Okay, I have a little update...
The Tent...
I decided to leave my tent set up after my last post. We had some rough weather coming and I wanted to know how it would hold up. Just a day after that last post we had sustained winds in the 20+ mph range with gusts up to 35 mph. Then it started raining. It rained good and long and hard for a couple days a few times and the wind blew pretty good most the entire time.
I checked the tent twice before taking it down. Both times it was still standing good and tight and almost completely dry. There was some stress on one upper corner where I've done some repairs with tape before, but that was it. There were a few teaspoons or less of water on the floor near one front corner after some pretty good downpours but that was it. My sleeping bag would have stayed bone dry through all of it.
I have to say that I was kind of surprised that the tent wasn't torn to shreds because the wind was howling for days up here on the ridge above it. That's pretty impressive in my book. Though the tent's not near ready for a thru-hike on the AT the concept shows promise.
Now, back to the heater...
It was about 35º and still breezy when I went back down there to pack up the tent. Before I took it down I lit six candles and arranged them in the two little foil bread pans (three candles each) like I mentioned I would try in my last post. That worked pretty good. The tent warmed up some while I was outside it for just a few minutes. When I got in it I could sure feel the difference. My hands were really cold so I held them over the heaters and, my gosh, that really felt good. That alone was a real luxury.
I checked and arranged the door panel so that it had some ventilation and put the heaters in the back of the tent and sat inside it for a few minutes. It was really pretty cozy compared to outside. I wanted to stay longer to see if it'd get warmer but I had to get back to my chores. The sun was setting and I could hear my burros braying for their dinner, and with their big ears they could hear me down there playing around, so I was totally guilt tripped into leaving.
Comments on the overall concept...
While this may seem silly to some these kinds of projects sometimes lead to commercial products that do work well. I'm sure there are others who are playing with these concepts. Using these heat reflective materials in clothing is getting a lot of focus and development dollars right now. Tents cannot be far behind.
It's important to consider that I'm using the proverbial "Spit and chewing gum" approach on this. When industrial design and manufacturing techniques are applied to any concept it changes the aesthetics and generally little else conceptually. My tent is just a prototype made to demonstrate the concept of how we can make a warm and light tent using these reflective materials. The aesthetics, or art and beauty of design, is not the focus of this prototype. That comes later, after the concept has proven merit. As it stands, this concept could be applied to most any tent design.
Where it stands...
There are some obvious improvements that can be made to what I've done so far. Among is to lower the ceiling. This would keep the warmest air closer to your sleeping bag and there'd be less air to warm. This would work better for retaining even your body heat inside the tent. I can hack my tent to test that.
As far as adding a heater goes, supplying air for the candles to burn from outside the tent would probably help a lot. My tent isn't designed specifically for that but I can hack it easy enough to test it too, and I will. At this point I'll keep hacking that tent to the point of diminishing returns and then make a new one based on what I've learned.
Current summation...
I have to say (again), there is not a tent made right now that I would use here in the Ozarks instead of this one. Based on what I've learned I'll be very surprised if we don't see some new tents soon that use a plastic material similar to this. It's cuban fiber light, durable, waterproof, warm, and inexpensive. I think it's got to happen and we'll all benefit when it does.
Tent heaters may remain something for the more adventurous DIY backpacker, though I can see how they might become more popular too if one can be made that works well for our purpose. This is a gray area right now that crosses over between bush crafting and backpacking, but it's an important area to keep pushing the boundaries on. That aspect of this project sits between those lines.
Really though, it's all just for fun. If you haven't played with the concept yet I urge you again to try it. At the very least it's an excuse to get out for a day and you might find you'd like to try it for an overnighter too. I think if a few more of us here were playing with this concept we could come up with something pretty nice.