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| Driving out the morning chill |
I thought back to last winter and how I was able to warm up the tent quite well, even on the coldest of days, but how the uninsulated floor always remained so damn cold. By January, I would be acclimated to the cold again, and I would once again walk comfortably in stocking feet, or even bare feet. But it would take weeks to adjust to winter's cold, just as it had taken time to adjust to summer's heat. I knew the secret was to expose the body to extreme temperatures as often and for as long as tolerable. I knew that. And I knew I shouldn't be lighting the kerosene so soon. Warm water, yes. But I should bath in the 58 degree air and let myself be chilled by it. I should start acclimating now, in September.
But I lit the kerosene anyway.
Soon, it was 80 degrees in the tent, and I was able to forget that this was September. And that colder and colder air would soon be coming. And that the heat of summer was all but over. I enjoyed a nice, warm, comfortable bath and kept the door closed. Soon the door would be closed all the time, and the woodstove would be installed, and the tent would be feeling much smaller. But I put those thoughts out of my head, at least for this September morning.
Hopefully it will be another mild winter. But you are right best to start acclimating now~
ReplyDeleteI just hope we get a lot of snow, and a few good winter storms with high winds and such (but not *too* high!) I love that. So beautiful, and exciting! I remember a storm that hit last year. It came at night. I had the woodstove going so I stayed pretty warm as the powerful winds kept hitting my tent and sucking the heat out. They would rock my entire tent. I had kerosene lamps hanging from the ceiling and they would sway back and forth. Such a great night.
DeleteDo you think you could survive winter with just a kerosene heater & not the wood stove to heat up the tent? Could the heater keep the tent just as warm as the stove? My husband thinks we could get by with just a heater but i'm not so sure.
ReplyDeleteI use a standard convection kerosene heater. The output is around 22,000 BTUs. My wall tent is 12' x 14'. It has 5' walls and an 8' ridge. That's a pretty small space. I've sealed the canvas around the platform floor pretty well to minimize air infiltration, but the uninsulated canvas walls still let plenty of outside air into the tent.
DeleteI found a BTU caculator online and did some calculations for a 12' x 14' poorly-insulated *house* with 8' ceilings. A 22,000 BTU kerosene heater will raise the temperature of such a room by 40 to 50 degrees. A tent will be worse. Maybe a 30 to 40 degree increase? And still worse on windy days.
That means that I can heat my small tent to a comfortable 70 degrees inside when it's around 30 degrees outside. But that's about it.
I mainly use my kerosene heater in the spring and fall. In the winter, I use it to supplement and augment the wood stove. For example, I'll light the kerosene on cold winter days when the wood stove has gone completely cold, like when I've been away for a day or so. It's nice to stand next to the heater while the wood stove is coming up to temperature. But I'm glad I have my wood stove on those cold days!
Another consideration is how to heat through the night. I'm not comfortable leaving my kerosene heater on while I sleep, but I'm okay burning wood all night.
Hope this helps. You can Google "BTU calculator" and do more relevant calculations for your situation.