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Tue 22 Feb, 2005 07:29 am
I've been searching the web for propane heaters and have found some good choices but at the bottom of their specs they state "not reccomended for over 4,500 ft". A real bummer since the house I want to heat is at 6'500. Why are they not recomended and what are my alternatives. Electric energy is very expensive here so I'd rather skip that option. The house currently has a propane gas water heater and clothes dryer that seem to work fine.
Probably, you're looking at unvented, indoor heaters with an oxygen sensor. I suspect a furnace installation would work just fine.
Yes they do have oxygen sensors. They're also transportable as checked luggage on the flight back to Colombia, an obligatory criteria. What is it about the oxygen sensor that makes them not reccomended over 4,500 ft?
At altitude, there is less oxygen to start with, so they may be prone to give a false positive indication and shut down to keep from suffocating people. 4,500 ft sounds low by the way. The ones I've seen list something like 7,000 feet. I'm at 5000 and they work just fine. 6,000 might be a bit marginal.
in addition to what Roger has said, the effective burn of propane via gas pressure is dependent on ambient temp, obviously hight alt means lower temp (just some additional info) at -40 F the btu from propane is 0.(or so I remember)
I see. That makes sense. The lowest the temperature gets is maybe upper 50s F. I'll contact the company and ask.
Roger where have you seen propane heaters listed for around 7000 feet? Everything I can find on the net so far in the way of ventless heaters only go up to 4500 feet. I'd like to pick one up in late March in the U.S. to bring back with me.
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