Mr Heater Cooker vs Mr Heater Big Buddy

[cleveland]

I have an older Mr Heater Cooker that has served me well in my old 4-man Fish-N-Pop shanty (pictured below) but I just picked up a 2-man Clam Yukon and I'm reassessing my gear. I need the heater to heat the shanty and offer the ability to cook food if we are out all day.

Is there any value to transitioning to the Big Buddy? Will the Big Buddy be more efficient with fuel usage?

My unit is this one but it's 10 years old-ish. Mine shows 9,000btu-15,000btu and the new one shows 10,000btu-15,000btu, other than that it looks to be the same. http://www.mrheater.com/15-000-btu-single-tank-top-heater-cooker-1709.html

[fishEH]

I too used a heater/cooker for years. This year I bought a Mr Heater Buddy Portable. I was pretty disappointed. Heat output was dismal for a 2man flip shanty on a cold day. It also is VERY sensitive to being moved. Mine shut off a few times just from being jostled. It also kept shutting off randomly, maybe the CO sensor. IDK because I had the shack ventilated pretty well. Any more ventilation and it would have been pointless to run Buddy heater at all because it can't put out enough heat to compensate. 

I'm back to using the heater/cooker now. More heat output, lighter, less finicky. 

[cleveland]

That is exactly what I was leary of... Thank you very much for the feedback! I will take that $150 and put it somewhere else. :-)

[4Buck]

Big difference between the Buddy and Big Buddy when it comes to heat.

[cleveland]

 I ordered the hose from Mr. heater to connect the heater cooker to a 5 pound tank.  The funny thing is the guy didn’t even know that was an option until I had him look it up on his own website.

Learn something new every day :-)

[MarkM]

Big difference between the Buddy and Big Buddy when it comes to heat.

x2 The Big Buddy throws a lot more heat and can be used burning the single or double burner.  On a cold day it sure comes in handy.  Might be using more propane with it cranked but as mentioned you can just use the one side burner to conserve propane or monitor temps.  Also greater surface if you do the cooker mod.

Getting the hose and going to a bigger tank is well worth it imo.

[cleveland]

Picked up the 11lb tank and hose for the Mr Heater Cooker today. I figure I'll ride out the old school cooker till it makes sense to replace.

The weight I will be picking up with the tank will be offset when the 10" Jiffy is replaced with the clam auger. It'll be a week or so before the auger plate gets here so there will be a little overlap where I'm dragging both the tank and Jiffy but not much.