest possible heat setting

This is a wonderful heater to own and operate. It is larger than it appears in the listing--about half the height and all the width of an airline carry-on bag. I bought one for myself and liked it so well my friends purchased one, also. We have taken it as high as 8000 feet elevation with no difficulty in performance. The lowest temperature in which it operated was 25 degrees. The unit is easy to operate. Simply screw in a 1 pound can of propane into the back, turn the knob to "on" for a few seconds and hit the ignition switch (being VERY careful to face the front of the furnace away from yourself or any other person). The heater lights instantly with a small burst of flame from the front grill. The flame immediately subsides and the heat is on. Camping becomes much more comfortable. The only drawback to this heater, and it is not even the heater's fault, is that 1 can of propane only lasts about 6 hours. So, obviously, a second can should be taken into the tent and/or camper to be changed at night. You could probably set an alarm but I personally just let the cold wake me up before I get up to change it. It's also best to start the heater up about an hour before you retire to allow time for the tent to warm up. My friends and I have no regrets in this purchase and we all highly recommend it.

I do most of my camping up in the High Uinta mountains of Utah starting about the first of June. I camp at the snowline starting at about 6,000 feet and follow it up to the 10,000 foot level later in the summer so the nights are always cold usually in the high 20's to low 30's.

2 years ago I ran across this little heater and decided to give it a try to see if it would help keep me warmer. What a difference it made. I have a Coleman 8' X 8' dome tent that has the large screened sides that makes it difficult to seal and hold the heat in. I have to keep the rainfly collapsed at night to try to hold what heat I have in. Even so, I have found that if I run this heater for about an hour before I go to bed it will heat my tent to about 75-80 degrees. If I open my sleeping bag and point the heater at it with the fan going it will blow the hot air into the bag and make for a nice warm bed to climb into. They claim that you can run these all night with about a 4" opening to let the oxygen in but I usually shut it down when I go to bed. If during the night the temperatures drop to the uncomfortable point, it doesn't take much to reach over and fire it up again for a little while. When morning comes I fire it up again and when I get out of bed to get dressed it's nice and warm. Shucks, I don't have it this good at home.

The heater has a piezoelectric start which usually fires up right away. It puts out a fair sized fireball when it starts which can startle you if your are not ready for it. It takes about 3 minutes to warm up and really start radiating the heat but once it gets going it puts out quite a bit of heat. It is a flame less heat and although it will not catch anything on fire the heat is hot enough to melt synthetic items that get too close.

The only con I have with this unit is that you have to be very careful when you screw in the propane bottle, and that you don't cross thread it and ruin the threads on the heater.

It is supposed to run for about 8 hours on a tank of propane but I with the way I use it, it's hard to tell but I would say that's about right. A 16.4 oz tank will usually last me about 3 weekends of camping.

The fan is what sold me on this catalytic heater. It moves quite a bit of air and it will heat an area about 4 times faster than without it. In a tent environment that means it will circulate the air and the lower levels will be about as warm as the upper. The batteries have a pretty long life span and I usually change them out after 4 or 5 weekends just to make sure they don't go out on me in the middle of the night.

All in all these are great little heaters for small spaces or as an emergency heater.

I've taken this heater camping about 4 times and it works great. I try not to use it all night, so I turn it on while we are getting ready to go to sleep and keep it on for an hour.

I then turn it off and turn it back on in the morning for about 30 minutes before getting up. The push-button starter is very useful and allows me to turn it on fairly quick without having to look for a match or lighter.

This unit stands on the floor and blows the heat at an angle. This is great since it can heat the tent across the sleeping bads. Other units heat up and you don't get the heat across the tent and it goes straight up to the ceiling of the tent.

However, the threads on the unit where the propane bottle attaches are wearing off. I'm having problems attaching the propane cans as they fit in an angle and are hard to align.

We live at about 6800 ft elevation, so when we go camping it's usually over 7000 ft. We bought this because the Mr. Buddy heater doesn't function over 7000 ft. We've used it twice and each night was in the mid 30s. The first night we didn't know what we were doing so we just fired it up at bedtime. It was already cold at that point and the heater couldn't heat up the air space in our two room tent very much. The next night we started it while it was still warm and we were able to stay ahead of the cold temp. However, the propane canister emptied and the heater fan blew cold air for who knows how long before we woke up to change it. Then we were in the same boat as the night before. Next time we'll probably pack an alarm clock and plan on waking up to change canisters to stay on top of the temperature. We are very pleased with the performance and now we know to just plan ahead. (It would be nice if it could run off a bigger propane tank, I don't know if there is an adapter kit available.)

I've had this heater for about two years, and just got back from a tent camping trip in the upper Midwest. We were camping in a Eureka! 8 person three season tent. Temps during the days reached the mid 50s, and nighttime temps were in the low 40s to upper 30s. We could see our breaths in the air before we went to bed.

There was a recent event in our area where a family died in their travel trailer due to CO poisoning. Hence, my wife was a little bit scared when I told her that we would be bringing the heater for this trip. We've used the heater several times before without incident.

Due to the CO concerns, I purchased a battery operated CO detector from Kidde and brought along a temperature sensor we had at home. The detector would ensure that we would be alerted in case of any unsafe CO levels.

Our tent was vented by leaving some of the flaps partially open, the "always open" vents in the top of the Eureka! tent, and by having a tent fan hung from the center top of the tent running. Please read any safety manuals from your tent or heater manufacture before deciding to run a heater in a tent.

Here's some of the results and observations from the recent trip:

-We observed temperatures in the tent from about 57 to 63 degrees in tent when we went to bed, went to the bathroom during the night, or when we woke up in the morning. Temps out side were predicted to be in the low 40s or high 30s, but we did not have a temperature gauge outside to measure. We slept in average sleeping bags with an extra blanket, and everyone slept well and was warm enough.

-Start the heater about 30 to 60 minutes before you go to bed. It takes a little while for the heater to raise the temp in the tent, and its nicer to go to sleep in an already warm tent instead of one that is cold and slowly warming up.

-A propane cylinder will probably not last for a full 8 hours of sleep, especially if you start the heater before you go to bed. Have spare cylinders and batteries available. I started a cylinder 30-60 min before the kids went to sleep, then put in a fresh cylinder when I went to bed, and changed cylinders when invariably one of us had to get up in the early morning hours to go to the bathroom.

-The propane cylinder iced up on the bottom after several hours of operation. Have some gloves handy or be prepared to deal with the ice while changing a cylinder.

-The CO detector never alarmed during our trip. The maximum CO level detected was 11 PPM, which is apparently well below any harmful levels.

I've owned one of these for more than five years. It is dependable, tough and a good value for the price.

This Catalytic heater is intended to keep you warm in your duck blind, not your tent. During operation the face of the heater is a hot metal screen that will melt Nylon/Rayon/Dacron tent/sail material upon contact - it's not likely to set the material on fire, but melting a big hole in your tent is decidedly a bad idea (and, the residue on the heater would be difficult to remove). The heater works well in unheated camper shells, houseboats, cabins, small watercraft, and as an emergency home backup if you have a power failure.

The prior reviews state "ball of fire" and "smell" - well, there is an ignition flash over the face of the catalytic material when you start the heater. You have to expect to have a little flash when starting one of these devices. The starting mechanism is a piezoelectric sparker and the spark generated by pushing the red plunger eventually ignites the propane in the presence of atmospheric O2. Once the thermal flash takes place the oxidation of the propane (burning) occurs within the catalyst (a grey, fibrous mat behind the screen) and, the only combustion products are H2O and CO2 - that's the beauty of a "catalytic" heater. Obviously, do not start one of these in an atmosphere that could ignite and, keep it away from your car, boat, atv gas tank!

Several reviews remark about the smell - and I am aware of two sources of "smell" that are given off by this device:

(1) When the device is new the metal screen and other parts that become hot "gas out" or "burn off" manufacturing residue. Oils, varnishes, lubricants - the very thin remnants of the processes of shaping, forming and assembling the device will aerosolize with the first 10-20 hours of use. If it is a concern (and, it should be if you aren't using the device in a "well ventilated" area (such as a duck blind)) then, set it up in your yard, drive or on a deck and run three or four whole bottles of propane through it at full temp WITHOUT using the fan. In a day or two you will have a perfectly broken-in heater with no smell from heater parts.

(2) The second smell that you may experience is the result of an odorant (a mercaptan) added to the colorless, odorless, tasteless Propane as a safety measure to allow a human to "smell" a Propane leak. The odorant smell is quite noticeable at the ignition stage (because not all of the Propane released is ignited when you start the heater - you may have waited longer than necessary before depressing the plunger or it is just the amount of Propane that escapes prior to normal ignition). The odorant is essentially consumed at the catalyst - but some bottles of Propane seem to have slightly different amounts of odorant and an odd, but minor smell from burned odorant can be detected. Pay attention to the brand of Propane that you buy and buy a case or two of the bottles that you perceive as having the least odor.

That said, I've used the device for well over a thousand hours with excellent results - including leaving it running in a home without power due to an ice storm - placing it in the basement kept pipes from freezing until power was restored.

One additional note about the fan feature - there is a (somewhat noisy) 3-volt fan in this heater. It does run on two "D" cell batteries - but there is a 1/8" phono-plug socket located next to the fan permitting the addition of an accessory power source. For a few bucks you can purchase a two-conductor phono-plug and a battery case at any electronics shop. Wire your power brick with eight or ten "D" cells in two parallel blocks to give 3 volts and you have a week's power for the fan (yes, you can use rechargeable batteries). Folks with a little electronics experience can buy a small 6-volt gel-cell and use a simple voltage divider circuit to drop the output to 3-volts (or, use a voltage regulator and zener diode to drop the voltage and prolong the life of the gel-cell's charge - a divider does draw current the regulator is a more efficient circuit).

OR, you could just use it without the fan.....

This heater works well for local heating rather than trying to heat an entire room. We put it near the couch while watching tv on chilly nights -- to just take the edge off. It starts easily and works for a number of hours on a propane canister. The fan makes a big difference but does eat up batteries fairly quickly. Update (2/2004) -- The front screen simply fell off after over a year of heavy use and I was unable to reattach it. I plan to buy another.