Reviews > Health & Safety > Emergency and Survival Gear > Coleman Exponent XtremeCat Heater > Jodi Cornelius > Initial Report

Date: October 4, 2005

My Background: I have been backpacking for 3 years now and before that I car camped quite a bit. I consider myself somewhat new to backpacking and am on my way towards becoming a lightweight packer. I tend to use a Hennessey Hammock since my only tent is a bivy tent. I prefer the hammock to a tent as the hammock leaves me swinging gently in the breeze with no hard spot from rocks on the ground. Nor do I need to dig troughs for my hips and shoulders (side sleeper) so I can practice LNT (Leave No Trace) much better.

Initial Impressions: The package containing the heater (along with the Xcursion Lantern and Backpacking Table) was sitting on my front porch when I got home from an appointment. Total geekness ensued! PLAYTIME!!! I mean, gear testing time. Opening the box I found the XtremeCat Catalytic Heater (see photos below).

All items that arrived	Heater in bag

In the above pictures you can see the heater, carry sack (which only has room for the heater and stabilizing ring), a stabilizing ring, and instructions. The second picture shows everything inside the carry sack.

Unfortunately, I have not had much luck with the Coleman items I have received. The XtremeCat Catalytic heater refused to work. It would light (sort of - see picture below) but only in one spot and with minimal heat. Of course, I didn't have their recommended fuel as that fuel is not available locally so I was going to use a butane/propane blend that I had in-house. After trying a canister of JetPower fuel and a larger canister of Primus fuel with the same mixture, it still wouldn't light. So I thought maybe it NEEDED the Coleman blend of fuel. So I took an hour and a half trip to Buffalo, NY in order to see if I could find the fuel at a sporting goods store that I go to. Luckily, I found it and proceeded to purchase two 7 3/4 oz (220 g) canisters of their 70/30 blend of butane and propane.

I hurried home, eager to try out the heater. No such luck. It still refused to light. The photo below (mentioned earlier) is lit using the recommended fuel. Per the instructions I held the match over the heater while turning the knob to the "light" position for 10 seconds, then, after the match went out, I held it for another 10 seconds. No change. So I thought maybe I wasn't holding it on long enough so I tried it again, this time holding the knob on for 20 seconds and then another 10. Nothing changed.

I left the image large so you can see that the heater is only lit in one small spot. I contacted Coleman's customer service and was informed "Jodi, Please read and follow the directions carefully. Coleman Products are only to be used with Propane fuel and not Propane/Butane fuel.

You will need to use only propane with the heater for it to work correctly for you."

I responded with "Libby, please find yourself a manual for the Coleman XtremeCat Catalytic Heater and turn to page 5 - At the top you will see a "NOTE: Use 7 3/4 oz disposable butane/propane mix cylinder only."

Therefore, I AM using the correct fuel"

I am sorry to report that at this point in time, I am not impressed with Coleman's customer service. Having problems with both the heater and the lantern I received (lantern issues will be in the forthcoming IR for it) the customer service people who responded to my problems did not seem to know their own products. Plus I have found that some do not appear to read the emails received completely. Turn-around time, per these people, is 4 to 6 weeks AFTER they receive my defective unit in the mail. And this part isn't their fault necessarily, but they don't even know who or what BGT is. Granted, this shouldn't warrant any "special favors" other than getting replacements out more quickly since we are testing in a time frame, but, man. I've gotten REAL annoyed with the responses (and lack thereof) from Coleman's Customer Service department. I'm hoping as this goes on that their customer service gets better because at this point in time, were I a "normal" customer EVERYTHING would be going back to Coleman with a demand that I get refunded in full. As it is, at this time I am trying to settle myself and realize that they are human too and can't possibly know EVERYTHING about all their products. Hopefully, this will remind their customer support people to "grab a manual" or something that tells them about specific products and CHECK that before responding to a customer.

So this is all I can report on in this report at this time. Once this problem gets remedied I'll be able to continue with the test.

Since writing this last night, we have resolved, somewhat, the issue with the heater. A new entry under troubleshooting will be added. It appears that some of the Catalytic heaters (this is a random occurrence) will not light properly per the instructions in the included manual. What needs to be done is this, you must hold the match per the instructions and turn the knob to the "light" position per the instructions.  However, at this point, instead of holding the knob on for the instructed 10 seconds while lighting and then continuing to hold it for another 10 seconds you must, instead, hold it on for at least 30 to 45 seconds on the first light. I ended up having to hold mine on for approximately a minute and a half (I pulled out my watch after having had it turned for approximately 15 seconds and watched it for another minute and fifteen seconds) before I was able to finally feel some heat over the top of the heater. I think this may have "cured" my problem although I can feel that it is hotter on the side that lit before than on the rest of the heated pad. This may get better after a couple of uses.

Also, due to the emails that I had received from their customer support, the woman who helped me get this all resolved said she was going to use my problems as a "learning" experience and not as a disciplinary action (which is good because I really didn't want anyone to be in trouble - like I said in my report, they can't know everything about all their products as there are simply too many products).

Test Plan: Now that it appears I have the heater working I will be getting into the testing phase of this a little more eagerly. This heater will be used in my hammock with a tarp. No, the heater won't be IN my hammock, but I plan on having my tarp set up tee-pee style around the opening of the hammock with a Neat Sheet on the ground and will use that to help me warm up on cold mornings. I also have a bivy tent that has room for a heater and will possibly use it in the tent as well. It will also be used this winter during power outages as I have a room that is small and well insulated and would be a good room to heat with the heater should the power go out.

Temperatures should range anywhere from 80 F/27 C to possible lows of -5 F/-21 C. The news release states that the heater puts out about 800 btu which is a safe enough heat to have in an enclosed space PROVIDED there is ample ventilation! I will ALWAYS make sure the area I am heating with this heater is well ventilated. I have discovered while messing with this heater that once we got it lit it has progressively gotten better with each successful lighting. The engineer with Coleman said that each lighting will cause the catalytic conversion to work better each time. I found that is true (thankfully).

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Reviews > Health & Safety > Emergency and Survival Gear > Coleman Exponent XtremeCat Heater > Jodi Cornelius > Initial Report