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The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.
I’ve seen a few demos of a Rocket Stove for use as a quick way to fry an egg or just heat up a small space with a minimal amount of fuel. Usually a handful of dry twigs and sticks will create a roaring fire.
The theory of a rocket stove is simple: create a horizontal combustion chamber within a stovepipe that will create a strong draft. The draft draws air through the chamber that feeds the fuel with plenty of oxygen.
I’ve seen them constructed from steel pipes, tin cans, cement blocks and flower pots but I haven’t seen any rocket stoves made from ceramic materials or fired clay. Anybody seen such a thing?, say from Etsy or a boutique commerce site?
I’m thinking it might be good to heat up the boat’s cabin on a frosty day.
Quite honestly I hesitated to reply assuming the post was a joke. Let's see...Hmmm... Fire below decks...Gee great idea. I was given a Coleman tent heater but am too chicken to use it.
A rocket stove should IMO only be used on dry cleared, land areas with fire extinguishing items near by.
To follow up. Both Joshua Slocum and Herreshoff write about having wood stoves on their boats but... That was a different era and they were proper wood stoves vented to the exterior. Still not a good idea IMO.
I'm not real sure if this was serious but if you are trying to put some heat in the boat while your there in the winter If I remember Bruce you cover the boat with poly tarps. One idea would be to replace the tarp over the cockpit with a clear tarp and let the sun do it's thing. Greenhouse effect. When I had a boat shrink wrapped It got very warm inside on a sunny day. Something like this.https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B074G32VFJ/ref=sspa_mw_detail_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Scott-"IMPULSE"87'C25/SR/WK/Din.#5688 Sailing out of Glen Cove,L.I Sound
Bruce! Tell me you were kidding! ...or I'm taking Passage back!
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
I think he's joking. But I've been thinking about getting something like this so I can overnight on the hook in winter with more comfort. It has a protection cage, low oxygen shut off, and a tip-over shut off. It runs for two and a half hours off a one pound propane tank.
You could heat a pretty large space with 10,000 Btu/Hr and would also burn a lot of fuel. I think it would be too much for my boat.
We use Mr. Heater Little Buddy which is 3,800 Btu/Hr and fits a 1 lb. canister like the one above. It burns for about 5 hours on a canister. It has safety shutoffs for tilting and low oxygen.
We set it at the foot of the companionway stairs, point it towards the v-berth and go to sleep. No worries and a toasty cabin. I do crack the hatch open a couple of inches to vent the moisture and allow fresh air in. In the morning I screw on a new canister and take the chill off before we get up and about.
There's some sweating on the windows and other internal surfaces but not much.
These types of radiant heaters, that burn bright orange with a small blue halo, are virtually achieving complete combustion. The products of combustion are carbon dioxide and water vapor. They produce no carbon monoxide in any measurable amount though I imagine a carbon monoxide detector would offer some peace of mind.
We've used larger, 5,000 Btu/Hr models, years ago in cabin tents with the kids with no problems.
We've used the small heater in the cockpit while motoring in on cold days as well.
Tim Keating 1985 C-25 TR/FK #4940 Midsummer Lake Don Pedro, CA
Wow... You folks are scaring me. When you burn a carbon-based fuel, some amount of CO is almost a certainty--it's just a matter of how much. As the oxygen level drops, it will increase. If a tiny bit of dirt, soot, etc. degrades combustion, it will increase. What are the safe thresholds for low O2 and high CO, and will they be correctly detected by little hardware store devices? Will the interior air circulation or lack thereof cause either level to be missed based on the placement of the detectors? Do you know for sure there are "no problems" coming from unknown degrees of reduced oxygen to young brains? (We all know, of course, that the "poisoning" from CO is the displacement of O2 in the blood.)
I've felt CO poisoning from nice blue flames from a natural gas stove--it's insidious (and maybe explains my brain)--and I've known about a whole family dying from CO. If a flame in an enclosed space is not vented directly to the outside in a way that creates a draft in the vent, as in the chimneys in our homes, detectors or none, I'm not sleeping with it, and I'm certainly not letting children sleep with it.
Curmudgeon out.
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
I am very glad I got the conversation started. I’ve seen lots of videos about Rocket Stoves on YouTube and it got me wondering whether there’s ANY practical use for one? If you need a portable camp stove, it might be usable however backpacker butane stoves work as well and are much lighter in weight. It’s really just a solution looking for a problem IMHO. As far as heating your boat, and electric oil type heater is probably the safest type if you have shore power. Radiant electric heaters are much less so since they can start a fire. I have used my Coleman stove to make coffee if I visit the boat during a chilly winter day, and I’ll run the stove for say 20 minutes at most to warm up the cabin. I watch the coffee pot and stove like a hawk while it’s brewing. While the stove emits CO and CO2, it’s not enough to worry about. What I will NOT do is run any kind of heater for hours, especially not overnight. This is not to say that no boats should have heaters. In fact, properly vented kerosene or propane heaters are very standard aboard boats, but they must have a flue. Even these are not idiot-proof, since nature continually produces better idiots! Guess I succeeded in getting the conversation started.
Hmmmm, Peter, you got my interest. My solar vent is located in my Vee berth. The fan is shot, so I could always insert a smokestack. If I put the heater in the Vee, that could make the entire cabin nice and toasty!
Hmmmm, Peter, you got my interest. My solar vent is located in my Vee berth. The fan is shot, so I could always insert a smokestack. If I put the heater in the Vee, that could make the entire cabin nice and toasty!
Of if you have some bulkhead instruments you don't like anymore...
I very nearly died from CO poisoning on a fishing trip to N.Canada. It gave me the worst headache I have ever had for about 6 hours. I now won't allow any open-flame heater inside anywhere.
Derek Crawford Chief Measurer C25-250 2008 Previous owner of "This Side UP" 1981 C-25 TR/FK #2262 Used to have an '89 C22 #9483, "Downsized" San Antonio, Texas
I very nearly died from CO poisoning on a fishing trip to N.Canada. It gave me the worst headache I have ever had for about 6 hours. I now won't allow any open-flame heater inside anywhere.
I guess I should quit using my wood stove to heat my house.
And at least when you get hit by a car, somebody knows it.
It's like the old saying: "A bad analogy is like a bad analogy."
Dave Bristle Association "Port Captain" for Mystic/Stonington CT PO of 1985 C-25 SR/FK #5032 Passage, USCG "sixpack" (expired), Now on Eastern 27 $+!nkp*+ Sarge
There have been enough qualified comments on this thread that I have reevaluated my opinion and will now run my radient gas heater only when I can monitor it, and for more limited time periods. Always with ventilation as I have in the past.
I have a study showing my particular model is safe in an enclosed, ventilated space but the stakes are too high if something were to malfunction.
Tim Keating 1985 C-25 TR/FK #4940 Midsummer Lake Don Pedro, CA
I know for sure that if I don't go outside I won't get hit by a car.
But I still go outside.
That won't keep you from getting killed here in Houston. Had a child killed sleeping in their bed a couple of months ago when a drunk driver ran through the front of the house into the bedroom.
While at the dock I use a Lasko Model 5154. It will keep the cabin in the 80's when it's freezing outside and if it falls over it will shut off. I keep in sitting on the cabin sole.
Due to Keats’ post up above, I looked up the Mr Heater Little Buddy on Amazon. It’s about $65-70 depending on when you log into Amazon. The claim is that it’s a combustion-type heater that’s 100% safe and effective when used as directed. What could possibly go wrong?!?!
Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ. The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.