Ventless gas heaters -- my experience

I'd be guessing, but possibly oxides of Nitrogen? )(NOX)

Seems possible, but then why not from a stove top, oven? Also all the other listed agents from Frank?

Poss answer: the ceramic is acting like some catalyst, producing NOx compounds, or others? Or, the ceramic itself is outgassing/reacting in some way.

You can even smell nichrome wire or other type electric heater elements. Not all, but some.

AND, in my case, the shop volume to btu ratio, and the draftiness, could not have contributed to an undue concentration of these airborne chemicals from a pure buildup pov, so the agents must have been potent in themselves (at least throat-wise), and/or the heater was producing prodigious amounts of them.

I use a propane "Mr Heater" in the winter and have for 15 years. The moisture is noticable, but there don't seem to be any other problems. I don't use it for 8 hours a day, so maybe that's it. I worry more about the fire/burn problems than the air problems.

A friend used to use a kerosene torpedo heater in his shop/living quarters and it was wicked. In the winter, half an hour in there would give me a ringing headache.

BobH

Don't know what part of the country you're in but try to find a Dearborn heater. Used them for years and never had the issues you speak of

I hate those filthy m.f.

My son had a ventless wall unit in his apartment in Virginia. I went down to help him move a year ago and I moved some furniture. Behind each piece was a layer of black mold, from the humidity, that you could scrape off with a putty knife.

I suppose they're good if you want to grow marijuana in your apartment, but he's not into that.

The taste was likely due to the Butane that they add for winter use of propane. If it tasted sort of like weak weld smoke then it would be the butane reacting with the catalyst.

-snip-

I'd say all of that- plus the amount of gas you're burning in the shop vs your stove.

If it was producing enough water vapor to be a problem, you must have been burning a crap-load of gas. I have a ventless in a family room. There are 6 windows [double pane but no storms] there that never fog up unless I boil 2 pots of pasta on the stove in the adjacent kitchen.

I never smell anything. It has some sort of fake log, but it isn't part of the 'heater' it is just for show. All the heat is from the flames.

The CO detector is 4 feet from the stove. Only time it has gone off is when my wife wears a certain kind of powder-- and if I have all burners on the stove going and the oven.

I had a digital one that registered the 'highest level reached' for a while. It never got close to tripping unless one of the above circumstances occurred.

I love mine- Jim

Well, this was on natural gas. But, altho it has been some time, "weak weld smoke" might characterize it, altho I kind of like welding fumes. :) I But what catalyst are you referring to? I was speculating that the ceramic *might* be acting as a catalyst, but do you know this for sure??

I have a vent less propane fireplace in my 4 Seasons' sunroom. When I lit it up for the first time after installation, it stunk to high heaven. I thought I had made a bad decision, but after using it a few more times, the smell seemed to get less and less each time. It turned out to be the heating of the fireplace's new interior parts materials that were giving off the fumes. Since then, the smell disappeared and it hasn't stunk since.

Residential furnaces, are made with some kind of protectant on the heat exchanger. On the first heat, they pump out a lot of stink and fumes. Having installed furnaces for six years, I'd ought to remembered that.

Remind them not to run the car/truck/mower/snowblower in the house.

-- [Television is] the triumph of machine over people. -- Fred Allen

Did you by some chance have a tom cat in your shop? I can tell you from personal experience that if one decides that such a heater is some territory that must be marked, it will create all the symptoms you described.

Heh, mushrooms?

Are there different types of black mold? You hear horror stories about that stuff, but some of it may be suburban legend-type stuff. Yeah, water vapor any other place than a greenhouse is proly not a great idea.

Hey, weren't you sposed to stop by me in Yonkers??

The "ceramic" is actually a metalized item that uses a catalytic reaction to reduce the CO and convert more of the combustion gases into heat. The taste is still likely trace butane in the mix. It gets added to help the lower gases ignite easier when it's cold.

Well, NG is methane, don't think they put butane in there, but there is some sulfurized hydrocarbon in there, so you can detect gas leaks.

That ceramic must be the problem, then, at least in my cheapie units -- forgot the brand, but I think most proly heard of them.

NG is usually about 85-95% methane. The rest is Iso-butane, Pentane, Hexanes, Hydrogen, Ethane, Propane. Plus traces of Nitrogen, CO2 and O2.

You could test this out by hooking a propane tank up to one and seeing if the problem is still there. Also you did make sure that they were set up for NG? Many of them are set up for propane.

On some of that stuff, I seem to recall a threaded plug you have to remove, flip over and reinstall depending on the fuel source. It's on the regulator section of the gas control valve. It should be marked "LP" or "NG" and could look like a small pipe plug or a disk depending on the manufacturer. Any odd odor could be because of an incorrect fuel/air mix?

TDD

Gunner, you know better than to let ANY liberal into your shop. :)