What's this space heater all about?

[rolling18]

Old school devices better known for eyebrow removal

They are a "doughnut" made from stainless that had a draft pipe and exhaust pipe sticking up out of a drum of water. Gasoline was dripped down the draft pipe and lit. The resulting draft will pull the flames down, through the doughnut and up the exhaust pipe, if properly lit. But putting too much gasoline in before lighting will flash back, usually taking all exposed hair with it.

They work well, heating 40 gallons of water in about an hour. Can be used for heating MRE entrees or washing dishes.

they are perfect for boiling off H2o out of WMO too!! as well as "passive" heat... I had my oil up to 290F could go much hotter, but oil got too bubbly..
also, mine was the version that had the metal "disk" with hinges around the top for attachment to a "water buffalo"
took me a LOOONg time to figure out how to put the stove pipe together! wow1

 

[res0wc18]

well i got the heater in and assembled..... all i can say is when they say "two cups" of priming fuel, they dont literally mean two cups, rather they mean two units of the small device attached to the cord.......found that out the hard way, almost had a melt down...


Other than that pretty straight forward....

Observations:

it doesnt like high blends of biodiesel- I figured this out because the way this unit works is by heating the fuel to where it flashes over and it burns the fumes..... Biodiesel has a flashpoint "The flash point of biodiesel (>130 °C, >266 °F)[35] is significantly higher than that of petroleum diesel (64 °C, 147 °F) or gasoline (−45 °C, -52 °F). Biodiesel has a density of ~ 0.88 g/cm³, higher than petrodiesel ( ~ 0.85 g/cm³)"

so when you run high blends of biodiesel, it does not work well. Once it warms up etc its not bad, but still no where as efficient as when on off road diesel etc.

With this in mind no matter what fuel you are using i have found that its best to run the unit on its lowest setting for about 15 mins after starting to allow it to warm up which heats the flash ring and outer shell.

After that slowly jack it up to high....


On real SERIOUS note these things can be extremely dangerous....Fuel vapors=boom

If i had not known from my firefighting experience to shut the fuel source instantly when things started to go array i would have no doubt of been blown to pieces.


READ THE INSTRUCTIONS

 

[lindyp38]

can i use this to heat a crawl space?

 

[res0wc18]

im sure you could at youre own risk......how big is the space?..... flue venting is key otherwise it wont work

 

[islandguydon]

I knew I was selling mine too cheap...

How much do they normally cost...?

 

[storeman]

I've spent many a night in a CP tent in Germany with these dudes. They are great so long as you know what you are doing with them. I'd NEVER mount one on a wall.
Jerry

 

[res0wc18]

ive been running my heater for over 70 hrs now without issues.

Interesting thing about these guys is they are designed to fit the Thermoelectric fan. I plan on buying myself one for Christmas as they are suppose to make a night and day difference.

Thermoelectric fan on top of stove

 

[jesusgatos]

That's rad! Thanks for sharing.

 

[doninreno]

Reviving this thread: has anyone actually USED one of these? I've been looking for a space heater for a tent for a while, this seems like it might work well, but I am naturally dubious until I can get a first-hand account.

Anyone have any experience using one?

Yep...used these for a total of 9 years in Germany (3 tours). We used these stoves in Germany and in Norway (camping---yes, camping--- 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle in FEBRUARY...We wouldn't use the potbelly stoves as the "carburetors" on those were too complicated and were a PTA to keep running right. The Yukons work great, but will use more than one can overnight if that is all you put on the line. We built some big tripods and put three cans on them (hint--it helps in the setup process if you use shut-off valves, other wise that you turn back on AFTER you get all the cans up on the tripod) you gotta be careful or you get fuel all over the place. Since I was in helicopter units, we used JP-4 mixed with diesel or (rarely) MOGAS and they heated out GP-Mediums just fine, though if it was REALLY COLD out, we'd use two of them---one in each end of the tent. We MUCH preferred the Yukons over the potbellies....but you have to remember two things when using them (1) You have to be careful to keep monitoring the burn/heat and re-setting the flow rate or the stove will go out; and (2) If the stove does go out or you run the cans completely out and you refill the cans and want to keep using it, the thing will be about like a bomb if you let fuel into it and it vaporizes (MOGAS is REALLY bad about this) and then you try to light it. I have seen these stoves blow the carbon all out of the stovepipe AND blow the spark arrester/cap right off of the end of the pipe if you do it wrong when the stove goes BOOM!! We used to let the newbies light the stoves if they were stupid enough to try to light it HOT and do it the wrong way. That was always worth a laugh as it would scare the carp out of the guy in addition to burning hall.any facial hair off of him in one big "WHOOOOMP"! What we would do to avoid an explosion is to ball up a fairly sizable piece of paper, put it in the stove and light it AND THEN start letting the fuel in carefully a little bit at a time (having shut it OFF before refueling the cans). If the stove had just recently gone out, (still hot) the fuel would vaporize some and light VERY easily, after which the correct fuel flow rate could be set.

 

[coachgeo]

anyone done upgrades/hacks with these SHA's since this old thread?

 

[snowtrac nome]

The sha was intended to replace the old gas burning Yukon arctic heaters and the h 45 pot belly stoves they run more efficiently and a lot cleaner, if youall ever come across any kits keep me informed I would be interested in acquiring a few more as I'm in the process of moving off grid and they will make a good source of back up heat. if using one to heat a building you have to ensure adequate oxygen resupply and have a co detector there are no safety's on them

 

[coachgeo]

The sha ... in the process of moving off grid and they will make a good source of back up heat. if using one to heat a building you have to ensure adequate oxygen resupply and have a co detector there are no safety's on them

Yup... I got this one cause it still has wood fuel as potential where the newest has oil only. I too am going sorta off grid.... as in my camper on the LMTV I am going as of grid-ish with it as I can. Will have couple heaters actually. One is an older diesel fired engine coolant heater I will plumb into the system that I could also run coolant thru a radiator in camper box and blow heat into box that way. Great for mornings when I want to heat engine anyway.

Want to take sha and put thin firebrick inside along with a folded sheet of metal that slides in from the front door that when inserted it blocks smoke from entering flue pipe as normal; instead forcing its path into a second burn chamber to get secondary burn of gasses before finally heading toward access to the flue stack. This item plus the thin fire brick should shrink burn chamber enough that the reduced size would result in not overheating the ambulance box. Few other ideas to improve burn in back of my mind as well. Thinking this in part for lower emission reasons but also to get the wood to last longer by pulling heat off combusted gasses and not just the wood.

With lasting longer in mind...... If Im lucky and can figure it out, would like to use the hole that has removable cook cover/sight glass, to add a wide down tube into burn area so can use longer pieces of wood to feed into burn chamber (aka vertical rocket stove feed) Hope is this will allow for longer burn times between messing with feeding it.

For oil use..... slide out the folded piece, remove feed tube, and pull a brick off the bottom to use it in normal fashion for waste oil burning via the oil vaporizing burner.

Yep co2 and smoke alarm required.