Wednesday 22 October 2008

Genius

In both spirit and function this is one of the best inventions I have seen in years. Last night was exceedingly cold and I am looking for ways to make the tent more habitable so I am going to buy one on pay day and will report back on it's effectiveness. It is powered by the stove and requires no external inputs, just pop it on top of the stove and it will blow the warm air rising from the stove around the tent very efficiently and it looks cool to boot. Click for more info.

Cunning

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

looks like an expensive bit of kit.
Will it not displace your kettle?
Where will you keep it when not in use? Where will you stand it when it is hot? Will it work if not dead level? Will it go rusty if wet?

Torminalis said...

There is plenty of room between the stove and the wall of the tent to store it when it is not operational and a pile of wood which will give it space to cool down.

It relies on the differential in heat between the bottom and the top and the bearings seem sound so it should work fine if not level.

I do not have a kettle, I doubt it will rust and they cost about £65 if you find them from the right place on the internet. It is actually surprisingly small standing only about 10inches high.

Looks like a brilliant thing but I shall let you know if it was a waste of money.

Anonymous said...

I would think any issues around other stuff would be small beer, against being warm in winter!

Being cold in a tent, with no way to get warm, is right up there in my top 5 things not to do again.

Anonymous said...

In the spirit of frugality, small carbon footprints and minimal wastefulness you may consider conserving your warmth rather than turbo charged tentral heating.

Your investment may be better spent on a goose down duvet, this will be useful when you return to living indoors, unlike the fan.

Wear wool socks, and a hat when it gets really nippy, in bed. Thermal underwear is pretty good too, available from Marks and Spencer.

Space blankets are supposed to be life savers if you have hypothermia.


Hot water bottles will help you direct heat exactly where you need it. You might try heating a few bricks on the stove and wrapping them in an old blanket before taking them to bed, a night storage heater.

We change the clocks tonight and you will not have much daylight in the evenings from now on. Therefore, unless you like chopping wood in the dark, you will need to have a week's supply of firewood ready on Sunday afternoon for the coming week, every week until next May.

Mountaineers often sleep, or should I say spend the night,in a tent/bivvy suspended on a rockface in subzero temperatures, high winds, blizzards - all without heating.. Some die of exposure but mostly they survive by using materials with the best insulation properties.

It is forecast to be getting colder the coming week so keep warm Torminalis lest you become Terminalis.

Torminalis said...

Anonymous - I already have a 15tog Goose down duvet, more micro fleece garments than you can shake a stick at and a lot of ski socks left over from hiking and skiing in earlier life. I also have long johns, vests, hats and scarves.

The fan will not use much more energy but will ensure that what heat is coming out of the stove gets distributed about the tent rather than rising straight up through the vents in the ceiling.

For a modest initial outlay the thing will power itself and make the tent warmer than it was before. Personally I would be fine to wrap up and endure but one of the most important things about this whole adventure is ensuring that my lover, TLB is comfortable and warm pretty much all the times. It would be very lonely in the tent without her so I am prepared to spend a bit of cash to improve our quality of life.

That said, the fan may not work as well as I hope but I do intend to find out. It could be a godsend.

Anonymous said...

we've got one of those in a little cottage in Virginia... it's two stories, and has a little wood stove on the ground floor with one of those on top and it works a treat!

 
page counter