We’ve seen Thermacell advertised for years. We have also seen the test documents from the US MIlitary / Department of Defense that back Thermacell. So when we saw this mosquito protection device sitting on a store shelf in Spokane, Washington we thought… “why not.” The road trip ahead of us stood ready to provide thousands of miles of bug population uncertainty. Better safe than sorry, right? Plus, there are probably a lot of Thermacell Mosquito Repellent Reviews online, but how many cross country reviews could there be… How could we not give this thing a chance.
As we traveled east toward Idaho, from Spokane, skepticism and a hint of buyer’s remorse filled the cabin of our Sprinter 4×4. How do you know if it’s working? What if there aren’t any mosquitoes? What happens when the wind is blowing? However, by the time we reached Coeur d’Alene the conversation transitioned to where to walk the dog and get some food before heading to Montana.
To be honest we kind of forgot that we even bought the Thermacell until a few days later when we were camping about 30 or 40 minutes east of Yellowstone National Park. We were fairly close to water, and presumably man-eating bears, and as we were prepping our dinner… little black bugs started to buzz around our “mise en place” and Partner Steel stove. That’s when we remembered the Thermacell. After a bit of digging through gear and flipping through the thermacell directions for 15 seconds or so, the MR-450 was prepared for duty.
It did take a while to figure out how to tell that the mosquito repelling fumes were in the air. We actually got a little frustrated, went and grabbed some beers from the fridge, and by the time we returned the Thermacell was up and running. Despite the manufacturer’s claim that it’s “odor free” the first indication that we didn’t buy a dud… was a faint odor. Close up… you can also see a faint plume of vapor (or steam…) coming off of the heated Thermacell treated pad.
Before we get into the details of that first use; let’s get the key specs and initial quirks out of the way.
Specifications
- Covers about 15 feet by 15 feet
- Evaluated by the US Environmental Protection Agency
- Fueled by Butane (Each cartridge lasts about 12 Hours)
- No open flame
Initial Quirks
- Thermacell says its “virtually odor free” it is not. The odor isn’t terrible, but it’s there
- A little difficult to verify that it’s turned on… be Patient
First Impressions
Once the device was up and running it did seem to keep the small bugs at bay. They were kind of swarming about five or six feet away. Was the Thermacell working? Or was that just a better place to hang out for a bug that night? We didn’t care, no bugs near the stove is always a plus.
Unfortunately, the Sprinter’s doors were left open while we cooked and the Sprinter was clearly out of repellant range. Which is pretty easy when your vehicle is way longer than the 15 foot diameter sphere of protection this unit allegedly provides. Without getting into too many details or pointing any fingers… some of the little black bugs set up shop in the van.
Now your assumption would be put the Thermacell in the van… they’ll fly out. But it’s not that easy in practice. Bugs are dumb. If you just put the Thermacell in the van some will head out of the open door, while some try to go to the other exit. Unfortunately that exit is the windshield. So you open the front doors to let them out. Easy, right? Nope not when there’s a slight breeze. Now you have huge wind tunnel. Fresh air coming through the front doors… Thermacell and bugs heading out of the back.
Then you move the MR-450 to the dash to take advantage of the breeze. By the time you retrieve another beer from the fridge… the wind stops. That’s when we decided to close the front doors and try to chase the 4-6 bugs out of the van’s barn doors with a towel.
So did the MR-450 work on night one? It seemed to… sort of. We did experience a bug free meal. And, we would like to think that the Thermacell had a hand in that. However, the whole van windtunnel fiasco left us wondering if we should have just saved our money.
Before we move on to subsequent evenings… lets answer the question that we probably should have asked ourselves before shoving a butane fueled mosquito repellant into our van’s interior.
Is Thermacell Safe to Breathe
The EPA, Department of Defense, and Thermacell seem to thinks so. To be honest, we aren’t fans of the faint odor the device produces. But outside in the open it is pretty unnoticeable. Up close it smells kind of chemically or synthetic… by by all accounts and info we can find Allethrin is safe to breathe. But, if you have a sensitive respiratory system or are concerned you should do a bit of research on your own. We aren’t scientist or doctors.
But we can tell you how it works…
So, How does it Work?
It’s actually a pretty simple little machine. There’s a Allethrin treated pad that sits on top of a little metal grill. Below that is a butane fueled heater. Other than that it’s a rubberized plastic case, an ignitor and some other simple parts.
Do Thermacells take Batteries? Yep. At least ours does. A pair AA’s ignite the butane that fuels the internal heater.
What is Allethrin? Sounds scary doesn’t it. Like some kind of pharmaceutical… you know, the ones with 30 seconds of horrific side effects at the end of the commercial. Allethrin is actually just a synthetic copy of a natural insect repellent created by chrysanthemum flowers.
How do you Mount / Place / Hold it? The only thing you really need to consider is that heat rises. So… you’ll want at least some of that heat to be rising from below the blue pad for the very best results. Outside we just put the Thermacell flat on the table, and it seemed to work pretty well. We used the clip on the back to hand the MR-450 in the van, and then just placed it flat on the dash. It did seem to like being flat as opposed to vertical. But, even when it was near-vertical it was hot enough to put Allethrin into the air.
After Yellowstone (Back to our Thermacell Review)
The day following our first use, we headed into Yellowstone to see the sights. We cruised around, took pictures and did the typical touristy stuff that one does on a quick trip to the park. We arrived to see old faithful shortly after an eruption. So we claimed a log just outside the “no dog” perimeter and waited the advertised 35-120 minutes until the next show. After about an hour dark clouds started to roll in from the west. We held out and around minute 110 the geyser finally erupted. Unfortunately, by the time it finished the thick blanket of clouds covered the park. Rain was falling lightly as we made our way back to the Sprinter. But, by the time we got back on to the Yellowstone roadway en route to another attraction it was pouring.
What does this have to do with the Thermacell? Well, we ended up skipping the park. We navigated east to Cody Wyoming through torrential rain, crazy strong winds, and confused tourists. By the time we arrived in Cody we decide to find a spot with some sort of wind break. Evidently that is exactly what pretty much every RV within 50 miles was trying to do. So, like a bus load of lemmings we found refuge in a Walmart parking lot along side huge diesel pushers, rented class C motorhomes, and even a few tents. We obviously didn’t use the thermacell that night.
Mosquito Free Camping for Days…
We left Walmart and Cody in our proverbial dust the morning after the storm and set our sights on Bighorn National Forest. Which, remains one of the prettiest stretches of roads from the entire 6,400 mile road trip. On a scale of 1-10, one being a tie between Kansas, Illinois, and Indiana and ten being almost any stretch of road in the great state of Oregon it was probably a solid 8.5.
What we did not realize when we planned the trip is that our campsite was pretty high, and the weather was unseasonably cold. In fact it was cold enough to snow in late September. So… we obviously didn’t use the Thermacell at all while visiting Wyoming.
From there we continued east through Deadwood on our way to see Mt Rushmore. Which was fogged in for 24 hours… so we decided to camp and wait it out. The good news is that this unexpected layover did give us a chance to bust out the Thermacell once again.
We set up camp just west of the 4 presidents, in a campground on Horsethief Lake. We arrived to our spot just after sunset, and deployed the Thermacell immediately. As it toiled away we made a bit of dinner, opened some Sweet As, and got ready to build a small campfire. Which was pretty crazy because we hadn’t really got to enjoy many that year… in fact, when we departed Bend you could hardly see down the street due to all of the forest fire smoke.
Back to the review of the Thermacell… Zero Mosquitos so far. And it was the same story the next night outside of Badlands NP. No mosquitos in the evening… but maybe there aren’t mosquitoes in the Badlands. Either way we fired up the MR-450 and observed another mosquito free evening in South Dakota.
Flies Might Actually be Attracted to Thermacell
Probably not… but that’s how it seemed the next day at a lakeside park in South Dakota. We saw it on our Nat Geo atlas and decided to stop to make some lunch and let the dog out. The clean little park sat on the shores of a small lake. We were pleasantly surprised. But, once again we turned our backs on an open-doored Sprinter van, and returned to an infestation.
Inside the van about 20 (or maybe a thousand, who’s counting) large black flies decided to ransack the van in search of whatever flies search for (besides poo). We assumed that when Thermacell says flying insects… they also mean big nasty South Dakota shore flies. Evidently they didn’t tell our new vanmates… we tried every configuration of Thermacell and opening. Nothing worked. Eventually we used a Rumple quilt to set up a moveable wall to push the flies out of the van. It sort of worked… we had to stop a few times in the net hour or so to release a castaway or two.
Moral of the story… don’t picnic in South Dakota. Their flies are uber aggressive and are unphased by the active ingredient in Thermacell.
Rest of the Trip…
The rest of the trip to Overland Expo East didn’t involve much camping. We stayed with family in Minneapolis and Louisville. But, there was one night between the two cities were the Thermacell would prove its usefulness and ultimately win us over.
We had a day to burn before we arrived in Louisville, so we scoured the National Geographic road atlas for a good sized green area for some dispersed camping in a national forest. If you’re from the Western US and haven’t spent much time looking at a map of Illinois, Indiana, etc. you should. It’s pretty crazy to compare the public lands in states like Washington, Idaho, Montana, etc. to other parts of the country. We just assumed that there would be a respectable selection of public lands to choose from. Compared to our home state of Oregon there just isn’t. We finally set our sites on Hoosier National Forest, and spent the better part of a the day looking for a good spot to park the van for an evening.
Bugs in Hoosier National Forest
The good news, for Thermacell at least, is that Hoosier National forest is home to a lot of flying bugs. In camp were were careful to keep the van’s doors closed as much as possible. We were still recuperating from the South Dakota fly fiasco. Outside the van we fired up the Thermacell and placed it on the table. Compared to other locations around the campground our picnic table was the least mosquito infested part of Hoosier National Forest. Maybe it was the unseasonably hot and humid fall weather, maybe it’s like this all the time, but we were pretty impressed by the healthy mosquito population that resided in our campground.
Back to Oregon
The trip back to Oregon was brief to say the least. We spent one night camping in Missouri where the Thermacell seemed to do a good job once again. But, other than that we were moving to fast across the middle of the country to be outside long enough to see any bugs. We definitely didn’t spend enough time outside of the Sprinter to let the Thermacell warm up. We had to get back home ASAP.
Final Thoughts
Maybe we were lucky… or just no longer smelled like mosquito food. But, that night in Illinois really sealed the deal when it comes to our faith in Thermacell’s mosquito repellent. From what we learned on the trip east to Ashville, the MR-450 did help. Maybe not on huge flies, but on most of the bugs we noticed it seemed to thin them out to a tolerable concentration. On the trip back to Oregon… there was one night outside the van where it seemed to help, but the bugs weren’t crazy like they were in Illinois.
Bottom line… we would have to say that the Thermacell Mosquito Repellent is effective in most cases. Is it perfect? No, but we have zero buyer’s remorse.
We’re looking forward to testing this mosquito repeller this spring and summer around Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Until then we’ll keep our thoughts and Theracell review fairly optimistic.
