Savage_Greg wrote on 12/31/07 at 06:58:02:gj859 wrote on 12/30/07 at 17:54:22:Anytime you burn anything oxygen is consumed, this heater is labeled for outdoor use, it does not have ODS oxygen depletion sensor. Don't want to lose anybody.
Very true. The oxygen gets consumed just the same, but the biggest problem in a confined space is not a lack of O
2, but an abundance of CO, which I believe actually settles near the floor...right where you are working on your bike. Can you say, "odorless and tasteless"?
Had an actual experience with one of those exact heaters, and our propane camp stove during the recent ice storm and power outage down here a couple of weeks ago.
Wife had been cooking on the stove for about an hour, and I had the radiant/catalytic heater running in the living room at the same time for a bit longer. Together the devices were producing maybe 25,000-30,000 BTU.
I felt the least bit dizzy, and mentioned it to the wife. Within a couple of minutes she was short of breath and her face color was changing (she's very prone to that anyways.) I figured our right away that it was Carbon Monoxide poisoning, and shut them off and threw the doors open for a while.
Surprisingly, with propane, unlike a vehicle exhaust, the deadly gas truly is "odorless and tasteless." And as I've since learned, you can go from our "dizzy and short of breath" symptoms to dead in a few minutes. So... DO be CAREFUL with those radiant propane space heaters in a well sealed enclosure like your home.
OTOH, The good thing about them is; I've used that same heater in my drafty old barn for years without an problem. And the nice thing about the radiant heater over a convection heater; is that it will warm you from 10-15 feet away, no matter what the air temp in the building is. Radiant heat warms the objects it radiates the heat too, and doesn't have to warm the whole building.