Why does my Big Buddy Mr. Heater make a whistling or humming noise?

I have the "Big Buddy" heater and the switch is on top, if it is clicked down toward the front of the heater, the fan is on (little yellow dot), pushed back, the blower is off.

I think it is just due to safety reasons.

I had the same problem I called tech support and they said to turn the valve on the 20# cylinder on very slowly for the first 1/4 turn then all will be fine. There is an excessive flow check valve that causes restricted flow when the valve is opened quickly----------mine works fine now

try taking apart fan housing & look to see if fan blade is scraping the housing. next look to see if fan blade is secure to fan motor shaft.next look to see if fan motor bearings are worn egg shaped and try oiling fan motor bearings with sae 30.
somewheres amoung all this inspecting of the fan motor, you will find the cause of the problem and learn what new parts you may need to buy to fix it.

mr heater makes a whistling sound as gas escapes around the gasket of the ceramic heating elements, that is ,all around the outside edges of the ceramic heating elements.

You can find out exactly where the gas leak is , by pressing down on the outside edges of the ceramic elements with a big, long
slotted (flat bladed) screwdriver while mr heater is running and hot.

The screwdriver needs to be long enough so that you dont burn your hands [the longer & bigger the screwdriver, the better] & it does not hurt to wear heavy gloves too, because it gets very hot, very fast in front of mr heater.
The thicker the blade of the screwdriver is, the less chance of damaging the ceramic heating element because a thick bladed screwdriver will not concentrate all the pressure in just 1 tiny point.

You are not trying to crack the ceramic with a wood chisel.

Dont press down so hard that you break the ceramic heating element, start by pressing down gently and gradually increasing pressure until you notice a change in the whistle or sparks comming out of the heating element as loose carbon deposits
come out of the heating element and burn in the propaine flame.

When you press down on one edge ,the other opposite edge may come up slightly, resulting in loose carbon deposits escaping and burning as sparks.

also, you may not be pressing at the spot where the gas whistling is comming from and will need to move the screwdriver flat blade around the edges, here & there, to test for the effect of pressing down.

When you press down on the outside edge where the diamonds stop, while mr heater is whisteling, the whisteling will stop & mr heater will run quite. Sometimes, just pushing down with the screwdriver will stop the whisteling ,for a while,and maybe a good long while.

The big pain in the **** solution is to put a new gasket around the
ceramic heating elements, but there is no guarantee that the new gasket will not whistle.
Its a big ,nasty job, which I would rather not do--so I just push down with the screwdriver, to temporarly stop the whisteling, I guess it depends on how much the whisteling annoys you, as to if you want to go thru all the effort & expense of changing out the gaskets, without knowing if it will still whistle when you are done.

Im just a diy guy that has 3 big buddys I keep going for 4 yrs now.
I took one apart to look 4 the cause of the gas whistling, and then put it back together. Funny,it stopped whisteling & that was 3 yrs ago. I didnt put in any new parts.

It may help ,a lot ,to increase the pressure with which the Mr heater ceramic is pressed down against the gasket material.


This is accomplished by a heavy stainless steel wire that runs behind the ceramic heater element and goes through sheet metal
tabs on each side of the ceramic mounting frame.
You can bend the wire and the tabs,but only a little bit, and be very careful not to break the tabs because the tabs are not repairable, to increase the downwards pressure of the ceramic element against the gasket material. This may stop the gas whisteling--
its a try & see thing, a finicky adjustment, that sometimes works
& sometimes does not and sometimes, after a week or two, the ceramic might reseat itself against the gasket material and the whistling stop. Mine did stop whistling, but not until a couple of months after i did the job, due ,i think to reseating of the cermic against the gasket material. its try & see thing.


also ,a gas tank that has higher than average gas pressure may start gas whistling up but the whistling will stop after you have burned up the higher pressure of the propaine.

could a fuel filter help? I hate to send you out to buy more things for it but it helped my heater.... Mr. Heater Fuel Filter for Portable Buddy and Big Buddy Heaters #F273699

When the pilot lights continue holding the button down for a full minute and then release. It should stay lit then to allow you to turn it to the on position. If the pilot will not stay lit after holding it for the full minute, then the thermocouple will need to be replaced.
Hope this helps.

Hi,
Yes you can use it.... BUT!!!!

make sure all combustibles are at least three feet away from the heater....

AND...open a window a bit... 1-2 inches... to allow fresh air in so you do not get CO poisoning...

heatman101

HI try mr heater wed site there has been some recalls on these heaters , it sounds like you had too much pressure going to the heater , or the gas valve was faulty, hope this helps

usually caused by burner or oriface obstruction