Posted: 12/6/2007 5:42:05 AM EDT
| A deer hunter friend of mine told me that to keep his tent warm at night,all he uses is one of those big 5 wick candles!(sounds a little dangerous to me). Would that work in a small bedroom? I don't have a fireplace and no gas service to my house. Electric heat only,which in an ice storm,may not stay on. |
|
I'd recommend a propane Buddy heater over a candle. They work well, especially for small spaces, and are safer than a candle. They'll turn themselves off if the oxygen levels get low in the room or if they are tipped over. I run mine off of a 30-lb propane bottle in my shop and it lasts a long time between fills. If I unscrew my hose I can also run it on 1-lb bottles. (These can freeze-up in very cold weather. I've never frozen a 30-lb bottle.) I'm sure folks do it, but I'd never recommend having an open flame inside a tent, or even a Buddy heater for that matter. Maybe if it was a nice canvas wall-tent, but even then I'd want it inside a yukon stove or something similar. |
| I used to have a sailboat with a cuddy cabin (the end facing the cockpit was open). The cabin was about 7 feet x 5 feet x 4 feet, which is about the size of a 2 man tent. In North Carolina in the winter I would clip a wool blanket across the open end and be quite comfortable with the heat from a Coleman lantern and gas cooking stove. I had a catalytic heater available, but I never used it. |
|
I tried that candle trick this deer season and failed miserably. Right above them you can feel some decent heat, but its not gonna make a dent in a decent size tent or room. Of course I left some of the door unzipped for safer air flow so that was a little self defeating. A Coleman lantern works quite well tho. Unfortunatly you also get moisture condensing on the inside of the tent in the form of frost which then rains when it gets warm. Hunting from a tent is tough. I wear wool for the insulation and quietness, but when your pant cuffs get wet and snowy you need to keep your boot ends stuffed in them at night so they dont freeze flat and then you cant get your feet thru them in the morning. Gaiters would solve that problem, but they are noisy. When you are winter camping and backpacking you typically dont walk thru calf deep water so you stay dryer. |
+1 for the buddy heater. i've used ours for everything from warming the room to thawing the frozen pipes under the house. |
yep. i found the pipes would freeze right next to the pressure tank, which sat under the house. so i just put the heater right next to the pipes. it was a little over 3' from the ground to the bottom of the house so there were no worries about fire. |
|
I'm glad some of you guys are still alive. The reason why parriffin is used in boats is it does not give off CO or noxious fumes. A Coleman Lantern does. The reason why CO is poisonous is it adheres to the red blood cells like CO2 but unlike CO2 it will not exchange in the lungs. What that means is in short, that CO stays in the blood until the blood cell expires its natural life. CO therefore can build up a little at a time until you get CO poisoning. What you think is great for one or two nights, extend that a couple more and you could spend the next six months going to doctors with fatigue, joint pain, and chronic headaches. Do it too much and your family will be buying flowers for your funeral. You will simply suffocate while still breathing. Open flame in closed environments are two basic types, burns clean or catalytic. Common burn clean fuels are denatured alcohol and parriffin. Catalytic simply means it has a second burner to reheat the exhaust fumes converting CO to CO2. Using propane or gas heat sources in closed environments that are not indoor rated by the manufacturer is extremely dangerous. Tj |
Yeah, thats why I always unzip the tent a bit when using the Colman for heat. Its kinda self defeating, but you get lots of heat from the lantern so a little draft is not a problem. Someday I might get one of those little ducted heaters... but thats getting pretty fancy for deer hunting tents. The only time I really want the heat is for getting dressed and that first cup of coffee or tea in the morning and for getting undressed at night and organizing my stuff for the next morning. A half hour each time is about it. |
|
Buy a better sleeping bag. Unless your worrying about thawing pipes your best money is going to be on a high quality sleeping bag rated well below the expected temperatures. Being able to heat a room might be nice, but you are still on a limited amount of fuel. With the worries about CO and CO2 its better not to chance it. The only fuel you need for a sleeping bag is food for your body....and you need that anyways. |
+1 used it in our ten during Elk seaon. It snowed two foot we never noticed while in the tent. (we never took the heat off low either). another +1 for the larger tank. we ran ours for 8 days, and we estamited we could of gone another 5.
|
That's an important point. On my boat there was air circulation through the duckboards, which extended out thru the cockpit. The cuddy cabin was far from air tight. And I remained warmly dressed in case I had to go out and check the anchor set. |