Great explanation! Thanks!

I didn't use the steel bread pans for my tent test. I used small disposable aluminum pans and doubled them up and tweaked them so there was some air space between the bottoms to keep them from melting the tent floor, which seemed to work.



The foil pans are pretty light, and I think they have potential to be configured in a manner that will warm the tent better than I did in the first test.

With the pan open at the top as shown the heat just flies straight up to the ceiling. When the rocks were over the candles they sucked up almost all of the heat.

So, next I'm going to try putting a pan that's turned upside down on top of the one with the candles in it. I'll put a few holes in the sides of the lower pan to let air in, and some bigger holes in the sides of the upper pan that face the inside of the tent. I'm hoping that this will help disperse the heat more in the lower part of the tent.

I'll keep playing with the foil pans for a bit because they're cheap and available. I bought both them and the candles at the "Dollar General" and I'd like to be sure others can try whatever I use.

Here's the tent set up for the test:


Even when the rocks were over the candles I could feel the heat radiating off the ceiling onto the back of my hand when I held it about a half inch away. That being the case, it makes sense that lowering ceiling closer to the sleeping bag would warm the bag better. So, I might try suspending a sheet of the reflective material over the sleeping bag while the heaters are running too.

Here's the tent with the awning pinned down to help keep the heat inside: