Coleman 5053A751 ProCat Perfectemp Catalytic Propane Heater with Instastart Technology

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.....

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 am a new camper and I fall in love with camping since my first camp in May this year. The only problem is that it's always cold during the night in Northern California. I tried to get a top of the line sleeping bag with temperature at 15F and it didn't work. Even it's over 100 during the day, it's still chilly during the night.

Finally, I got this ProCat. I doubted whether it will work or not. At the first night using it, I was so happy about it. It's a must have if you want to keep your tent warm at nights. We have a HUGE tent and it make us so comfortable. Finally, I can sleep well.

The only thing you have to keep in mind is that you have to turn it on OUTSIDE the tent. I tried to keep it at least a feet away from any thing. It may be a problem for who has a small tent.

Overall, it is great! All my families love it!

Great little heater. Desesrt cold did not get to us with this heater on. ProCat gets warm quickly and stays warm until the fuel is gone. It is aabout a 6hour heater and it helps if your tent is good and warm on it's own but his heater does real well. My partner has a health condition and she can not tolerate cold, this heater kept her real warm and she loves it.

This heater was a little bigger in person than I thought it was going to be, but is still fine for my needs. Not recommended for a hiking trip... I used this in an 18' X 10' 9 person tent in 30-40 degree weather and was pleased with it's performance. It will run several hours on one 16oz propane tank. The battery powered fan seems to require batteries more often than the propane tank needs to be replaced, but the heater still operates even without batteries. This heater creates an unpleasant odor that bothered my wife a little bit, but did not bother me at all. I'd much rather be warm and put up with a little smell than be freezing and miserable in my tent! I'd say that this heater was able to keep the inside of my 180 sq ft tent about 25 degrees warmer than it would have been without it. I figure it would be much more efficient in a smaller tent. A must have for tent camping in cold weather!!!