How to organize the heating of the tent: a step-by-step instruction. Tents with a stove. Tourist heater for the tent

Overnight in a tent is great. But when it's cold outside, it requires special preparation, especially if children participate in the campaign. Today we will find out what methods exist for heating a tent in the cold season. Let's start with the simplest and finish the most technological and costly.

Clothing and sleeping bag

An important role in the issue of heating is played by the tourist's clothes, his sleeping bag and mattress. If all these attributes are selected correctly and performed qualitatively, then they will be enough to comfortably spend the night in the autumn forest. However, with the advent of real colds, such heat will be little. It will not be enough for children, and there are two reasons for that. First, children are more cold. And secondly, they love to turn and open in a dream. Therefore, in a hike with children it is important to warm the entire tent.

By the way, if you sleep in a sleeping bag, and in principle, and in any other case, try to make sure that the parts of your body are as close as possible to each other. At a minimum, take your hands out of your sleeves. The mittens principle works here, which, as is known, heats (and, more correctly, speaks, keeps body heat) is much more effective than a glove. To stay overnight in the sleeping bag was warmer, until severe colds came, a simple bottle of hot water will help, which you need to take with you to the bag. Get a kind of hot water bottle.

Candles

The simplest way is to heat the tent with candles. It will suit in the autumn, when you need to warm it up slightly, but in the winter the candles will not be enough. Live fire in a tent is very dangerous, therefore it can be used only in two cases. The first is when you do not sleep and can follow the burning of the candle and its vertical position. Usually the candles are used by winter fishing fans who put the tent not at all for sleeping, but for protection from wind and precipitation. Well, the second case - when the candle is in a safe burner. The construction of such a burner came up with tourists. You just need to take a metal shell from an old thermos flask and put a candle in it. Such a burner has several advantages. First, if a thermos falls, the candle stays in it and does not cause harm. Secondly, the candle heats the thermos, which means that the heat transfer surface increases several times.

Stones

Heating the tent with stone / stones is an old method, which is distinguished by its simplicity and reliability. It is suitable for more severe colds than the previous two. But here, as in everything, there are some nuances.

If you just take a heated stone and bring it to the tent, it will be hot, but not for long. Literally in an hour the stone will cool down and again the cold will come. The first way to increase the time of cooling the stone is to place it in the pot and close it with a lid. Such a simple manipulation will ensure the heating of the tent for three hours, but this is not enough for a comfortable sleep. It is necessary to slow down the heat transfer of the stone, so that it remains hot for at least 6-8 hours. For this purpose, a simple aluminum foil is used. It is non-flammable, light and very compact. If you wrap a stone in several layers of foil, it will cool down much more slowly and will not create stuffiness in the first hours of cooling. Heat will be retained by the air layer between the layers. If you feel that the tent has become cold, just remove one layer of foil.

The hot stone can burn the bottom of the tent, so it is placed in a pot or pan. It is good if the stone gets stuck in the socket of the container and does not heat up its bottom. Otherwise, you need to put a wooden board under the pan. Another important nuance: do not heat the stone too hot. Due to a sharp temperature drop on the surface and inside, it can crack.

Like a can of a canister with hot water. Only heat transfer occurs much faster.

Earth heating

Now we learn how to heat a tent on a hike in conditions of severe cold. An old and reliable way is to put a tent on the site of a fire. There are two options. The first takes more time and energy. To start, you need to remove the turf at the place where the tent will be installed in the future. Digging should be at a depth of up to 20 centimeters. Then in this pit a huge bonfire with broad logs is bred. The main goal at this stage is to dry and warm the earth, and also get large coals. When the coals are ready, they are evenly distributed over the pit and covered with a 7-10 centimeter layer of earth. It is important that the land is dry. If you do not have one, you need to use the second method below. On the ground lay dry grass or lapnik, and put a tent on top. Heating the tent for the whole night is provided.

The second option is less energy-intensive. The pit in this case is unnecessary to dig. All that needs to be done is to kindle a big fire, and when it burns, carefully remove the coals to the side. Lapnik is laid on the hot ground from the fire and a tent is put.

Heating the tent with a pipe

We turn to more sophisticated and technological methods. To implement this idea into reality, you need to take a campaign of 5-6 meters of a duralumin pipe. It can be divided into meter lengths for convenient transportation. It is even better to take pieces of different diameters and fold them into each other. But do not forget about the sealing at the joints, otherwise all the heat will go into the air. The weight of such a set will not be significant at all.

So, to begin with, a fire is lit a few meters from the entrance to the tent. The pipe is put on the fire in such a way that one end goes into the tent, and the second protrudes beyond the flame so that no smoke enters it. The end of the pipe that goes into the tent should be 1.5 meters above the second end. This construction works very simply: cold air entering the pipe, heated and rising, getting into the tent. The steeper the slope of the tube, the more air will circulate. And the closer the fire to the tent, the hotter this air will become.

To provide yourself with effective heating, you can go further and make two pits, as in the figure below. The first is needed to protect the tent from fire, and the second - to ensure a good blowing. If the tent is too hot, you can simply close the pipe.

Heating the tent with the above methods requires energy and time. In an environment where every day you move to a new place and get very tired, it's quite inconvenient. Also, it is uncomfortable if there are children in the marching group. Therefore, many prefer to use modern technology. About them and we'll talk below.

Gas heater

A tourist heater with a gas burner is a simple device that has compact dimensions and perfectly manages the heating of the tent. The gas burner itself is very unproductive. It just heats the air, which is mixed by natural convection. To get a real heater, a special nozzle (working medium) is put on the burner, which accumulates heat and gradually gives it air. It is the nozzle on the gas burner for heating the tent that determines the type of device. Nozzles are metal and ceramic. In addition to the nozzles working in conjunction with the burner, there are separate heaters, which also have a metal or ceramic construction as the working medium. Let us consider each of these species in more detail.

Heater with metal working body

Such a field heater can be both a nozzle for a gas primus and an independent device. The first option requires special care, because its hot surface, as a rule, is not protected. Therefore, leaving such a heater at night is not recommended.

Self-supporting structures are more suitable for night tent heating. They are more stable on the surface and have protection of the danger zone from objects from outside. Such heaters can have one or two independent burners. Thanks to a parabolic reflector (reflector), thermal radiation from the working fluid can be directed to the desired direction. On sale there is a mass of such heaters, both foreign and domestic production. Advantages of the device are simplicity of design, low cost, safety. Cons - a small return, inefficiency.

Heater with ceramic working body

Portable heater of this type has a stronger heat transfer, and therefore, it is more economical. The combustion process takes place on the surface of a ceramic plate having a shape similar to a honeycomb. Heat is selected much more efficiently than with an open flame. Up to 50% of the combustion energy passes into thermal radiation. Advantages of ceramic burners - economy, compactness, unpretentiousness, in the process of work, a little carbon monoxide, directed action is released. Unfortunately, domestic heaters lose imports on all fronts.

Petrol heater for tents

Gasoline heaters operate on the same principle as gas heaters. The main advantages of such products are availability and ability to work in any weather. A gas burner for heating a tent at a temperature of -5 degrees and below starts to break. However, along with all the advantages of gasoline heaters there are significant drawbacks. The main one is danger. In case of illiterate use, the balloon can be badly damaged. And the fuel itself - gasoline - requires careful transportation.

Safety when working with gas and gasoline heaters

Using these products in the tent, special attention should be given to such safety rules:

1. There should be at least a small ventilation in the tent to remove combustion products.

2. The tent heater must be at least half a meter from the wall.

3. It is forbidden to direct a hot surface on walls, clothes and other combustible objects.

4. It is advisable to have a berth at a height of up to 25 cm from the floor. Carbon monoxide is heavier than air, so it accumulates below.

5. Only special cylinders are suitable for use in the tent, which are equipped with a protective automatics. It blocks the supply of gas in the event of burner failure or overheating. Also, the cylinder must have a certificate that permits its use in living quarters.

6. The heater should be installed on a non-combustible stand with an area exceeding the burner area by at least 30%.

Tents with a stove

Well, the most effective way to heat a tent is to put a stove in it. It is this method that is used in army tents. Of course, the tourist stove has more modest dimensions than the army stove, but the essence is the same. This method of heating is not suitable for a small tent. With the stove will have to tinker, but the result will be more than worthy. There are not many such products on the market, but they do exist. And some even adapt to gas and gasoline. The stove, as a rule, comes complete with a demountable chimney. It is made of light metal and does not weigh much. Advantages of the stove - it gives a lot of heat, it has a simple but reliable design of the hood, it is inexpensive, does not require refueling.

Conclusion

Today we have found out how to heat a tent in a hike. There are many ways to make your everyday life more comfortable and safer, from simple candles to full stoves. What to choose from this variety depends on the time of year, the place of rest, the composition of the group and the personal characteristics of each person. Someone in the winter wears a T-shirt and sleeps in one sleeping bag, well, someone will not interfere with the stove in the summer.