I have a Big Buddy heater that was at our camp and stopped working; no pilot light. I knew I just needed to clean the tube with a Q-tip, so I brought it home, disassembled it and did that.

Now, one of the ceramic plates gives off a tall, visible flame. The other one works properly, with a mostly invisible flame and the ceramic turning bright orange.

Does anyone know what I specifically need to do to fix the other plate?

Have you been using an external +20lb tank? If so are you using a filter?

Sounds like you have a leak.


Maybe it wasn't put back together properly?




Any corrosion on the tubes?




Those things are not worth having a fire or CO poisoning if it's malfunctioning.  Just replace it.


 

We normally use a big propane tank at camp, where it didn't work at all.

I am using a small 1 lb canister to test it after cleaning here at home. After cleaning, the pilot light/thermocoupler works fine, and lit up... that's when I noticed the issue with the large flame.

There is no corrosion on any of the tubes; everything looks new on the inside. I don't think it's a leak, because the one ceramic plate works fine. The other one is casting a big flame and not glowing.

It's never been "disassembled", just covers, etc removed to allow cleaning. And I think this cleaning is the first one we've done.

We have a good working one at camp; I'd like to use this one in our treestand Monday for the first day of rifle deer season.

Brush off the plates with a chip brush and see if it starts working again.

I finally got it working.

I had to blow out the tubes leading to the ceramic plates with compressed air. That cleared things up, and it's working properly again.

Thanks all

IME, most free-standing heaters with NG or propane burners are REALLY picky about being kept clean.

Some of those burner holes are almost microscopic in size - and it only takes a speck of dust in one of them to throw the flame pattern far enough off-kilter to make the thermocouple unhappy.

I had the same problem as you. Had a Big Buddy that wouldn't run. Used it off of a 20# tank with filter. Ended up taking all of the line off and blowing them out, had a lot of oily goo in them. Installed a new filter and it works fine now.  I don't know if the filter was bad or they get that way with a lot of use.

If you're leaving it in a blind, let it cool off and put it into a contractor bag or big rubbermaid container to keep insects and suck out.  Same thing in the garage and when stored.