Just a general discussion about cooking and heating in a large family tent.
Now i see and read 100s of posts and notices on the net that you should never cook or use a gas heater in a tent due to fire risk so completely understand that part!!.
But i have read is a lot about carbon monoxide from cooking and heating in tents, now what threw me off is that some people that own caravans also use the same gas for cooking and also use a gas heater but do not have this problem as much as almost every caravan has gas cooker installed.
we just got back from camping and saw a few vans with heating on through the windows the ones on wheels with bottle in the back and they caravan closed.
also my nan used to use the gas heaters that's on wheels to heat her living room and never had problems only condensation.
so what is the the right or wrong?
(please note i know its not good to use in a small tent due to lack of air flow in a mall space nd the risk of fire)
Gas heaters in caravans have flues to take the exhaust gasses outside. This stops the dreaded carbon monoxide building up inside. The heaters are permanently fixed by the caravan manufacturers so have fire resistant materials only around them. Used to be asbestos but not nowadays.
Cookers in caravans are usually only used when people are awake and for relatively short periods. They can give off carbon monoxide but as this only happens with an incomplete burning of the gas, indicated by a yellow or orange flame, it is usually OK. The flame is normally blue.
I'm sure many do cook in large tents, we did when we had a tent many years ago. There was a specific area for it with a mesh ventilator and a raised roof section. The biggest risk will be fire.
the heaters we saw in the 3 caravans was the ones on wheels and not built in the caravan.
my wife got a little cold (due to her condition bless her heart) and we had a little gas heater and used it for only 10mins and we had it on a floor tile (ones where you put a small gas bottle in the back pick up and go heater), would never leave it on all night.
We cook in the awning of the pescara. The awning has no fitted groundsheet and good ventilation so no risk. As the pescara is usually used abroad in summer, the door is usually open. We would not use a gas heater or a bbq.
I have often cooked in the bell end of wee hiking tents whilst lying in my sleeping bag. Again, good ventilation. With the wee tents I've always been more worried of fire. In winter I use petrol stoves and they can flare up. Meths can also be a bit dodgy. Be careful and all OK.
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We have cooked and used heaters in our tents whilst being in them.
When we didn't use EHU we had a black cat gas heater in our Cabanon, we didn't leave it on all night though like we do sometimes with the electric heater if chilly.
Cooking in them is ok we have never had a problem, in one tent in the main living room of the tent and now in our new tent in the enclosed porch area always leave some air flowing about though.
Big no no are BBQ's inside tents especially the portable ones,sadly a few lives have been lost by people doing this.
Fumes from a smouldering barbecue can be fatal. That is totally different to caravan and camping heaters, Regarding tent heaters, there have been numerous threads on here about the same. We have one of those camping heaters that take a gas canister. All camping shops, and likes of Asda sell them. Not expensive, and canister lasts about 2 hours. We have it on when we are sitting in the tent, never leave it unsupervised, and when we switch it off remove the canister . Im sure some people don't remove the canister but its just something we do for our piece of mind. We never use electric hook up, so these are really fine for heating our tent area. We have used ours a number of years and its fine.