How to Use a Wood Burning Stove in a Tent
By Larry Parr
Many golfers love to travel around the country, playing their favorite courses or trying new courses. Unfortunately, travel can get expensive, and many golfers have taken to camping as a way to stretch their golfing dollars. While camping can be a wonderful experience, tents can become cold at night. One solution is to install a wood burning stove to keep your tent toasty. This is a viable option--provided that your tent is designed to accommodate a wood burning stove. A wood burning stove cannot be safely used in a small two-man pup tent, for example. To safely use a wood burning stove in a tent, the tent must have a built-in collar in the roof specifically designed for a vent pipe. If your tent does not have this collar you must have one installed before attempting to warm your tent with burning embers.
Instructions
Difficulty: Easy
Set up your tent so that the vent pipe opening in the roof is not underneath any dead branches or anything else that could catch fire.
Place the stove inside the tent in a corner near the door so it is convenient to wood stacked outside. Make sure the metal of the stove is at least 2 feet away from the fabric wall of the tent to avoid burning or scorching. The stove should sit close to the floor of the tent for proper heating.
Fit a spark arrester into the top end of your vent pipe as per the manufacturer's instructions. If you do not have a spark arrester, then use a knife or other sharp object to poke several holes in the vent pipe near the upper end. These holes will help cool off any sparks before they exit the pipe. Insert one end of the pipe into the vent on your stove and the other end of the pipe out through the collared vent hole in your tent's roof.
Put 1 inch of sand in the bottom of your stove to help insulate the metal from direct contact with burning wood, which could weaken the metal.
Do not burn a lot of spruce or pine or larch as these woods give off a lot of sparks and can cause fires even if your stove is equipped with a spark arrester.
Tips & Warnings
Never use a wood burning stove inside a tent without proper ventilation. If your tent is not equipped with a vent hole with a collar, do not heat the tent with a wood burning stove as you could burn down the tent or cause asphyxiation.
About The Author
Larry Parr has been a full-time professional freelance writer for more than 30 years. For 25 years he wrote cartoons for TV, everything from SMURFS to SPIDER-MAN.
