Thanks for the comments and advice. I agree that it should be used only in emergencies. I did mention this is a survival stove and should be part of your emergency car kit so I assumed people would understand that.

As for the emissions, in my testing of the stove (see my Testing Out the Survival Stove and Carbon Monoxide Testing Result articles) I did not get any blackening of my roof. My interior roof is a light (almost white) grey cloth and after both those tests (about an hour of running the stove) no blackening occurred. It may be due to clean burn of the 90% isopropyl alchohol.

Definitely test it out for yourself and let me know your results. I love hearing other people’s experience with this stove.

All in all, it is a very clean-burning stove that is a very effective heater for your car. It does take a bit of practice to ensure that you run this stove safely so I should probably stress the importance of testing it out before the emergency.

I tryed using 2 ply tolet paper to see if it would make a difference with 70% alcohol. It didn’t, but with 91 % alcohol it worked very well. The hole in my quart size can is about the size of a haft dollar. In using the heater for a cooking stove I used a separate gallon can and made several quarter size holes around the top of the can so there would be enough ventilation to keep the burner going. I placed a pan of water on top of it to see if it would heat up the water. The flame was not large enough to do it so I took the lid off the the quart size can. That increased the flame quite abit, but I ran into a problem when I tryed to extinguish the flame. I couldn’t extinguish the normal way using the lid because I had the ventilation holes in it. The only way to extinguish it is to use a larger container to cover the gallon can. If you are using the heater to cook with, it probaly would be best to use it only out side of the car. because the flame would be to differcult to control. I am going to keep the heater inside of my car along with several containers of of fuel for an emergency. Thank you

That’s a good point with one ply. Whatever material you end up using to fill the quart size can needs to be able to produce the capillary action required for a continual burn. It’s possible that the one ply doesn’t provide that. For my stove I used double ply. Either way, I’d like to hear your results.

I’ve also been thinking that a cotton t-shirt stuffed in the can would also be effective since cotton cloth is an excellent wick — again due to the capillary action that the material provides. I need to try that out with an old t-shirt to see how it works.

I will try using 90% alcohol. Also maybe the tolet paper I used is to compressed. I used one ply tolet paper. Could it be that maybe there needs to be some minute air space in the roll of paper so the alcohol can cirulate more easierly through the paper. I will try using 2 ply enstead.

First off, are you sure the toilet paper is completely saturated? If so, then it sounds like the hole in the lid is a bit small for that alchohol type. When I’ve used the small hole I had 90% Isopropyl with no problems. However, when I refilled with 70% it would not stay lit. So instead I just slid the lid slightly off center of the smaller can and the burn would come out the exposed side. This seemed to fix the issue while minimizing the flame size.

Give it a try and let us know how it works out…

The wire cage idea sounds great. That stove definitely puts out enough heat to work as a cook stove as well. Good luck!

- Erich