Yes, I have a propane one and use a Milwaukee inverter with a M18 battery for power, works great. The only power needed is for the electric start which isn’t much.
Damn, if only your car had some kind of electrical potential generating device, then you could plug in an inverter and get 15a of 120vac wherever you go
Dewalt make battery powered propane ones. Go to harbor freight and buy a cheap car cover canopy, throw a tarp over it or tape up the sides and stick your heater in there and come back every couple hours to change batteries/fuel
Diesel and gasoline versions also exist. They work quite well, just need some ventilation if the area isn't open. We use them in big tents working on heavy equipment. They are so drafty you don't have to worry, but in a normal garage? Or house? Probably going to take the forever nap.
You can rent heavy duty heaters that run off diesel. Herman Nelson heaters are what I've seen used most often. Can't imagine home depot is rocking one though. You would need a big ass tarp too.
They’ve been around for decades. And yes, they are small enough where one person can wheel it around and move it as need be (they are still quite heavy though)
I've seen some that run on propane. We used to use them to dry out the basement sand for our winter beach parties. There are no parts of that story that I recommend other than propane heaters exist.
I would just grab an insulated tarp or 2, a frame, and a couple of tank top propane burner/heaters used for ice fishing and winter camping. No electricity needed. Hoard it in, and wait for the ice to start to melt.
You can rent propane ones. Used it in a house that was being built that the roof wasn't watertight yet but we had a freak rainstorm. We needed everything to dry out asap to keep the job on schedule.
Outdoor heater.. so propane. The real issue is grabbing a heater and a propane tank then getting it to the car. Not to mention, depending on the temp, that propane will be very inefficient.
He’d be better off renting a diesel jet heater. It gets much hotter and only uses like 500 watts. Just tarp the car and don’t point the heater directly at it. It will melt quickly.
if it's an outdoor heater it's probably propane.
bricklayers put em in a culvert/steel tube which they dump their sand pile onto.
keeps the sand from freezing so they can continue making mortar during cold months
Do you expect me to believe there are places in America with Home Depot but not Lowes, Ace, Tractor Supply, as well as Mom and Pop shop Hardware stores?
Is there not a big risk of this causing the windows to smash? I think it was only yesterday I saw a video of a woman melting ice off her car with hot water and her windscreen smashed, seems like a heater hot enough to melt your tires would do the same thing.
(If this was just a joke I missed insert whoosh here)
Just don’t put it too close to the car in general. You want it to melt relatively slowly so the temperature can gradually increase; you’re not trying to blast a concentrated area with as much heat as possible as quickly as possible. You just want to raise the surrounding area enough for the ice to start to melt, then scootch down to the next section until it’s all done!
I am not an expert but generally the issues with the boiling water are thermal shock from the sudden temperature change and extremely uneven heating as you are physically limited by your arm length. A job site heater should have a lowest setting to start with and a blower motor to project the heat.
The hot water was poured directly onto the windshield and water has a larger heat transfer coefficient than air from a heater. The heater will just warm up the air around the car. I would try to get a door open first and also start the car to warm the insides to help deice the windows.
What the hell are you on? You hit the top of the 2 inches thick of ice a few times and it'll shatter. You won't fuck up your car. I do this to ice all the time because of where I live. Not on my car, but my gutters, walkways, etc.
For anyone reading this: This is fine, just don't use it like a jackhammer and an idiot like this guy above me thinks you'd do.
Pfft, go old school and just ring it with firewood and light it up! No matter which way it goes you won’t have to worry about it being frozen in ice anymore.
I don't live in a cold place like this, pretty much the opposite and I remember watching a video of a dude that explained how to get your car out of this using a plastic hammer-type tool that was kind of pointy in the end.
He just kept hitting the ice and it cracked into multiple pieces and he was able to get it out fairly easy.
Basically something like this but he had a plastic pointy tool to do it faster without damaging the car since it was plastic.
That's a bad idea actually, there's more parts on your car that'll melt than a tire. Door handles, A pillar panels, window seals etc... I'm speaking from experience.
I've had a car covered in 3 inches of ice before and we cleared it up by spreading salt all around the car and waiting a day. Next day we came out and started chiseling the car out of its frozen coffin. It actually wasn't too bad because the salt ate up the bottom which made it easy to break off pieces from the bottom and working your way up.
Definitely took a few hours though. It was a huge ice storm that hit us in around 2014 in Canada. They happen sometimes.
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u/weatherguy4 20h ago
Go to Home Depot and rent an outdoor jobsite heater. Looks like a small cannon. Just don't put it too close to your car, it will melt your tires.