I had a series where I rambled about heat sources for hunting. This is either boring as hell or a big fuckin’ deal. Depends on whether you’re sitting under a pine tree in a snowstorm or reading this in a coffee shop in Phoenix. (‘Lotta things are situational like that.)
I meant to post a few more details but before I got it done I stumbled across a bit of brilliance from Filthie’s Thunderbox. His post (including the attached video) definitely needs mention. Remember, if you’re going to play in the northland it pays to plan ahead. It all seems like bullshit until your nuts are about frost over… then you damn well wish you had figured this shit out in advance!
[Also: I meant to add links to my posts “Anti-Frozen Ball Technology” but my “make a list technology” seems of the fritz. Go figure. It’s all from November 2019 anyway… y’all can chase it down if you care.]
First thing’s first. If you go for the Mr. Heater Big Buddy and you’re in a stationary situation (like a drafty garage or maybe an ice fishing outpost) you definitely need to level up. Buy a 20# propane tank adapter for your heater and you’ll be glad you did. It’ll pay for itself in one winter or less. Refilled 20# tanks are just so much cheaper than 1# disposables.
If you want to go beyond level up and approach awesome, you can start refilling 1# tanks from your 20# tank. This gives you the advantage of the portability and studliness of handy 1# tanks while shaving a $4 disposable down to maybe $0.80 in fuel. The cost savings is a big honkin’ deal. You’ll need this handy dandy gadget which will pay for itself if you refill three (!) tanks.
The valve in question costs about $8 and is sufficient to let you shift propane from your cheaply filled 20# BBQ tank to your empty disposable 1# tanks. $8! According to my calculations, if you use it 3 times it’s paid for.
Now, I know what you’re thinking; is this easy to use, is it safe, and (at least some of you are wondering) is it legal? The answers are as follows:
- It’s easy. A monkey could do it. I did it and I’m a dumbass. However, there’s always a better dumbass out there and someone somewhere will probably screw it up and grenade their ass into the Darwin Awards. I remember snippets of the ideal gas law from high school chemistry and understand pressurized tanks. Some folks hurt themselves with toasters. Your call.
- It’s safe according to my definition of safe. It seems pretty safe to me but I ride a motorcycle, run a chainsaw, and drink bourbon. I ‘aint the “baseline” for safety in our balless litigious universe of snowflakes. We live in a world where people get injured with toothpicks. In a society where a toothpick merits an ABC “news” article, nothing made of molecules is officially safe.
- As far as I can tell it’s legal for homeowner use. About eleventy zillion people on the internet have used them and they all say it’s OK for personal use. I can’t find any regs that say it’s not allowed. That said, roughly 1% of comments shriek “this is a violation of EPA/IRS/NASA/UN Regulation 12432827/XYZ”. They follow this up with “You’re all going to jail, and also I haven’t been laid in years”. There’s wankers like that posting anywhere cool things happen. As far as I can tell they’re just weenies. Just to be safe, if you live in California just assume it causes cancer, you’re not allowed to buy it, and how are you reading this blog in the dark during your rolling electrical blackouts anyway?
I plan a post where I test it further but I’m busy so it’ll have to wait. $8 to refill a $4 tank with $0.80 worth of vaporized dinosaurs? If you wanna’ turn it down go for it, Moneybags.
As for Filthie, he’s enamored with the NuWay stoves. Great minds think alike because I totally agree. I don’t own one but I’ve got them bookmarked. As soon as I hit the lottery and get the hot tent I “need” I’ll be phoning NuWay and waving money at them. (Don’t hold your breath, I’m tapped out lately.)
There’s something about smoke lazily drifting from a tent with a chimney in a snowbound scene that just appeals to me. It’s a bucket list thing. I used to camp in the winter all the time and it was bitter cold but I was young and dumb and too stupid to know I was supposed to be miserable. Then I stopped backpack camping in the winter because I was busy (or sane). Now I want to do it again but I’m getting too old for laying a sleeping bag in the snow. (Suffering ‘aint fun anymore. I want all the gear that a piston engine can carry and a hot tent for the night.)
I can’t remember where I found this picture. I hope it’s not pissing someone off that I posted it. But isn’t that gorgeous? Sure, we know the reality is probably freezing toes in a sweaty tent and the snowshoes are a prop because everyone involved arrived by snowmobile or whatever… but it’s the dream dammit. We all have the dream of enjoying a campout like that.
Mr. Heaters are great but there are limitations with unvented propane that will always make it a humidity issue in any small semi-insulated place. There’s no getting around it, even if you’re in a tent and especially if you’re in a structure, chimneys are just plain superior. If you’re in a situation like an RV / Ice Shack / tent where you can install a chimney… do it! We’re not cavemen people… vent the smoke like smart monkeys!
He likes the NuWay propane furnaces and I like their sole wood model… all of them are superior to a portable Mr. Heater (assuming you’ve got a situation where a chimney makes sense). Also, the wood stove is around $120 and the propane models (which are surely much less of a PITA than wood!) hover in the $150-160 range. That seems a fair dinkum deal. I know welding dudes can whip up a stove out of an ammo can and a pile of tin cans for the cost of two nickels and pocket lint but that’s them, not me. It seems like I’d personally would blow $70 hashing together a rusty piece of shit and probably approach $150 real quick if I decided to buy shiny parts and spring for a decent ammo can. As always YMMV.
Check out his attached video; there’s a lotta good information in there and it walks up the ladder from Mr. Buddy to NuWay in a perfect pros/cons comparison.
Stay warm ya’ll. It seems like winter started early so do what you must.
A.C.
If you’re Filthie, I tried to leave a comment on your post but Google was being a whiny bitch about it so it probably never cleared the gates. At any rate, spot on with your post. NuWay is pretty cool lookin’ gear.
If you’re going to use the 20# cylinder think about a filter for the heater, they are recommended and not spendy.
I’ve seen these but never used one. What precisely is it filtering out? I’ve been assuming combustion is about the crudest use of fuel (it’s not going through injectors into pistons or whatnot) so it’s not a big deal. So far it hasn’t yet been an issue. I’m more than willing to change my errant ways if someone tells me more about filters. (Obviously a filter is unworkable in a Mr. Heater portable that’s using 1# tanks.)
The way I heard it was that the small bottles are filtered way better than the bulk propane is and crap can clog the orifice.
Less than $10 for the filter and having the heater not work when I really needed it to work would suck, so I spent the money. I take it off if we are going to use a one pound green bottle and put it back on when we use the tank. It’s no biggee.
Good point. Maybe I’ll order one up and call it a stocking stuffer for Christmas.
Finnish Army uses wood stove heated tents. I can indeed confirmed a wood stove in a tent is [i]bliss[/i] during cold weather.
As for other kinds of heaters, all of the ones I have experience with are rather poor substitutes to a proper wood burning stove. Obviously, I can’t speak of the devices mentioned in your blog as I haven’t seen those in Finland.
The Finns know their shit! I suspect a wood fired stove requires a bit of babysitting (all wood stoves need that) but it’s a pretty romantic notion to camp in a sea of available free fuel.
I’ve used those 1 lb adapters before. My biggest issue with them is that it is hard to get enough fuel to be useful through them without putting in too much and having it leak out again.
From a legal stand point, it is illegal to transport refilled cylinders on public roads, probably due tot he above issue. Is it done? I’m sure!
I’ve heard speculation but haven’t seen actual proof that transporting a refilled cylinder is an issue. I suspect it’s the usual internet white noise where there’s always one dude that had a friend who knows a guy that heard it’s illegal in Newark on leap years because of something he saw on TV. All I can say is avoid tunnels and California. Also, I’m sure you can’t sell a refilled tank. Don’t even try that!
I used a scale and refilled with exactly 16 ounces (or a smidge less). It was easy for me. No problems at all. Then again it was like 15 degrees out when I was doing it. I suspect that the cold weather made the task much easier. I’ve only recently bought the gadget and have never used it in warm weather. Based on my success I’m going to try to plan ahead and do all of my refilling in cold ass conditions.
pretty good video on refilling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD1CmorB_qM
I’m getting one of these adapters as I have a few of those empties laying about and always have a couple of 20 pounders in the shed.
I’ve only tried it a few times but so far so good. I may be benefiting from the cold weather. Compressed gasses aren’t so excited to go from liquid to gas when it’s freezing cold out.
Incidentally, I did toss a few old 1# cans that weren’t in ideal shape. Seems like common sense.
The whole refill thing isn’t just for heaters. I saw a cool propane powered outboard and started thinking of buying one next summer to run on 1# tanks.
filthie* is as filthie does, or so go the complaint notices about my laundry basket. Power, Glenn, Power! And don’t fork Turdie*** or it might enjoy it. A true sadist brandishes the bullwhip; never, ever, wields it. Swish.
AC, you shameless hussy. Trolling for annnnzn**** points on the baseless basis of solidly reviewed excellent, outstanding, admirable products. You’re contrafibulating** me! Us, them, we, him, her, it, what, whatever. Most pericombobulatic**.
Alleged winter here is another season of dognose***** weather, without the dog: ShortLong*****, dark, moist, sans crotchbuttsmell***. No earscratch, no snowroll. Not even a “heave-a-40lb-phallic/cruciform-icicle-thru-lesbipolitic-window-shouting-“Seasons Greetings!””*****, as one is wont frasmotically** to do.
So, you sit in ambush against poor tasty cringing sleigh-aspirants, with .4+ repeating artillery fed by Hollywood ammobearers (melanin-neutral), whilst heating The Jewels with more BTU’s than a certain murderous Texan called George (v1.0 and 1.1). Also a repulsive mulatto WSNBN. Can’t ya just bait the poor critters and pop them with a doublebungload***** of .22 like Mossad?
* plagiarized pur. A classic. See also ** brackets.
** plagiarized (plagiarised, for the Englishspeakers), and possiprobably conjugated. Wipe it up, boy.
*** didn’t invent it, merely developed it. All hail The Infantry! Pfui!
**** copulateively encursive the former alternate recurrent consonant pairs to conpumpulate***** the unparsative***** adlink…consult Masoretes for vowel pointing…hint, they aren’t Slavs. They also didn’t kl Epstn.
***** this one’s mine, you read it, savoured it, now pay, bitchez.
****** indeterminate, pay me anyway. Gold, kg’s, per week per day.
p.s. Thanks for the hdzup, but this side of the (begging to be liberated (this time for real! what did we send our ancestors over there for anyway!!)) ocean we may need something else. In the meantime, it looks kind of hairy, might have to help you out…so tell me, where did the Jedburghers stash their goodies? Gbl m krnk, Sm.
Whatever you’re drinking… I want some!
No, you don’t.
Stream of, er, consciousness, yes, that’s it consciousness, while repairing a POS$%/&%&/§$/ fishing reel for a friend/colleague. I wholly reject evolution, but glance worriedly over my shoulder at devolution. As long as all the little springs and screws and bejointed pivoty camthingies go back in without overuse of hammer/vise/thermite, and there are no bits leftover, and nobody complains about the stinky baboon shrieking and leaping…all good.
p.s. It was el cheapo Fwench vin rouge at EU1.89/L. On top of some rather good Augustiner Hell.
“Bier auf Wein,
das lass sein.
Wein auf Bier,
das gefaellt mir!”
Professor Stanley Unwin? is that you now calling yourself Stefan?
Naah, Prof U. too erudite for me, and missing The Moustache (the one that looks like two badgers having marital relations under my nose).
But you, Mr Phil.B. I thought you fled to Moscow? Anywhoo, back to the Chinesium fishing reel. If I didn’t love my buddy I’d bin the dratted thing and give him one of my Mitchell’s, 50 years old and still soldiering on even after 20 of them in subtropic salt water. Toodleoo, eh?
Have you gone “International”? I noticed that you used the very British term “Wanker” – though to be fair, I have never heard my American friends use it so it might be American too – and then “Fair Dinkum”. That’s as Australian as Koala Bear shit and Crocodile Dundee.
I’m not complaining, just curious about the various international expressions …
Incidentally, if you want to make a wood burner from RHS (rectangular hollow steel) sections, then this website has free plans for them and recommendations for the volume to be heated and the size needed.
http://www.faymarine.com/Pauls%20Information%20Site/fire_design.htm
Posher than an ammo can stove and you can use the ammo can to store ammo.
My vocabulary is such a mess that I don’t even know where the shit I say comes from. I wish it was because I was cool like Highlander but it’s probably because I read too much. I think I picked up “fair dinkum” from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. He had a chapter about a sentient AI called “fair dinkum thinkum”. Lest you think I’m all literate and shit maybe I picked it up from Ozzy Man Reviews (exceptionally NSFW). “Wanker” is as American as apple pie but as dated as bell bottoms (or perhaps older). I say it anyway because I’m perfectly happy sounding like I’m from another era, that’s just how I roll. (Do people say that?)
I like the wood stove plans but I’m too busy to mess with building one just now. That sucks because it’s -11 right now and building a wood burner seems the best use of my time from now until spring.
Oh come on now! Surely you yearn to reprise your woodstove adventure from last winter in a tent!!!
It would air out quicker; possibly because it blew away.
Yep – life has a habit of interfering with the best laid plans of mice and men … but bookmark it for future reference.
One of my friends back in the UK built one from the plans. He made the top about 1 1/2 inches bigger all round on the front and sides, drilled it and installed a little rail around and cooked and boiled a kettle on it It was a powerful little thing and belted out the heat in his 15 foot by 25 foot workshop. Cheap, easy to build and still going strong after over 15 years.
You need to get you some more pets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WanJAxxwOSY
}:-]
Guess I’m dumb as dirt. I tried refilling 1# tanks and found I was only getting the 1/3 to 1/2 full based on burn time, wasn’t worth the effort at that rate. Something about opening the pressure relief valve and then realizing I was venting propane…. 20 canuck bucks for 3 seems like good value for not blowing up the garage
I demand squirrels!
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.memecreator.org%2Fstatic%2Fimages%2Fmemes%2F3970167.jpg&f=1&nofb=1