Parasene Cold Frame Heater

I bought this Parasene Cold-Frame Heater to replace a small paraffin lantern I was using to heat my mini plastic grow-house.

This heater has been very disappointing, and would recommend just purchasing a small paraffin hurricane lantern instead.

The heater falls down in two crucial areas, design and effectiveness.

The design of the heater is poor, the burner is not a screw fit, and is a push in type. This type is fine and the burner fits securely in the reservoir but a problem with the design of the chimney twist lock fitting means you must then twist the burner to fit the chimney loosening the burner in its seating.

Once the heater is lit the flame needs to be adjusted to just above the outer edge of the burner, easy to do with the wick adjusting wheel.

The space between the gauze and the flame is too small; this gives little room for error when adjusting the flame, too large and the paint on the gauze burns giving off nasty fumes. This reduces the usefulness of the heater as the heater cannot be adjusted to give a stronger flame for the coldest nights as the gauze is damaged. Should the flame be too large and smoke, as paraffin flames do, the gauze catches a lot of the soot which builds up extremely quickly, another possible fire risk.

My heater will stay lit for a few hours at a time, although this is probably a fault with my individual heater, water in wick etc. The design faults are unfortunately inherent and will occur with each of these heaters bought.

Overall I wouldn't recommend anyone buy one of these, the only benefit I can see is that the heater has a large fuel tank and the possibility of running on low heat for 14 days. For my application a better bet would have been another cheap hurricane lantern from eBay. With a run time of about 12 - 20 hours the ability to see the height of the flame without getting covered in paraffin soot, easier to light, ability to adjust the height of the flame to increase the heat output, can also be used for barbeques in the summer.