Installing the Wood Stove

It's mid-December now and time to get the wood stove going. So far, I've been heating with kerosene. It raises the temperture in the tent by 40 degrees so it's been fairly comfortable up until now, but I don't burn the kerosene through the night and mornings are pretty damn cold as a result. Soon, the kerosene won't be able to keep up with the drop in temperature so it's time to start burning wood. I feel safe keeping the wood going through the night, so my mornings are about to get a lot more comfortable, too!

I heat my tent with a Yukon II wood stove. It has a 2 cubic foot firebox which provides a 6 to 8 hour burn time. The stove is specially designed for tents. It's lightweight and easy to install and remove. It has a tent heating capacity of 14' x 16' at zero degrees, and 10' x 12' at 30 below. My tent is 12' x 14' so it really does the job, even during those bitter-cold, windy winter nights, as long as you tend to it properly.

Yukon II tent stove

I ordered my tent with a pre-installed stove jack in the back wall. The stove jack consists of a sewn-in piece of heat-resistant fabric with a 5" hole in the center, just the right size to receive the 5" stove pipe required by the Yukon II. To install the stove, I just run 5" stove pipe from the stove, right out through the stove jack, and then extend it out and up, well away from the tent and rain fly.

Last year, I had a difficult time hanging the stove pipe. Nothing in a tent is solid, so it's a challenge to hang the pipe. I had ended up just cobbling things together with wire and hangers, but I never liked the results. This year, I decided to solve some of those problems.

What was needed was a solid metal post outside, so I drove a 10' piece of conduit a few inches into the ground, then anchored the top of the conduit to the 4x4 rain fly post with a piece of angle-iron.

Vertical piece of conduit attached to the rain fly post

With the metal post in place, I ran a 7' section of pipe from the stove jack in the back wall of my tent to the metal post outside. I angled the pipe upward at about 45 degrees and attached the high end of the pipe to the outside metal post. Then I attached the other end to the interior tent frame.

One end of the pipe attaches to the outside post...

...and the other end to the interior tent frame

The woods that I live in are covered with pine trees, and the ground is thick with pine needles. It's a tinder box, so I can't let any sparks leave the stove pipe. After doing some research, I decided to build my own spark arrestor. I just couldn't find anything safe enough on the market, especially for 5" stove pipe. I constructed my spark arrestor from 1/4" welded wire screen. I went twice around with the screen so the final openings, with the screen overlapping itself, are close to 1/8". That's a lot better then the 3/4" openings of most spark arrestors on the market. I capped the screen with a 6" pipe cap to help keep the rain out, then attached the bottom of the screen to a piece of 5" stove pipe using a hose clamp.

Spark arrestor for the top of the stove pipe

I attached the completed spark arrestor to a 2' section of pipe, then attached the whole assembly to the 7' section of pipe that I had hung previously.

With the spark arrestor in place, the exterior pipes are complete

Next, I moved to the inside to complete the installation. I connected the stove to the outside assembly using a 4' section of pipe and a couple of elbows.

Final section of interior pipe in place

Tonite I'll light the stove for the first time this year. I'll have to leave the door open for awhile because new stove pipe gives off some initial fumes. I'm ready for winter now, and ready to wake up to a warm tent on snowy winter mornings!