Camping heating

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Wear really good thermal underwear to bed. You wont need so much bedding or really cold rated sleeping bag and in the morning your not so nervous about getting out of bed till the sun is high in the sky.
 
gas heater

you cant beat one of those companion gas heaters, cheap as chips from BCF. Just be careful in a tent, never leave it unattended.
Added bonus is that the missus wont wear as many protective layers, then you can turn the heater off as suggested above. :makeout:
 
Sorry about bringing an old thread back to life but have been looking into the Coleman 'cat' series.

They are a catalytic heaters and meant to be ok in your tent. I only want it to heat the RTT for me and the young bloke before we go to bed, then when I wake up in the morning before we get up. It's bloody cold out in western NSW this time of year and I have told the young bloke I will take him camping these school holidays. Just wanting to know if anyone has used one of these. The one im looking at is a second hand unit in good condition and has a fan inbuilt. Cheers.

Matt
 
We tried a butane heater in our caravan (it was 2C outside, inside went from 11C up to 19C in an hour). Our caravan isn't small - it's a triple bunk van so the ceiling is high, it's a wide van too - and 5.8m long (19').

A tent would heat up in a fraction of the time. You'd have to keep the thing well away from anything - the upper area gets really quite hot, plastic would melt easily.
 
Thanks for the reply Tony. Was yours a catylitic heater or one of the flame element ones? Cheers.
 
Ours is similar to this one. We actually bought the Wild Country version (at the time) from Rays but returned it, because the heater caused the butane canister to get very hot and I didn't think that was particularly safe. The version we bought has the butane canister lying below the heater at the rear with a shield between the heater and the canister.

The one I've linked to is different again, looks like Rays don't sell the one we had tried, which is good because (in my opinion) it's bloody dangerous. This is a different unit but creates the heat in the same way.

The trick with them is to not let ANY dirt or liquid ever touch the ceramic. Apparently they happily produce carbon monoxide if there are impurities on the surface (which will cause it to glow on those spots so it's easy to tell).
 
Oh yeah I see. Yeah fair enough, sounds bloody dangerous. The one I have bought is a catalytic heater meaning it doesn't have a flame element as such it creates heat through some other method. And doesn't produce co emissions. Will see how it goes. Cheers mate.

Matt
 
Someone posted a little earlier about heated jackets. If like me you take any cordless tools with you (torch, chainsaw, angle grinder etc) most of the manufacturers like makita milwaulkee etc make them.
I havent tried one but the missus has dropped the hint.
 
Has anyone used one of those 240volt "Throw Rugs"? They draw quite low current (about 150 watts ). So, in a tent situation you could run it through an inverter off a deep cell 12 volt battery.
We have one at home and it works wonders inside, so I'm guessing it would do ok If payed across the top of a sleeping bag?
 
Good in theory but you'd need a heep of battery capacity and the means to get it back in there in the morning. 150 watts is a mighty load to invert for a long time in my opinion.
 
+1. It's about 150/12 + losses, say about 15A with an 85% efficient inverter ((150/12 ) / 0.85). Assuming winter usage, assuming you leave the campfire at 10pm but have started warming it at 9pm and run it until 7am that's 10 hours at 15A = 150Ah. Most of us have at best 120Ah in the tub and you can only use about 80% of that on the best batteries (96Ah) so at best you'll make it through half the night as long as you don't try powering anything else.

Of course if you just want to warm the bed up an hour before getting in, go for it - it'll draw 15Ah and that's nothing really - although to be a fair comparison, my Engel draws about 1.5A for half the time during the night so for the same 10 hour period, it'll draw just 5 * 1.5 = 7.5Ah. Both would be worth it - otherwise you'll remember the camping trip for the cold nights and warm beer! Sounds like good old England, guv!
 
Good in theory but you'd need a heep of battery capacity and the means to get it back in there in the morning. 150 watts is a mighty load to invert for a long time in my opinion.
Yea probably if used for half hour privious to bed? Then it would work fine. I mainly thought of this option because of the safety factor. But anyway, just a thought
 
How about an electric blanket?

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Yea probably if used for half hour privious to bed? Then it would work fine. I mainly thought of this option because of the safety factor. But anyway, just a thought
It comes up every winter on the caravan forum and is discussed for pages. Like you say most just run it for a while before bed then just as required in the early hours.

Or there is the electric blanket as Ben suggests. Just remember most of these van folk have huge battery banks and up to 500 watts of solar. I've found the good old hot water bottle excellent, as well as a happy wife.

Cheers
 

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