The Best Heater for your GEM

First off if you don’t have Doors on your car I think “your pushing a Train Uphill” as far as trying to keep warm with a Heater. But with that said you perhaps have other options. I’ll talk about them later.


This is Colman “Golf Cat” it’s a Caletic Heater Colman says you can use it in a tent.
It’s safe for indoor situations. Although I always have a open window or source of fresh air when ever I use this. It will warm the inside of the Gem with in a few Mins. Best part is no matter how much you use it, it will not Drain your battery or Reduce your cars range. :slight_smile:

BTW I refill the 1lb propane tanks that my Golf Cat heater uses myself . I bout a adaptor and use my BBQ’s 25pound tank to fill these 1lb bottles.

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You can see how it sits on the floor and I use a Velcro Strap to secure it in place. So it’s safe and doesn’t move around. It comes with the TriPod Mount at the front. And a Cup Holder attachment that holds it in a standard cup holder that I would NOT recommend. I have used this same heater in a Classic Gem as well.

Hey Grant, be careful refilling the disposable bottles, the purge valve (the reverse schrader looking thing) isn’t meant to be cycled very many times and sometimes won’t seat properly . I had a few in the past that started leaking.

You have to look around a bit to find them, but the legit refillable 16.4oz bottles are so much better built and their purge valve uses an allen set screw, so there is little chance of it wearing out and a minimal chance of leakage. The safety and convivence is well worth the cost of the bottles IMO. So much easier to fill also.

Do happen to have a brand name on the refillable 16.4oz bottles?

Sold under two names that I know of: “Flame King” and “Little Camper”

Not sure if Flame King makes them or just distributes, their bottles come empty and can be tough to find,

Little Camper is an exchange service, much like the 20# tank exchange vendors. Once you buy a tank, it’s yours, you can take it to be filled or in the case of the Little Camper bottles, fill it yourself. If you pull the plastic wrap off the Little Camper, it has the Flame King stickers. Very easy to find these, mostly sold through ACE hardware stores. Just check their website. You do pay a bit more the first time because it comes pre-filled.

If you are looking for a fill rig, I like the Flame King. Rather than the schnozzles that use the POL fittings to screw into the 20# tank and then you screw the 1# into that, which puts the bottles right next to each other so you can’t get to the bleeder easily and you can’t stop the fill quickly because your only valve is the triangle handwheel on the 20# tank, the Flame King filler is a long filler that screws on with the external quick cam threads and the 1# is attached to a 90-degree swiveling head so it will hang straight down. Lots of access. You control the fill via a spring loaded deadman lever on the flame king filler.

It has a little plastic tab on the 1# connector to prevent you from screwing in disposables, but it bends out of the way pretty easily, Just let it warm up in the sun with no 20# attached and force on a 1# and it’ll shove out of the way for good.

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Hey I have found that filling these 1 LB bottles is very controversial. Yea I know you wound not think so But it seems like everyone on YouTube has a video and has a “special technique” and they all claim that there’s is better than next one. I even have my Own :slight_smile: but I’ll spare you all. One thing I find funny is that I haven’t seen anyone talking about overfilling or even seeing one example of overfilling & an accident happening (which is great!) I know filling seems risky and you should not risk your Heath for such a cheep refill but how dangerous is it really?

There isn’t really that much head space in a 1# tank to overfill. Since all you are actually doing is equalizing between the 20# and 1#, it’s virtually impossible to rupture a tank.

Unless you are purging the 1# tank and getting a tare weight, then filling it and reweighing, you don’t even know if you are actually overfilling it. If it is actually overfilled, you might get a little spitting of liquid when you first use the tank. Might fireball on the heater’s flame grid or it might exceed the UEL and be too rich to ignite.

The weak point on the disposable 1# tanks is the bleeder valve which isn’t designed for too many cycles. Eventually it may leak.

I guess I don’t exist either because you’ve never seen me. :wink:

I appreciate your opinion. Filling the 1# Colman tanks I can honestly say It’s not super confidence inspiring! :slight_smile:

I do agree the Schrader valve is the week point. I have found that if you cycle the valve it’s hard for it to reseal and not leak, so my fix I don’t play with it :slight_smile: I take the adaptor / filler & empty the tank I place the adaptor on the tank & It empty’s the gas & creates the headspace u need And it also chills/freezes the tank all at the same time once the tank is empty I fill up the 1# tank. Takes about 30 seconds, it may not be filled 100% I know your supposed to weigh them but No big deal

Yeah, if you’re not opening the bleeder, it’s virtually impossible to overfill or over pressurize the tank via the equalizing method, Agreed, you’ll probably never hit 100% full. You might have some air in the tank, but that’s going to be the first thing out since propane is heaver.

I never had much luck with those schnozzles, nor did I really like them, that’s why I went for the valved fill rig. My comments were based on using the bleeder as I do when I fill, which could certainly lead to an overfill if one doesn’t stop in time. I’ve done it many times by not cutting the flow off in time when it just starts to spit LPG out the bleeder. But I fill by weight, so I’ll know when I disconnect and put it on the scale if it’s over full and then have to vent it to bring it back down to the proper level. Which is the most f̶u̶n̶ a̶n̶d̶ e̶n̶t̶e̶r̶t̶r̶a̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ dangerous part.