Finally! Maiden Voyage with our tow-able houseboat

I love how you guys have pulled this off so well! The sense of relief and accomplishment must be sky high! I sincerely wish I had the patience to remodel something like this.

I didn’t think I’d have anything to add, but since I ice fish a lot and am well versed on all kinds of heaters! In short, you guys are correct to be cautious of your buddy heater. There are lots of videos showing how the heater buddy is “safe”! And yes it is very safe compared to other heaters.

When things are going perfectly, the heater outputs carbon DIOXIDE, water vapor, and heat. You need a whole lot of carbon dioxide to do any damage to you.

Your real danger is low oxygen for a couple different reasons. The first is well…low oxygen. The heater uses the oxygen in the room and if it’s not well ventilated then you’ll start to starve the place of oxygen.

The second danger of low oxygen is the heater will then start to put off carbon MONOXIDE when the oxygen gets low. A real killer and even if it doesn’t kill you, enough to put a damper on the weekend with headaches and flu like symptoms.

The heaters are built with a low oxygen, safety shutoff. It SHOULD shut off before anything bad happens, but you’re trusting a $50 heater and a 10 cent shut off part. The way I look at it, they come with an ignition too and that thing rarely works!!

Sorry for getting a little long winded but if you’re like me, you just don’t like to invite any kind of preventable accidents into your life. I don’t trust the heaters for sleeping either and keep things well ventilated. I regularly use a sunflower style heater but they are the worst for carbon monoxide output. They do however work all the time…unlike the finicky heater buddies. Keep things ventilated, click them on and let them run for 5 minutes and click them off.

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, lots of ice fisherman are going the route of “Chinese diesel heaters” and love them. They exhaust out the back when built properly. A search for “diesel heaters for ice fishing” should put you on the right path.

I just purchased this heater last year for sleeping in my ice hut. Completely safe but doesn’t put out a ton of heat. Basically it makes it comfortable to sleep when outside is very uncomfortable.

 
BartsPlace said:
The Iridium constellation (which Garmin and Zoleo use) is in constant motion using a polar orbit with 66 satellites - meaning that even if you don't have a full view of the sky at a given moment, you should have access (even with narrower views of the sky) about every 10-12 minutes. Sometimes it's just a matter of waiting.

www.iridium.com

Network

The satellites of the Iridium network cover the entire earth with connectivity unmatched by any other communications provider. The first Iridium satellite was deployed in 1997 and the network was fully operational in 1998. In 2019, Iridium completed an upgrade to the Iridium constellation...
www.iridium.com www.iridium.com

Starlink's mission is different and their initial goal is for 12,000 satellites (to be expanded later). Their equipment gets the luxury of choosing among possibly multiple visible satellites - balancing signal strength with current free capacity, etc. That takes a larger footprint and more power. The upside is residential-grade two-way data streaming services.

www.starlink.com

Starlink

High-speed internet. Available almost anywhere on Earth.
www.starlink.com www.starlink.com

I don't consider them to be competing technologies, but rather complimentary ones. I have both and use each for completely different tasks.
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Thanks for the info, Bart. We will check out the links. All this stuff is pretty new and confusing to us!!
 
POk3s said:
I love how you guys have pulled this off so well! The sense of relief and accomplishment must be sky high! I sincerely wish I had the patience to remodel something like this.

I didn’t think I’d have anything to add, but since I ice fish a lot and am well versed on all kinds of heaters! In short, you guys are correct to be cautious of your buddy heater. There are lots of videos showing how the heater buddy is “safe”! And yes it is very safe compared to other heaters.

When things are going perfectly, the heater outputs carbon DIOXIDE, water vapor, and heat. You need a whole lot of carbon dioxide to do any damage to you.

Your real danger is low oxygen for a couple different reasons. The first is well…low oxygen. The heater uses the oxygen in the room and if it’s not well ventilated then you’ll start to starve the place of oxygen.

The second danger of low oxygen is the heater will then start to put off carbon MONOXIDE when the oxygen gets low. A real killer and even if it doesn’t kill you, enough to put a damper on the weekend with headaches and flu like symptoms.

The heaters are built with a low oxygen, safety shutoff. It SHOULD shut off before anything bad happens, but you’re trusting a $50 heater and a 10 cent shut off part. The way I look at it, they come with an ignition too and that thing rarely works!!

Sorry for getting a little long winded but if you’re like me, you just don’t like to invite any kind of preventable accidents into your life. I don’t trust the heaters for sleeping either and keep things well ventilated. I regularly use a sunflower style heater but they are the worst for carbon monoxide output. They do however work all the time…unlike the finicky heater buddies. Keep things ventilated, click them on and let them run for 5 minutes and click them off.

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, lots of ice fisherman are going the route of “Chinese diesel heaters” and love them. They exhaust out the back when built properly. A search for “diesel heaters for ice fishing” should put you on the right path.

I just purchased this heater last year for sleeping in my ice hut. Completely safe but doesn’t put out a ton of heat. Basically it makes it comfortable to sleep when outside is very uncomfortable.

Click to expand...
Thank you, POk3s, for your input! Up a Creek also recommended them and we will look into them. Good point about the igniters on Mr Buddy. We have 2 and neither work! And yes, the remodel took sooo much patience! Well worth it, but there were times I thought we were going to have a very large bon fire! Have a grand time ice fishing. Great way to extend the fishing season, at least so we hear!
 
upthecreek said:
Glad to see you made thru the cold snap. Wondered how you were making
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upthecreek said:
Glad to see you made thru the cold snap. Wondered how you were making out.
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It was so good to meet you two in the parking lot! Yes, that Wayne's Word flag is helpful! Glad you had a great time fishing downlake. Wasn't the weather terrific, except for the couple of weekend windy days. Hope to run into you guys again!!
 
I hear you on the heat. I just bought a cheap Chinese diesel fired heater for my Sprinter tailgater I've been building, it's knock off of a German made Webasto. It's amazing so far, I paid $150 for it including tax and shipping. It is really nice for the price, you may want to check one out for your boat. It only uses a gallon a night and diesel isn't explosive. I bought it on Amazon, I went with the Vevor brand because I've had good luck with the boat accessories and tools they make. Maybe check it out anyway, it's an outside air and exhaust device with a heat exchanger, separate fresh air areturn and supply for the interior and it's 12v, much better than asphyxiating yourself. Maybe look it up anyway, I love mine so far.
 
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We've several recommendations on those heaters, so yes, we will certainly check them out! thanks for the info!
 
We got Starlink on our houseboats last year. We have parked it in tight against rock cliff faces in Dry Rock Creek on all three trips and have not missed a bit of internet or phone usage. I think there's continuous connectivity even when parked with no direct sun all day (as we were in Sept). Chuck
 
cfulton said:
We got Starlink on our houseboats last year. We have parked it in tight against rock cliff faces in Dry Rock Creek on all three trips and have not missed a bit of internet or phone usage. I think there's continuous connectivity even when parked with no direct sun all day (as we were in Sept). Chuck
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Did you install it yourself? If so, any tips?
 
Sorry to be tardy in response--just saw your post. It's a Laketime managed houseboat and they did the install. I'd talk to Bill West (Laketime's owner) for hints and tips on the install. He'll also have info on subscriptions, etc. He's a good guy with LOTS of lake experience. Chuck
 
cfulton said:
Sorry to be tardy in response--just saw your post. It's a Laketime managed houseboat and they did the install. I'd talk to Bill West (Laketime's owner) for hints and tips on the install. He'll also have info on subscriptions, etc. He's a good guy with LOTS of lake experience. Chuck
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Thanks!!
 
POk3s said:
I love how you guys have pulled this off so well! The sense of relief and accomplishment must be sky high! I sincerely wish I had the patience to remodel something like this.

I didn’t think I’d have anything to add, but since I ice fish a lot and am well versed on all kinds of heaters! In short, you guys are correct to be cautious of your buddy heater. There are lots of videos showing how the heater buddy is “safe”! And yes it is very safe compared to other heaters.

When things are going perfectly, the heater outputs carbon DIOXIDE, water vapor, and heat. You need a whole lot of carbon dioxide to do any damage to you.

Your real danger is low oxygen for a couple different reasons. The first is well…low oxygen. The heater uses the oxygen in the room and if it’s not well ventilated then you’ll start to starve the place of oxygen.

The second danger of low oxygen is the heater will then start to put off carbon MONOXIDE when the oxygen gets low. A real killer and even if it doesn’t kill you, enough to put a damper on the weekend with headaches and flu like symptoms.

The heaters are built with a low oxygen, safety shutoff. It SHOULD shut off before anything bad happens, but you’re trusting a $50 heater and a 10 cent shut off part. The way I look at it, they come with an ignition too and that thing rarely works!!

Sorry for getting a little long winded but if you’re like me, you just don’t like to invite any kind of preventable accidents into your life. I don’t trust the heaters for sleeping either and keep things well ventilated. I regularly use a sunflower style heater but they are the worst for carbon monoxide output. They do however work all the time…unlike the finicky heater buddies. Keep things ventilated, click them on and let them run for 5 minutes and click them off.

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, lots of ice fisherman are going the route of “Chinese diesel heaters” and love them. They exhaust out the back when built properly. A search for “diesel heaters for ice fishing” should put you on the right path.

I just purchased this heater last year for sleeping in my ice hut. Completely safe but doesn’t put out a ton of heat. Basically it makes it comfortable to sleep when outside is very uncomfortable.

Click to expand...
Good points. I always bring a carbon monoxide detector when camping with any heater. They are cheap and add an extra layer of peace of mind.
 
K&M said:
Did you install it yourself? If so, any tips?
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I installed mine myself, It's the easiest thing imaginable. It's automatic, find a spot, plug it in and off it goes. Only two things to decide, where to screw in the mount for the antenna and how to route the cable to the receiver/wi-fi device and where to plug it into 110 power. Level 1 as project difficulty goes. However I can't recommend connectivity as necessarily increasing your Lake Powell enjoyment but that's a different topic, If you want to see that one it's under The negatives of connectivity from a few months back
 
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One thing I would suggest that our houseboat group needs to fix. Might be worth considering on your install.
When you have your boat in the slip (depends on length of boat, ours is 65 feet). The sheet metal roof of the slip blocks the satellite signal. So we get spotty (partially obstructed service in the slip), still works just cuts in and out often. We have our dish mounted on the top deck as far back on the railing as possible. Near the entrance to the water slide.
Last time I was down I noticed many similar sized boats have used a piece of metal that extends up and further out over the back deck of their boats. And then they mount the dish to that extension piece. I’m assuming they had the same issues we are having.

Of course you could always just slide the boat away from the front of the slip until you’re clear. That’s what we’ve been doing and it works great. Just a long leap from the dock to the bow deck!

Otherwise, the install is extremely simple.
 
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