Anyone have experience with Vintage heaters?

[JuHarr]

Anyone here have experience with vintage gas wall heaters? I have one that I've used in my bathroom for the past 15 years.

I took it apart, cleaned and reassembled it, no issues, no leaks.

Now my question is, there is a round piece that can either be left open or closed. It looks like a vent on a bar-b-que pit. I'm not sure if it should be open or closed.

 

[oldmachinenut]

Welcome,
It adjusts the air intake for the best flame like the grill.

 

[fitter30]

The adjustment is the flame doesn't lift off the burner. Probably be around 3/4 open. Put Co detector in the room with the furnace.

 

[Bronson]

Set the shutter back as it was before you disassembled and cleaned, same setting it was always at, you will be good to go.
Open flame heater, get and install a CO detector as stated above.

 

[JuHarr]

Thank you all for your replies. The heater is working fine, nice blue flame. As for the CO level, I'm not concerned because I use the heater in there for about 1 to 1.5 hours a day. I live in the south USA, so we don't have cold cold weather.

 

[HoosierBuddy]

Thank you all for your replies. The heater is working fine, nice blue flame. As for the CO level, I'm not concerned because I use the heater in there for about 1 to 1.5 hours a day. I live in the south USA, so we don't have cold cold weather.

Until you hit a cold spell and decide to run it longer. Walmart sells a nice CO detector with a digital display for $43. Amazon likely has them for less. I have 2 of them in my house. Never seen a reading above zero, but "I AM CONCERNED" as I'm pretty well informed. Cellular Hypoxia can flat out kill you, as the chart above shows. 400 people in the US die annual due to CO poisoning. 100,000 are sickened enough to require an ER visit and 14,000 (on average) require hospitalization.

Just from a cost/benefit point of view: $43 vs the cost of an ER visit?

 

[Jackfre]

CO is always a concern. It is a gas appliance. That heater is old and possibly will last forever and you will never have a problem. Maybe not! You buy a CO detector to protect others. Don’t worry about yourself, that is okay, but you take on a lot when you dismiss the likelihood of some weird thing going on. It happens and you don’t want to be that guy.

 

[BurtEggley]

just get a CO detector.

 

[Aileron]

Id put it back to where it was set before and see how it looks .I had a nice blue flame on a boiler i went to tune. Once you start using a combustion meter you relize you cant go by blue.The air was opened up too much and Co climbed . It had close to 15% air. Too much air will also produce CO Just as too little. That boiler had 1500ppm CO going up that flue In a 6 story college building. 400 ppm is the limit and as atuner you try and shoot for under 100ppm, closer to 0 the better. Maintenance had eyeballed it for a blue flame and open up the air diffusers. I had to turn the air down.It was only producing 3 -15 ppm this was on a old worn out 200 horsepower Kewanee .Your CO and O2 act as a arc ,when you get to far lean or rich of you stirometric value its starts making CO.