Since I've added onto my house my long term plan is having some propane auxiliary heaters in the house. I primarily run wood heat in winter and I have a stove that will do well when it's in it's finish location in the middle of the house but for now the room farthest from the wood stove , the band room,is having problems staying heated.
As an added benefit the band room has an insulated wall between the rest of the house for sound deadening. My plan at the end of all this is some venting from above the wood stove into the room in question so there is a chance I may not even really need auxiliary heaters, but for the purposes of discussion assume I do.
So, I figured what the hell,I'll just add a heater in that room and run it off smaller bottles til the massive tank is added in spring/whenever the berkeley I can get it done. I start searching for vented propane heaters and find out that ventless heaters are now considered safe and are somehow preferable.
I'm leary about this because propane puts out massive amounts of humidity and you know.....having something burning in my house without an outlet for it. That particular room does capture a bit more humidity that the rest of the house since it isn't heated by the wood stove really. I shoot for holding the room at about 60 degrees and 60 percent humidity. Without any help it stays about 53 degrees and 70 percent humidity in winter. I run a dehumidifier in there as needed.
So it's not exactly a huge jump in temperature I'm asking it to do. Because I'm off grid I don't want to run the dehumidifier constantly but I do have it on when I have the generator on in winter months when I don't get much solar. It dries out the area fairly fast.
On the plus side ventless heaters seem cheaper overall and a lot cheaper for the amount of BTUs I would want ( band room is 660sq ft). Installing it would be faster too.
So does the hive think that a ventless heater is good in my situation? Or should I just go with my first thought and go vented?
If by ventless you mean a completely standalone unit that discharges into the room don't do it. Apart from the monstrous amounts of water they also emit copious carbon monoxide which is fatal in relatively small doses.
Go vented, young man, go vented ...
Unless you're talking about ventless fireplaces. We have one running on propane as a backup/supplement to the electric heat.
Antihero said:
I start searching for vented propane heaters and find out that ventless heaters are now considered safe and are somehow preferable.
Can you site a source for this information? I understand they mostly come with oxygen depletion sensors built in these days but I don't know if that makes them safe or preferable.
stuart in mn said:
Antihero said:
I start searching for vented propane heaters and find out that ventless heaters are now considered safe and are somehow preferable.
Can you site a source for this information? I understand they mostly come with oxygen depletion sensors built in these days but I don't know if that makes them safe or preferable.
I didn't keep a link, I just did a search and the general wording popped up on a few sites. Most stating that the combustion process is 99.9 percent effective, oxygen depletion sensors and the ease of installation because you don't need to cut for venting/chimney.
I'm glad you guys are skeptical, I thought the whole thing was crazy.
I have had a ventless fireplace in the sunroom for a decade and the CO detector never went off. The room is all single pane windows and leaks air like mad, even with that I crack open a window once the room is warm. Not for CO issues, the durn thing makes water like mad. When propane burns the chemical reaction makes H2O, I think and lots of it. I don't know if huge humidity and temperature swings are the best thing for whatever stays in the room but think about it.
We've had a propane fireplace (ventless) since 2016. CO monitor has never gone off. A 36k BTU's it cooks us pretty quickly, even turned down to the minimum setting. I wish it made the room/house more humid. We are running humidifiers all winter long to make it comfortable but we only run it for an hour or two a day at most.
in regards to fireplaces, the ventless are much more efficient and waste a lot less fuel to create the same amount of heat as a vented fireplace. I was skeptical as well but it's proven itself over the years.
I suspect the IR heater in my shop is one of these. It's been converted to natural gas, but there's no outside venting. It definitely pumps a bunch of humidity into the air (high school chemistry there) so I have a humidity-sensitive exhaust fan in the shop to maintain about 50% ambient humidity. Otherwise, works well enough.
Peabody
MegaDork
11/3/22 10:20 a.m.
When my shop furnace died I bought the blue flame 30k BTU propane, and been very happy with it. No issues at all in my shop, and it regulates the heat quite well. I recommend the fan option, and you can buy them on Amazon, if I recall.
I have used the Little Buddy propane heaters both in the bus and a tent, and I am no deader than usual, although each time I do it a little voice in the back of my head says it might not be a great idea. So I only do it if I am depressed anyway, just in case.
I run propane heaters to knock the chill off in the shop. There's a 125k BTU salamander unit that in 15 minutes will warm the shop from 30 degrees to 55, good enough to work in. I also have one of the little bottle-top dual element heaters that makes up to 35k BTU or so. If it's not too cold, I just run the 6500W electric heater.
I've always been skeptical of anything "ventless" that burns fuel to make heat, but propane in my experience has always been very clean, at least in places like a shop where insulation isn't the greatest and there's a lot of air volume. Way better than kerosene, that's for sure.
bobzilla said:
We've had a propane fireplace (ventless) since 2016. CO monitor has never gone off. A 36k BTU's it cooks us pretty quickly, even turned down to the minimum setting. I wish it made the room/house more humid. We are running humidifiers all winter long to make it comfortable but we only run it for an hour or two a day at most.
in regards to fireplaces, the ventless are much more efficient and waste a lot less fuel to create the same amount of heat as a vented fireplace. I was skeptical as well but it's proven itself over the years.
Out of curiosity do you know the exact humidity of the house with the fireplace going?
bobzilla said:
We've had a propane fireplace (ventless) since 2016. CO monitor has never gone off. A 36k BTU's it cooks us pretty quickly, even turned down to the minimum setting. I wish it made the room/house more humid. We are running humidifiers all winter long to make it comfortable but we only run it for an hour or two a day at most.
in regards to fireplaces, the ventless are much more efficient and waste a lot less fuel to create the same amount of heat as a vented fireplace. I was skeptical as well but it's proven itself over the years.
Out of curiosity do you know the exact humidity of the house with the fireplace going?
volvoclearinghouse said:
I run propane heaters to knock the chill off in the shop. There's a 125k BTU salamander unit that in 15 minutes will warm the shop from 30 degrees to 55, good enough to work in. I also have one of the little bottle-top dual element heaters that makes up to 35k BTU or so. If it's not too cold, I just run the 6500W electric heater.
I've always been skeptical of anything "ventless" that burns fuel to make heat, but propane in my experience has always been very clean, at least in places like a shop where insulation isn't the greatest and there's a lot of air volume. Way better than kerosene, that's for sure.
I agree about a shop but this is a band room filled with guitars , drums, saxes that probably shouldn't have huge moisture in the room too
I think the big issue is the water. If properly adjusted (blue flame) the ventless ones do not put out signifcant amounts of CO. But if humidity is an issue for you, go vented. We have a ventless propane heater, but it is in a sunporch with windows on 3 sides that isn't perfectly sealed even without the windows. In other words plenty of air exchange. We have not had a problem with humidity or condensation.
We have a friend who has a cabin, which had a ventless heater. He had the roof replaced and the roofer pointed out all the moisture up in the rafters and sheathing at the peak of the roof that had fortunately not caused any real damage yet. They now have a vented heater.
Burning propane in air:
C 3 H 8 + 5 O 2 → 3 CO 2 + 4 H 2 O + Heat
CO2 is OK, the H2O will increase humidity. Not good for sax pads or reeds, even worse for guitars made of wood.
In reply to Antihero :
before we turn on the humidifier around 15-20%. We have to run boh humidifiers all night to get us into the mid 30's.
bobzilla said:
In reply to Antihero :
before we turn on the humidifier around 15-20%. We have to run boh humidifiers all night to get us into the mid 30's.
Ok, you are obviously in a drier climate because under 30 percent is pretty rare here
In reply to Antihero :
Winter here sucks. The heat on 24/7 dries the air out tremendously inside the house. We get nose bleeds without the humidifiers. But summer is humid and sucky. So we get the E36 M3 on both ends of the stick.
EDIT: outside humidity is 50-ish% through winter. Inside is a different story.
To make matters worse, we have great insulation, good window seals and very little leakage anywhere in the house. Or is that better? It helps with the elecric bill for sure. We also unroll 6mil plastic over the windows behind out cell-shades behiind our blackout curtains as well. We may live in a cave but its a warm cave.
In reply to Antihero :
Mitsubishi minisplit.
https://hvacdirect.com/mitsubishi-mz-jp09wa-9-000-btu-17-seer-ductless-mini-split-heat-pump.html
chaparral said:
In reply to Antihero :
Mitsubishi minisplit.
https://hvacdirect.com/mitsubishi-mz-jp09wa-9-000-btu-17-seer-ductless-mini-split-heat-pump.html
That uses electricity so it's a total no for my purposes
bobzilla said:
In reply to Antihero :
Winter here sucks. The heat on 24/7 dries the air out tremendously inside the house. We get nose bleeds without the humidifiers. But summer is humid and sucky. So we get the E36 M3 on both ends of the stick.
EDIT: outside humidity is 50-ish% through winter. Inside is a different story.
To make matters worse, we have great insulation, good window seals and very little leakage anywhere in the house. Or is that better? It helps with the elecric bill for sure. We also unroll 6mil plastic over the windows behind out cell-shades behiind our blackout curtains as well. We may live in a cave but its a warm cave.
When we had an old house I covered the windows in winter too, so I get it.
Worst it's gotten in the house was 10percent with wood heat, but it's easily fixable with a kettle at least
