Tipi/tent heating

[Lobo]

I am having a problem getting smoke to go out the smoke holes in the top of my tent (similar to a tipi). I have the doors open a little with the base of the tent raise on one side a little bit for air circulation and the only smoke free area is on the floor or outside.

Can anyone suggest what else may be wrong so I do not have to make a choice between freezing and breathing. I had planned a smokehouse later but not in my living space.

Thanks,

Lobo


11/20/07

The top of the tent where the smoke vents are is 12 ft high, shorter than some tipis I have seen. There is another hole for a stove pipe to go thru at about 6 ft. All are over the fire pit.

[AlchemyAcres]

How high is the opening?

Height is pretty much the key.


~Martin :)

[RangerRick]

Right-O, same principal as with a hurricane lamp.

Rick

[farmboy]

I have seen a tipi that actually had a metal stovepipe in it but have no idea how it worked.

Probably Mac Muz can help you too.


farmboy

[Mac_Muz]

What area are you at? Texas would be different than New Hampshire, and New Hampshire would be Different than Maryland.

In Texas the door should face east, in Marland the door should face nor'east, and in NH you would want north

Is there a liner? That should be apx 6 feet or more if you can..

Is this a 16 footer? Sorta seems it with the flaps starting at 12 feet.

Do you use longer poles for the flaps to keep them snug? Do you set the up wind flap away from the wind, and the down wind flap back but close to it. to help draw a vacuum?

Do you have one lower flap pole out a good ways from the lodge? or 3 poles?

How high is the outter cover off the ground?

Do you pan to live in this over winter?

What the heck is a smoke hole for in the cover for a wood stove pipe doing in this rig anyway?

I lived for 3 full years in a tee pee 2 in Md and 1 in NH, where it got to be -50 degrees below 0.

I had a 14 footer and a 18'. I used a wood stove all 3 years and it was the reflector in the fire pit away from the back, so I look at a tee pee from the center back out.

My wood stoves had 2 sections of 6" pipe, or 4 feet and hat was it. I had the door from sitting on the bunk facing right across the tee pee. I had a fire in the pit which heated the side of the stove which also had a fire in it. This heat helped cause smoke to rise.

If that pipe hole ain't plugged plug it and plug it tight.

In winter you want the outter cover about 5 inches off the ground and the liner on the ground. In winter if you have snow, you want to seal the lower parts, but have one place on the north side (coldest side) to allow air in.

For all I know you are in New Zealand where everything is backwards...

The main idea is the tee pee needs to be set away from the winds you get most of the time, then set the flaps across the wind to create vacuum.

You want dry wood too, and a hot fire. I never had dry wood since I always moved locations in Sept of these years, but I had white ash which ain't to shabby wet.

There will be days you just have to deal with it.

An OZAN would help a lot too. That is a inner cover that is held on a line as high as you can reach over head, and should have a line coming down to the ft center you can pitch the ozan up in the middle a bit to get weather to run off over and behind the liner. It works something like a baffel in a wood stove.

If you have wet wood split it thin, and get a good bed of coals burning. The fire pit matters, and if you will be in temps like 10 and less, you should consider making a tin can pipe buried from the coldest side under ground to the fire pit, so then you can seal off the liner all the way around. Make that pit breathable. many people live in fear of having to big a fire and so make smoke.

The only time you add bigger wood is when you have kindled a good bed of coals with an active hot fire, then you get the larger wood to burn faster and have heat to pump out smoke.

I used the wood stove to make and hold coals all night. I cooked on both sources of heat.

The first 2 years all there was for a bed was a couple of 2x4's and boards on top to stay out of the mud. The last year I made a rope bed, but either way you need as much insulation under you as you have on top. I used and still use wool. Wool won't kill you if a spark lands on it like a sleeping bag of modern materials will.

That last year I heard on a battery operated radio a bad storm was coming so as I had been given a huge hunk of plastic made for the gardening industry I made another outter cover of it... This was a rip stop plastic jet black on one side and gloss white on the other, I had the black side out. I called this Killer Whale hide, for lack of a better name..

I suspect you have too many vac leaks so the smoke has no direction.

I was at a event in TN a while back and a guy new to tee pee's had a miserable fire making smoke. He was lucky as his wife and child were all for being warm.

I got invited to figure it out and saw he was in fear of the fire being too big.. he had plastic tarps to meet the fire pit rocks as well. I asked for permission to cut these back and it was granted... I tore his fire apart keeping the coals, and then built a tee pee fire and then a log ccabin fire around that, and when it got hotted up I made more flames to be about 3 feet high, and the smoke went out with the heat. While I waited for the fire to make more colas I moved the flaps off the wind and put them close to one another, so the wind drew..

After that I went and selected better wood off the camp pile, and used that as a reflector which assisted in drying that wood.

Simply put drive 2 stakes in the ground away from the bed and stack more wood in it. The heat, heats that wood to dry it plus throws heat at the bedding area..

Con fine the smoke on atleast one side. When I was living this way I enclosed the fire with wood when I was up and active and then moved it back some after the fire was hot and I was headed to bed..

I hope this helps, but I need more info.. Mac

[Mac_Muz]

Hold the Door! Tee pee like? Whats that a lean pee? One pole lodge..??? If so then there is no liner.. Thats gonna suck probably, as the liner is important.

Currently I don;t need to live in a tent.. But I did...

SO I have this really odd lodge these days. it is like a double bell wedge, but nothing like one at all really. Tent stakes don't hold this up. A tripod with 2 more poles added in on each end do, and a ridge pole holds the canvass.

This has 2 tarps 12x12 as sides which can lift on poles anytime for shade, or have one down, making it then appear as an odd Baker Tent.

The bell ends are no more than 8' tall tee pee liners. These make the bells.

I turn the canavess on the tarps to the outside when I set this tarp up, so apx 3 feet over hangs at the top to the outside.

This leaves the entire ridge open.

Which ever side faces to the wind gets 3 more poles and each pole has a loop of line tied at the tip. I tie the windward side edge to a line and pass the line thru the loops at the top of these poles and can raise and lower the top edge to be low over the ridge.

That gets me a fire any place I want in the center line.

If it is me and my wife we off set the fire to one end.. If it is 4 people the fire is dead center.. This is a bit more of a smokey lodge since there is no liner, but I close it as tight as i can, and run hot fires, and it isn't too bad..

[RobertRogers]

yes, height is important. Basically you are living in a chimney and need a good draw

[annabella1]

If you don't have a stove pipe going out the stove pipe hole you need to plug it, it's causing a backdraft. If you do have a stove pipe going out the stovepipe hole the pipe needs to end higher than the highest point of the top of the roof or you will have a backdraft.