The dangers of propane

Greetings!

I dumped propane long ago after friends nearly died because of it. Here’s an example of what a small 1# green propane tank can do. I have since converted to all wick type equipment that uses non explosive, non pressurized fuels like kerosene, diesel, or even vegetable oil.

Safety needs to be one of our top priorities out here, and propane, solar, lithium batteries, and DIY wiring appear to be the major causes of camper fires and explosions. It’s easy enough to eliminate these risks without compromising our lifestyle, and more people need to give this far more serious consideration.

Your safety and your life may depend on the choices you make. CHOOSE WISELY!

Cheers!


"They told me I'd save money with solar, and have free electricity.
Neither was true." ~ Disgusted in Dallas


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Is there a place online where I can learn about the various wick-type equipment that would be available to me for my upcoming van life? I was considering using equipment like a propane/butane burner. Now, I want to consider alternatives. I have used kerosene room heaters in a house but am not familiar with any other type of wick equipment.

Greetings!

Try searching for diy candle heaters or diy candle stoves. Many of the prepper sites talk about them too. The ones I prefer use either diesel, kerosene, or cooking oil. Nearly anything that uses regular candles can be converted to use refillable liquid candles. Just using votive or tea light candles is fairly popular too, but I prefer the refillable solution. I’m currently using cooking oil for everything, $4.50 a gallon at Walmart, and I’m over a month on a single gallon, while using it for cooking, heating, hot water, fridge w/freezer, and occasionally lighting. That’s decent bang for your buck in my book, and Northern Minnesota is cold…

Above are a couple candle heaters with fans, on the left is a UCO candelier which claims to produce 5,000 BTU’s of heat. The one on the right is a Glo Warm designed to use (6?) tea light candles. It doesn’t list a BTU rating. Both of these have heat powered wood stove fans on top to circulate the heat without the need for electricity or batteries. There are plans online to convert the candelier to 3-4 liquid candles using airline size alcohol bottles.

I DIY’d the $100+ Glo Warm on the right. At Walmart or Ikea, you can get a kitchen utensil holder that looks just like theirs, and the wood stove fans can be purchased online or at a woodstove/fireplace shop, or if you’re cheap like me, they can be found at yard sales and flea markets dirt cheap. Then I made a liquid veggie oil candle out of a mason jar. In a 2"x2" grid in the center, I put 9 wicks, each spaced an inch apart.

Here’s a link to a DIY version of the Glo Warm to give you some ideas. I took a mason jar liquid candle, and turned the utensil holder upside down over it, and added the fan on top instead of the pot. Works GREAT! Without the fan, you can even cook on it.

Now I don’t have any way of measuring BTU’s, but if the candelier puts out 5k BTU’s with 3 candles, my 9 wick model should be capable of putting out 15k BTU’s. The neat part is that you can adjust the heat output by how many wicks you choose to light. The utensil holder just sits upside down right over the mason jar candle, and the the fan sits on top of that. I didn’t permanently attach the fan, because I use it for other things too. When not in use, the lid goes on the jar candle, sealing it for storage, and it fits right inside the utensil holder. A plastic lid headed for the garbage also fit perfectly on top of the utensil holder.

I’ve changed out my cooking burners for the ones on the left below, so far, so good, but I’m hanging onto all my original equipment too for now. These new ones are smaller, lighter, extremely stable, easier to store, and should be multi-fuel. I’m currently running them on cooking oil.

Both of the above stoves were designed to be used with alcohol. The one on the left is a cheap Chinese knockoff of the very expensive marine Dometic/Origo version on the right. Both work equally as well. The Origo has a large canister with a wicking material inside to hold the alcohol and prevent spilling. The cheap one just has an open cup inside to pour the alcohol into. The fuels I prefer require a wick, so I stuffed the open cup with carbon felt for a wick, and covered it with screen to wind up with something nearly identical to the Origo. With the wick, it will now run on cooking oil. Unlike with alcohol, a little bit of cooking oil will burn for a very long time. I have 4 of these so I can cook many things at the same time, such as meat, potatoes, veggies, and more. They work great with my Dutch oven, and my collapsible oven as well.

While many of the DIY type liquid candles run their wicks up through the lids, I don’t care for that. I prefer having the lid intact & the wick(s) below the lid, so I can replace & seal the lid when not in use. Some people use screens to poke their wicks through and hold them in place. Others use the floating wick method. While you can purchase or create individual floating wicks, you can also use a thin sheet of cork or craft foam, wrapped in a double layer of aluminum foil to protect it from the flame, and poke holes in that to feed your wicks through. They say that each wick should have a minimum of 1" clearance all the way around.

Jars with sealable lids come in many different shapes & sizes, any of which can be made into liquid candles. Some of the Sterno type metal cans also have a screw on lid, and can be easily converted into refillable instead of disposable as well.

Since many of the devices we use are unvented, proper ventilation and a Carbon Monoxide detector are highly recommended.

Cheers!


“Everything should be made as simple as possible." ~ Einstein


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Just like anything, knowing what you’re doing and taking the right precautions will prevent accidents.

I use propane in my van, but also keep it in a sealed propane locker vented to the outside, have a propane detector in close vicinity to the stove (it’s the only thing that runs on it in my van), have an open floor vent within 4 feet of the stove, and have smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. I’ve also installed a sealed door at the top of the propane locker so it’s easy to reach in to turn the bottle off when done using it.

I think carrying liquid fuel in a van in containers that can easily rupture or tear in an accident, and refueling appliances inside the van, as most who use them do, is less safe.

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Greetings!

While everybody must make their own choices, and assess their own risk profile, I’ve lost friends in 3 different incidences due to propane explosions, and all of them had detectors and proper safety precautions as well.

Statistics prove that non explosive liquid fuels are much safer than explosive ones. Propane & natural gas have proven themselves to be among the most dangerous fuels in common use.

I’ve been very happy with my choice to avoid propane whenever practical. While I have fixed many propane leaks, I’ve never had a liquid fuel leak, spill, or rupture in all the years I’ve been using it.

Cheers!


“Everything should be made as simple as possible." ~ Einstein


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If your methods keep you warm in northern MN, then surely an alternative will work for me. I will be snowbirding to FL sometimes but would like to stay occasionally for the winter in the place where I plan to domicile, SD. I love snow. Am particularly interested in the cooking oil solutions. I like the candle heaters that you shared and the burners too. Am going to take notes in my nomad planning binder on all of this. Thanks!

Greetings!

I know it’s not unusual for Sioux Falls to get down to -20 or below, I’ve wintered there too. This is my first winter experimenting with cooking oil, but I still have all of my kerosene heaters & cookers if needed. I know for a fact that they have kept me comfy down to -60, and without the need of any power.

This month has been fairly mild for me this year, I don’t think it’s gotten below zero yet, and no long stretches of below freezing during the day, although the high yesterday & today was only 20. I think it got down to 9-10 last night, and so far so good.

For an experiment last night, I filled my Dutch Oven with sand, and heated it on a single burner using cooking oil for a couple hours before bedtime. I turned it off before I went to bed, and my van was just slightly above 40 when I got up. A decent experiment, but running the heat all night is a lot more comfortable.

Today, I have been playing with my $5 vintage design, 36 wick, cooking oil tent heater/stove. You adjust the desired temperature by how many wicks you have lit. I’ve used it in the past with both kerosene or diesel, but this is the first time with cooking oil. It appears to be working the same with the cooking oil.

I’ve had it running most of the day, and with just 6 wicks lit, it has been maintaining my inside temperature right around 70, while it’s been 20ish outside. I have 2 windows cracked about an inch on the downwind side. No problems with any of my detectors going off.

Cheers!


“Everything should be made as simple as possible." ~ Einstein


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Wow, 20 out and near 70 in is amazing! I’ve decided to domicile temporarily in SD and travel mainly in TX to seek a small parcel of land. So, I won’t be getting a home base in SD now, just temporarily getting a mailing address and registering a vehicle for now. Thanks for all of your input.

Greetings!

Work or obligations can sure put us where we’d prefer not to be weather wise. Happened a lot when I was working construction, and for the last several years now. It really drives home the importance of having good climate control. This winter might be the last that I’m stuck in the frozen North.

It’s getting colder here now, -6°f as I write this, supposed to get down to -21°f overnight. I’m still using the vintage style heater, up to 10 wicks lit now, and I’m keeping it running all night. Might have to light a couple more before the night is over.

I have no way of measuring BTU’s, but the 3 candle UCO candlelier claims to be 5,000 BTU, so if this is similar, I should be getting somewhere between 15k & 20k BTU’s with 10 wicks lit. Not too shabby for an 8" x 8" cookie tin. If the figures hold true, all 36 wicks would equal nearly 60k BTU. Pretty impressive. My normal kerosene heater is only 23k BTU, and takes up much more space. The cooking oil seems to be a nice dry heat too, and the fuel consumption seems really really low. With the heat powered woodstove fan, the heat gets circulated really well too, all without the need for any power.

While I’m really enjoying this vintage heater design, the newer tech for the woodstove fan sure makes them simpler. The originals used a stirling engine, and were much more complicated. Now, they’re thermoelectric using a peltier chip to convert the heat to power a regular electric fan, much simpler.

I think this newer tech could hold a lot of promise for us. My experimental thermoelectric heater/cooler couldn’t keep up with this cold of weather, but the cooler side kept me comfortable all summer long in S. Florida and only required a single wick candle to power it. With some tweaking to improve the heat output, we could have all season climate control that requires only candle power. Even if not, electricity free air conditioning alone is a huge step in the right direction.

Cheers!


“Everything should be made as simple as possible." ~ Einstein


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