Heating a tent using hot stones.

[Borris]

Tomorrow our eldest daughter is hoasting a big birthday bash to celebrate her turning fourty. She has arranged the party on a wooded campsite that has opened early just for her party. Many family members and friends are coming and there will be much fun and games, roaring fire pits, the usual array of burnt meat etc washed down with lashings of excellent home brewed grog. What could possibly go wrong? .......And I've been volunteered to tell stories to over forty odd children that will be also coming. Whoopee!

Come bedibize time we will of course, be sleeping in our cosy Cali along with one of our young grandsons, whilst our son and daughter in law will be sleeping in our drive away awning (not attached). There are no EHUs.

My question is, Has anyone ever kept a tent warm at night using hot rocks or in our case large hot stones from the beach? I am thinking of putting them in the fire pit and later when they are hot, filling our empty cobb cooker with them wrapped in tin foil to retain the heat for longer. The cobb will be placed on a wooden board in the center of the drive away awning to hopefully keep the chill off.

My only real concern is the stones shattering in the fire. The only reason they would do that would be if moisture were present within them which is highly unlikely. Anyone tried this before? Any advise would be welcome.

 

[flying banana]

DO NOT DO THIS

 

[Borris]

DO NOT DO THIS

Why not?

 

[flying banana]

are you an idiot.?dont put hot rocks in a tent. dont put used fire ashes anything in a tent. you will die from carbon dioxide or your tent will burn. do not so this. get a quilt and sleeping bag. anything burning uses oxygen. please don't do this. keep a tent or awning warm by using ehu and a fan heater.

 

[WelshGas]

Why not?

I tend to agree with @flying banana , but not totally for the reasons he mentioned.
No EHU so no electricity hence no fan heaters.
Heating stones gathered from the Beach can be very hazardous. They do contain moisture and if you heat them in a fire you may be lucky and they just crack but they could go off like a shrapnel filled grenade with nasty consequences. Been there, done that many, many years ago.
The best way would be a Space Blanket under the sleepers mattress, good quality 4 seasons sleeping bag or a cheaper bag with a quilt above and below and Hot Water bottles, bed socks and a bobble hat.

After consumption of any amount of Home Brew the awning being chilly will not register when getting into bed.

 

[Pink Banana]

are you an idiot.?dont put hot rocks in a tent. dont put used fire ashes anything in a tent. you will die from carbon dioxide or your tent will burn. do not so this. get a quilt and sleeping bag. anything burning uses oxygen. please don't do this. keep a tent or awning warm by using ehu and a fan heater.

Bit harsh babe

 

[Amarillo]

Heating stones gathered from the Beach can be very hazardous. They do contain moisture and if you heat them in a fire you may be lucky and they just crack but they could go off like a shrapnel filled grenade with nasty consequences. Been there, done that many, many years ago.

Surely the danger is in heating the stones. While they are cooling in the awning they should be safe from exploding.

The biggest danger would be knocking over the hot stones.



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[bigmac77]

Build a fire away from where the camp is so if the stone do explode they don’t harm any one and then once they are nice and hot and you need them for heat move them to the tent.

 

[Ian Robinson]

Might be easier to use kettle in Cali and fill up some hot water bottles and put them in the sleeping bags 10 minutes before going to bed - nice and cosy

 

[sidepod]

I read this last night and decided either Bozza or myself had had too much gin

 

[andyinluton]

hot water bottles + 12v Heated blanket.

 

[El Greco]

Another Cali with a heater!

 

[Borris]

are you an idiot.?dont put hot rocks in a tent. dont put used fire ashes anything in a tent. you will die from carbon dioxide or your tent will burn. do not so this. get a quilt and sleeping bag. anything burning uses oxygen. please don't do this. keep a tent or awning warm by using ehu and a fan heater.

Thanks for that. I see that you have answered in your usual measured manner.

Actually unless a volcano is involved, hot rocks and stones don't usually burn nor do they give off carbon monoxide or "carbon dioxide" as you incorrectly stated. I learnt that during my thirty years as a full time fire fighter. Have you never been in a sauna?
Putting hot stones in a cobb which when being used can be lifted and placed on any surface as the base remains cool, seems to me to be an excellent idea. As you will see from my post I also intend to place it on a hardwood board for extra safety. The stones would be placed in the tin foil lined interior and wrapped closed before the domed lid is placed over it. There will be no children sleeping in this tent. The stones have been in dry storage, at home for many years as part of a display. I never use any device that produces carbon monoxide in a confined space.

 

[Borris]

I tend to agree with @flying banana , but not totally for the reasons he mentioned.
No EHU so no electricity hence no fan heaters.
Heating stones gathered from the Beach can be very hazardous. They do contain moisture and if you heat them in a fire you may be lucky and they just crack but they could go off like a shrapnel filled grenade with nasty consequences. Been there, done that many, many years ago.
The best way would be a Space Blanket under the sleepers mattress, good quality 4 seasons sleeping bag or a cheaper bag with a quilt above and below and Hot Water bottles, bed socks and a bobble hat.

After consumption of any amount of Home Brew the awning being chilly will not register when getting into bed.

Thanks WG,
The weather forecast now looks a little better than was predicted and a lot warmer than in Dorset last weekend.
The beer should be sufficient to dull their senses and induce sleep.

The stones in question haven't been near a Beach in decades and are dry but I take you point. The only two safety concerns that I would have would be heating the stones in the first place and someone kicking the Cobb over in the middle of the night. Both of these issues could be controlled by heating the stones in a separate fire pit away from any other campers and then positioning the Cobb under a table away from the expected access/egress route from the tent.
This method of heating a tent is nothing new and l believe is taught as a technique for survival in colder climes.

 

[WelshGas]

hot water bottles + 12v Heated blanket.

No Electric.

 

[andyinluton]

No Electric.

what no 12v?

 

[Velma's Dad]

anything burning uses oxygen.

True. But hot rocks are not burning, they are merely hot. If you have electric storage heaters in your house, they are full of hot stones.

For hundreds of years people used to put hot stones in their beds to warm them, so I don't really think Borris will be invalidating his life insurance (his Cali insurance is a different mater though, I can just see the claim form for stone shrapnel damage...).

 

[sensisuperstar]

A good winter sleeping bag, hot water bottles and a nip of whisky should do the trick...or stay up drinking around a camp fire until dawn.

 

[flying banana]

Bit harsh babe

just concerned. suppose they will be fine

 

[flying banana]

Thanks for that. I see that you have answered in your usual measured manner.

Actually unless a volcano is involved, hot rocks and stones don't usually burn nor do they give off carbon monoxide or "carbon dioxide" as you incorrectly stated. I learnt that during my thirty years as a full time fire officer. Have you never been in a sauna?
Putting hot stones in a cobb which when being used can lifted and be placed on any surface as the base remains cool seems to me to be an excellent idea. As you will see from my post I also intend to place it on a hardwood board for extra safety. The stones would be placed in the tin foil lined interior and wrapped closed before the domed lid is placed over it. There will be no children sleeping in this tent. The stones have been in dry storage, at home for many years as part of a display. I never use any device that produces carbon monoxide in a confined space.

I suppose you'll be fine thinking about it. keep it steady. didn't mean to sound too harsh but tents and hot things don't usually mix well. by the way unless they are proper heat bricks stones will and do explode on a fire . be careful. harsh words are less harmful than exploding rocks

 

[Pink Banana]

I suppose you'll be fine thinking about it. keep it steady. didn't mean to sound too harsh but tents and hot things don't usually mix well. by the way unless they are proper heat bricks stones will and do explode on a fire . be careful. harsh words are less harmful than exploding rocks

 

[Borris]

Thanks Flying Banana,
This idea was to have been an experiment but as the temperature tonight is milder than of late and our son and daughter in law have decided to go home to a log fire, I'll have to try it out on another occasion. It is unlikely to be anytime soon as we prefer sleeping in a cool environment and are usually billeted on an EHU. I am going to look into the thermal rock/stone issue further to see if there is anything either manufactured or kiln dried that removes the shatter risk completely. As I have no wish to cart a sack of stone ballast around in our Cali it is something that would only ever be of use on very specific occasions. Even then you could and should use rocks/stones from the immediate area if of the correct type.

As a matter or interest, one technique used involves digging a small pit inside your tent placing the hot rocks in the pit and covering with dry sand. The sand apparently allows for greater heat transference upwards into the tent than earth. Of course it should go without saying for this to work, your tent would have to be of the type that doesn't have a ground sheet.

Hot rocks are also used by many peoples around the world for cooking in a similar manner. Get yourself a large chunk of meat, and or vegetables, season it, cover it in tin foil or large leaves place it into a pit surrounded by hot rocks and cover with sand or earth. A few hours later dig it up and eat it. Whilst I am not likely to want to try this and in any case it probably isn't something that the Caravan and Motorhome Club would approve of on their sites, we do already cook some of our meals using this tecnique in a modern compact fuel efficient thermal cooker. A modern day hay box. The principal is the same. Heat up the food in the special cook pot and then bottle it up for several hours in a sealed thermal jacket. It uses hardly any fuel and is dead safe. The hot rocks are replaced by a cast iron base on the cook pot. You can cook a beef stew in about twenty mins at home, then drive for several hours to your campsite and when you arrive the meal is ready to eat and you cannot burn it.

The only reason I have mentioned this is that both hot stone heating and thermal cooking involve using very little fuel and that should be of interest to us all.

 

[Lloydfred]

Awesome thread lol

 

[PJ500]

Just don't light the candelabras Borris !!

 

[Borris]

In the end the weekend was a resounding success. The weather wasn't bad for March although because our daughter and son in law's elderly camper van wouldn't start they spent the night in a tent and froze! Oddly, it hadn't occurred to her that camping in March might be on the colder side of chilly. They are due to go off around Europe for six months shortly, so I suppose now was a good time for the clutch to pack up.
However, because their camper van was broken we had three grandchildren sleeping in our Cali with us. All went well until our 4 year old refusenik grandaughter didn't want to get dressed in the morning. Tempers became a little frayed.