Yesterday afternoon I went down back and set up a "

Obviously we are into the cabin fever season....

LOL, couldn't wait long enough to finish the post - off he goes.

I don't know how that happened, I think my daughter stopped by about then and I must have been distracted. Seeing that post listed when I checked the site this morning sure had me looking to see who else was testing one of these

Anyway, as Paul Harvey used to say, "Here's the rest of the story"....

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The day before yesterday I went down back and set up a "Super Shelter" like the one in this you tube video.

I made mine from a 10'x10' piece of 1 mil visqueen, two 6'x8' pieces of 3 mil visqueen, two Wal-Mart "Ozark Trails" mylar emergency blankets, and some duct tape and grommets.

The 10'x10' tarp, set on an angle to make a lean to, has a 5'x7' foot print and front opening. I used one of the 6'x8' pieces as a ground sheet and the other as a cover for the front opening. I taped the mylar sheets to the 10'x10' piece so they'd line the ceiling and part of the sides of the shelter. It's plenty big enough inside for two, and you both can lie down and sit up comfortably.

The shelter is easy to set up. Stake down the two rear corners and secure the front upper corners to sticks, trekking poles, or suspend them with a ridge line or guy lines to a tree, stake off the front lower corners, lay down the ground sheet, and attach the front cover to the front upper corners.

After sundown (about 6:00 pm) I built a fire in front of the shelter. It was about 45º then. I built the fire on top of a bed of 3"-4" thick branches and stacked them tightly together, laying increasingly thinner branches on top, crosswise with a little space between them, until the stack was about 10 inches high, then kindling and tinder on top of that. I lit the tinder on the top and let it burn down. This creates a long lasting fire and a thick bed of coals before it flames out.

By eight o`clock it was about 38º and getting a little chilly outside so I got into the shelter. I was pretty amazed at how warm it was in there. It's a nice, even heat inside it. Not like being outside and close to a campfire, where your backside is cold. I had my bubble foil sleeping pad with me and as it got later I laid down on that for awhile with no other pad or insulation, just the plastic ground sheet beneath it, and I was plenty warm in just my clothes. When I went back to the house about midnight it was down to 34º outside, but I was still toasty warm inside the shelter.

There's no doubt that you'd have to get up and stoke the fire several times during the course of the night to keep it warm, and depending on what you're burning that could be pretty often if you wanted to keep it toasty warm in there. But once you had some coals going it didn't take much fuel or a big fire to warm it up, and it didn't take long either.

Just before I went back to the house, as I was lying there getting heat from just the coals, I found how well a small LED flashlight lit the interior of the shelter. With all that reflective surface it produced an even light throughout the entire space.

I built this shelter with only the intent to test the concept, and it worked well enough that I am going to keep toying with it and testing it some more. It's certainly not for everywhere, or all the time, but it I think its a pretty good shelter design for most winter conditions here in the Ozarks and surely many other places too.

In any case, total cost was less than $15 for everything needed to make it and it's a fun project to play around with.

And with a little more wind than expected and sparks and ambers blowing against the tent, it will be real warm real fast. Unless I'm missing something here, why would anyone in their right mind try this????? (Plus, the wind could sift and blow the heat away from the tent.)

Hi Bill
Reminds me of a locally (Australian) made tent from the 60's.

It was made by an early "lightweight" and ,at the start , DIY guy called Paddy (Frank) Pallin .
(still an outdoor chain here but not making anything any longer)
It was made from a light cotton from England called Japara.
BTW, Paddy started in the early 30's and possibly was not aware of the Whelen Lean-to design
(he was too poor then to have High Speed Internet access...)

Franco

Many years ago, another Scoutmaster and I appropriated the tent site about 10 feet behind the stone chimney of the picnic shelter site where we were camped. The boys had built their typical fire, around 3 pm, for cooking supper at 6. It was December or January, in Ohio, with temperatures around 20 at night. We pitched a green poly tarp (yep, WallyWorld) with 3 sides pegged to the ground, and the open side facing the chimney. For good measure, we piled leaves up about a foot around the edges of the side.

We were using the old Grey Fox (?) sleeping bags by Peak 1, rated, I believe, to 15 degrees (and weighing about 3 pounds.) We went to bed around 9pm. Around 11:30, we bolted out of our sleeping bags, sweating like crazy, got rid of the leaves, and left our bags unzipped, draped over us, until about 4am, when it finally cooled down enough to crawl back in them.

It's amazing how much heat a fire can generate, even when it's just radiating through the back side of a stone chimney!

Oh, come on now...

First, visqueen is not really very flammable.

Second, the NOAA hourly wind forecasts are pretty darn accurate. ( For the record, here is the local historical weather data for the timeframe I did this.)

Third, here, when you're in a steep, sheltered, forested hollow, wind is seldom an issue even when it is blowing on the ridges. (If you can make it here I'll show you.)

Fourth, it is radiant heat that warms the shelter. Wind does not blow away radiant heat. That's why the inside of your car still warms with the sun on a cold windy day.

Finally, doesn't all you say apply to sleeping in any tent when even one campfire hasn't been completely extinguished within miles of you?

But, let me add a disclaimer....

If your the kind of person that would start a fire next to your tent with the wind blowing the smoke and ash and sparks and embers hard at your tent, don't even think about trying this, in fact, don't start any fires anywhere (seriously, don't even light your stovetop burners at home).

Hey Franco, I shopped at a Paddy Palin when I was visiting Sydney.

As for shelters, there are lot of them that kind of look like the one Bill or Paddy made dating back hundreds of years. A Baker tent is somewhat similar-usually made of canvas with an open front. You'll see many of these designs on Civil War reenactor sites.

Here's one someone made-

http://www.bwca.com/index.cfm?fuseaction...15&confID=1

I know a guy who says he slept well minus a sleeping bag in cold weather by digging a trench, building a nice bed of coals in said trench, and sleeping under an overhanging granite boulder while the heat bounced off the rock.

Unfortunately overhanging granite boulders aren't ultralight and digging trenches to fill with coals isn't LNT.

Looks like the shelter Cody built on Dual Survival.

The first I ever heard of this was of that show, but I never saw the show. Last year someone posted a link, in the hammock forums I think, to a video of a guy at a gathering called the "Butt Freeze" (or something like that) campout in MN. But in that video, he never really got his fire going before dark, so you never got any idea of what it would really do.

Jim, (ULhiker here), sent me the link to the video I referenced a month or so ago. It doesn't show the shelter very well, but he does demonstrate that it works.

Tom, the shelter is almost exactly like what you linked to.

I took the shelter down this afternoon so I can play some more with attaching the mylar. Here's a few pictures of it before I did:

The term "Super Shelter," as used in the OP video, seems like wildly exaggerated hype for what is actually a very traditional, time tested design of undoubted effectiveness.

I thought it was a thread about the Hennessy Super Shelter. Which is a dumb name since Hennessy's version is actually just insulation for the underside of the hammock and not a shelter at all.

Yeah, I agree. I don't think they coined the term though. I'm not sure where it came from, perhaps the TV show referenced earlier?

The tarp set up is not the "super" part though, it's the way it retains heat. Mylar is not new, but as I've said, I hadn't heard of this use of it until recently. While the shelter design itself would trap heat, the mylar certainly makes a difference in how warm it is inside. Last winter I did quite a bit of experimenting with it. While sitting in front of a fire, as soon as you place it behind you you can feel the warmth radiating back at you and as soon as you remove it you can feel the cold. There's no denying it's effective.

I've been pondering different set ups to apply the same concept. It should be noted that you can retain body heat in a shelter lined with this too. In that video, I think he mentions that a candle raised the inside temp 5ºF. I thought that was pretty interesting.

Some alternative designs I think might be interesting to try are a bivy sized shelter shaped the same way, just a lower opening in front, and a dome or tube shaped shelter lined on the back of the inside with mylar. And I think it may be worth looking at how one might suspend the reflective material from a standard tarp, so it could be used, or not, depending on conditions.

For me, here, backpacking is a cool to cold weather thing. The nights are 14 hours long now, and it's coldest just at sun up, and it's doesn't warm up fast or very much either. After a day of bushwhacking I think it'd be pretty nice to be able to get truly warmed up before bedding down for the night, and to sit and read a bit in the evening. And in the morning, to be able to toss a few sticks on some coals and get back in my bag and wait for it to warm up inside that shelter would be pretty highfaluting times out there. Shoot, it'd be darn near "Super Duper"

Cool concept bill I like it. You are getting my wheels turning again. Iuse a space blanket with a space balnket fastened under my hammock in cold weather . This works very well. Tis the season to be creative! Happy Trails

I do not find a lot of merit in the super shelter concept. However if its cheap enough and you have fun doing it, perhaps you'll learn something to share with us all. There would be too much dependance on maintaining a fire, which will be affected by weather, being below treeline out of winds, being where fires are legal and lastly depending on the structure not to fail.
Looks like fun though - may as well put an electric heater in it.
Jim

HeHe... You old curmudgeon, I was sooo waiting for something like that

Well, as you said, it was fun to make, and yes, its merits are certainly limited to the time and place that's right to use it.

But then, merit might also be found in the style which you might use it. If you're doing 2-3 nights at a base camp, it might be pretty nice. I think it'd make a great shelter for hunting trips.



The idea is not necessarily to keep you toasty warm all night. That's not really practical. The idea is to warm you while you twiddle away those long evenings, and warm you again on those frosty mornings. However, if you had to keep warm all night, I think a strong case can be made that you'd use less fuel and be warmer inside that shelter.



That's a pretty simple rigging, and time tested, even with the fire in front of it. There's not much new to fail.



That's really why I tried it. It is fun.

You know, crawling into a warm sleeping bag when it's below freezing out has some merit. Crawling into a cold sleeping bag is one of the toughest parts of backpacking here. I'd love to figure out how not to have to be that tough

Reminds me of a "baker tent". Bill, with a few more feet of visqueen, you could enclose the front or make a porch. Does the mylar really do much for your design? I wonder if the dead air space between the mylar and visqueen does more than the reflective properties? I've built baker tents from cheap plastic tarps and sticks that worked very well. Good 'down and dirty' shelter.
http://www.cdaml.org/baker_tent.htm

Cody's Super Shelter

Bill, as soon as you mentioned this...I thought of this video I saw last year. Its the "super shelter" set up for hammock.

super shelter for hammock

It just took me a while to find it. Hope you enjoy!

That's the one I first saw. I think the "Dual Survivor" show may have aired before that video was posted, but until finallyME posted the link to it, I hadn't seen it.

The shelter design I used is very similar to a "baker tent". I think that's a pretty good shelter design. It is very roomy inside. and the baker tent is even more so. I am sure that the baker tent would retain heat with the front closed off with canvas, but I do think the mylar does help keep more heat in than without it. I haven't tested that though.

I'd like to make a small baker tent out of silnylon. I can see where it might suck on the side of a barren mountain, but it's really a good design for here in the Ozark's forests.

I mentioned that I would keep the fire burning for about 6 hours before I went to bed, and then the coals would continue to heat the shelter for some time after that, so another thing to consider is that while the space inside the tent is being heated the ground under the tent is being heated too, and it's going to store and release that heat back into the tent as soon as the air inside it is cooler than the ground. (At least that sounds good to me )

But that's not the only design that would benefit from a reflective material on the ceiling and back walls. I'd think this standard "Diamond" set up would work well too. And you really don't need to rig a closed front to benefit from the reflective material.

For the added weight of some simple attachment points on a tarp to hold up one or two SOL emergency blankets when you'd want to, it seems to me that's it's almost a no-brainer to include them. If you rig the tarp so it's not far above you, and blocks the wind, you are going to stay warmer.

Same thing for a hammock under quilt. Why would you not rig a way to drape one of those SOL blankets under your under quilt? Especially if you're already carrying an emergency blanket? There is no doubt that your quilt would retain more heat, and, in this case, moisture wouldn't be an issue at all.

Honestly, after experimenting with these reflective materials a bit, I think that, to a large degree, they have been ignored by backpackers. I suspect this has to do with the initial problems of moisture build-up and the bad reputation just got stuck. That's a serious problem, but it gives cause to look into the roots of that problem, and possible solutions to it, not cause to ditch the concept all together. It has way too much potential for that.

It's likely that there are already solutions out there for our problems with these materials, but created for a different purpose. Check out this stuff.



That might be a better blanket right there. Nothing to invent, nothing to design or manufacture, it's pretty darn cheap, and it's just sitting there waiting to be used.

I don't know anyone that's tried it...

OK, Bill. I "get" all of your points. I'm really surprised at the responses on this site though. When I first saw the video, I thought "Holy ****" Look how close the fire is to the tent. Man. He's gonna burn down fer' sure." I really thought that everyone else was going to chime in with horror stories of tents going up in flames while cooking in the foyer or inside the tent, or being too close to the fire (I guess I stand alone in this concern). Maybe the difference is the visqueen (sp?) tent instead of a treated nylon tent. Anyhoo, while I will not rain on your picnic (so to speak), that fire is waaaaay too close for me so the only answer is "Ok OldScout, so don't build your fire so close to your tent."

Finally,
Keep watching - the same guy ambushes a warthog and shows a still beating python heart. Are we sure this guy is representative of our groups camping needs?

Old Scout - yep that is way too much fire way too close to the tent. I wondered how many of them they burned down, How would a wind affect that sey up?

Bill

Somebody had to do it....

As I understand and please correct me if I'm wrong, this is a heated mylar tarp tent that probably weighs 2-3 pounds, for the purpose of having a warm place to lounge on cool evenings as long as you have wood, can light a wood fire, and light one in the evening and in the morning. Is that correct? How much does the wood collecting tools weigh?

And this is "as opposed to" carrying warmer clothes and sleeping bag? Does this thing fit into a reasonable sized stuff sack and can it be redeployed?

Baker tent. However as I have often said - the last new idea in tents was premade sectioned poles. Every tent out there is just a rehash of every other tent out there.

Ok so why not just pitch a tarp with a vertical side towards a fire and the back tied down at 45 degrees and cover the back with a space blanket? How much warmer is the super shelter than the mentioned tarp set up? As long as you are depending for fire for heat, are there lighter weight ways to go?

And finally - on really cold mornings out snow camping, if I want to get out of my sleeping bag and sit in my tent in my long underwear while brewing up a cuppa coffe, I hang up my Bibler stove from the crossed poles at the apex of the tent and melt some snow for coffee, then I can just let it boil with the roof vents and door bottom vent open to create a bit of air flow. As long as the stove is turned on, I have a steam heated sweat lodge, HOWEVER I have to report that there is NEVER any condensation as the heat drives out the moisture. You might comment that it might be nice to have two burners so I could heat [create steam] with one and cook with one.
Jim

Your concerns are valid, but not based, I am guessing, so much on experience as what you've heard, seen, or thought.

What I mean is, you've never tested how close you can get a tent to a fire before it melts or burns up, and you've never had one melt or burn up because you got it too close.

I haven't either. I have worked with fire and extreme heat a lot, so that experience is an advantage I suppose. You tend to learn what is a potential hazard and how to deal with it. For example, I've used visqueen as a spark shield when welding and cutting steel. It actually works really good for that. And I have lived a lot of years where campfires are a part of life. I've melted a few soles getting my feet too close to them.

Personally, as far as fires and backpacking go, I'm more interested in how small a fire I can use, and how long I can make it last without fiddling with it. I haven't tested that yet with that shelter. I did build a long fire, like that suggested in the link to the video skcreidc posted, and it wasn't a very big one, but I still don't know how small of one I can use.

I think that if you did take the time to play with this concept, and as you've said, "don't build your fire so close to your tent", and make it a small fire, you'd be more comfortable with the concept. Maybe not comfortable enough to fall asleep in it, but more than at first glance at least.

I suppose the antithesis of that is the tee pee with the fire ring in the middle and a smoke hole above. Down in New Mexico I saw round rooms maybe 8? feet deep and 12? feet in diameter - at Indian ruins. There was another small round hole in the floor near the wall "where the spirits could come up from the underworld", and it is presumed that the whole thing was covered with a wooden roof, and that the inhabitants had come together in said underground hole and lit a fire in the smaller hole. I question whether carbon monoxide is a problem in wood fires. However I bring this up say that fire inside is a pretty ancient idea, AND apparently you can even live in a hole with a fire.

However Bill - what are the weight trade offs?
Jim

These underground rooms are specialized ceremonial areas known as kivas. They are still in use in modern pueblos. They contain a fairly efficient ventilation system - a ventilator shaft opening into the room at floor level, a low masonry deflector wall between the shaft and the firepit, and the opening directly above the fire hearth. These features can be found in prehistoric ruins dating back almost 2000 years in the American southwest.

Some kivas with intact roofs are known, as well as habitation rooms with firepits and intact roofs. What is interesting is the massive quantities of soot deposited on the roof beams. Air quality must have been pretty bad at times, but people probably did not spend a great deal of time within these rooms. No idea what the CO levels would have been. Some things are just beyond the archaeologist's knowledge....

I believe the natives had it rite . When they built tepes and brought the fire into them. They could keep warm condensation low and never have to freeze to heat the place back up a bit.

You can make that shelter with any 10'x10' tarp, so if you already carry the tarp and rigging the additional weight will be the reflective surface used and the front panel. I also used a ground sheet. (these last two could be made from one piece of material). These don't have to be visqueen, but I do think the visqueen is a good choice for the front panel. Tyvek might be another, but I have no experience with that.

For this test I used two of the cheap mylar emergency blankets you can get at Wal-Mart. Here the brand is called "Ozark Trails". They weigh about 45 grams each.

I think the "SOL" brand emergency blankets are a few inches bigger and a tiny bit heavier. They are a lot more durable, and they don't tear if they get a puncture. They are made of a different plastic than the all silver mylar type. Same thing as the visqueen I think.

Either way, you're only adding about 3-4 ounces of weight with the reflective surface.

The floor and front cover were made of 3 mil visqueen, those two 5'x7' pieces together weigh about 1 pound. I used the heavier visqueen for these because I wanted a ground sheet tough enough to resist punctures, and the front panel tough enough to resist sparks, but mostly because I had those two pieces from a previous test.

The 1 mill visqueen 10'x10' tarp I made weighs around eight ounces. That includes the duct tape reinforcements and grommets on the corners and centers of each edge.

So all together, that comes in at around two pounds. Add whatever the stakes weigh that are used to pin it down to that.

All that said, if I make one to use on a trip (and I probably will soon) I think I'll make it all with 2 mil visqueen, which I'd guess would end up close to the same two pounds, maybe a bit less, because I'll also probably make it with a 9'x9' tarp, which would be plenty big enough for me alone and all my gear.

Bill,
I've been thinking of building a "super super shelter" on Lava Deck up in the flow behind my house. Its about as isolated feeling there as a mountain peak, especially in a snow storm. It might be sort of similar to your construction except it might be made of 4'x8' sheets of 1 inch styrafoam aluminised on one side. I had imagined an internal heat source, maybe a US tent heater wood stove, and a transparent side facing the Newberry Monument to watch it snow.

Of course it would hardly be a tent nor would it be portable, but it is a plastic super shelter shaped design that will use heat from a different source and it will actually be insulated. It might be fun to hang a fire pan in front of it, but in any wind it would not be a wise idea to have a campfire, unless theres snow. I was thinking that an electric heat source might be cool and that I have a generator out back that could be employed though its a tad noisy, I would need 250 feet of extension cords otherwise .

Anyway its also a chance to experiment with some inexpensive "homeless" homes.
JIM

If one does use an open fire, wind direction is very important. Facing the front of the supershelter parallel to the wind will allow sparks, etc... to not blow onto the shelter. One can use fire-retardant plastic sheeting as an additional precaution. 4 mil, I think I have seen.

Jim, that was the first episode of the first season. I have seen all episodes of both seasons. I have also seen almost all of the youtube videos of both of those guys. Do I believe everything they preach? No, but that don't mean I can't learn something. You need to watch the other episodes. The first one was kinda benign.

I've used the styrofoam you're talking about. I have 5/8" on the ceiling of my pole barn/home office. I never thought about it before, but think that'd make a great shelter.

You could probably make a little wood/charcoal stove to put in one of those. If you vented the fresh air to the stove from the outside, and used a chimney pipe, you'd probably be able to keep heat in there really good. Might get by better than Bob Cratchit on just a few briquets

You could even make some double paned visqueen windows for that shelter. That would be pretty cool.


I'm thinking of making a bivy style tent with the bubble foil. It won't pack up very small, but it will be pretty light, and should be really warm. If I can get the pack size down to that of a blue foam pad it might work pretty good.