Stove jack install in shelter

[Philip Tschersich]

Manfred showed an interest in making his HMG Ultamid-4 hot tent compatible, and rather than clog his nice trip report up with this unrelated stuff, I figured I’d start a new thread for hot tent conversion.

For the HMG I would suggest the following. Cut the margins of one vent clear from the tent body (the blue line; only the vent panel itself) and leave it attached at the apex. This way it might still be used to cover the stove pipe hole when you aren’t running the stove. The flap would have to be well secured when running the stove since Cuben melts enthusiastically (red arrow).

Most stove jacks are overly complicated and overly engineered in my opinion. This Lone Peak has a modular stove jack that velcros into a hole in the tent and can be replaced by a solid fabric panel when not being used as a hot tent. That extra flap of jack material acts as a rain gutter when the pipe is inserted. Nice, but not that necessary. All the grosgrain edge binding make the design look nice, but is not needed. A bead of Aquaseal along the edge would make a nice selvage and seam seal the jack edges too.

This is the jack in my SO Redcliff. The top and bottom velcro tabs allow you to roll the cover flap up and act as a rain gutter. The side velcro flaps hold the cover down when not being used as a hot tent. Making the flap out of jack material basically doubles the amount of that relatively heavy material. The Lone Peak strategy is lighter and less bulky.

This is the inside. Installation is easiest if you lay the tent panel on a flat surface, position the jack in place and pin it well, sew it on, and then at the very end cut the hole in the tent fabric. That way you can make sure the jack is smoothly covering the part of the shelter it will be replacing.

Since the hole in the jack is supporting all the lateral forces on the pipe it can get pretty beat up in the wind. I like to add a cable ring to help distribute the forces.

This is the jack I added to my MLD Supermid. I think it came from TiGoat (don’t remember). It has a removable flap cover held in place by velcro. All the layers of velcro and edge binding make it kind of bulky. Also, the hook side of the velcro is on the jack, not the flap. If you leave the flap at home the hook velcro can be damaging to the tent fabrics it comes in contact with. This seems like a design mistake to me.

If folks have thoughts on hot tent mods, feel free to drop them here.

[Manfred]

Wow Philip,

Thanks so much for sharing all that insight and expertise!

[Mike M]

I recently purchased a Bear Paw stove jack (small 11×11″) for my new MSR Front Range, 3.5 oz which doesn’t seem too bad weight wise

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BH3BJGJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I like the cable idea :)

Thoughts on where to put the stove jack?  It’s a medium U turn w/ 6′ pipe (2.5″ diameter)

[Philip Tschersich]

From the other thread:

In my ‘mids, I occupy the back half too. I put my stove jack in the top of a side panel (like the HMG vent location) on the side that I am most likely to stake the door flap down on. So, when one door flap is rolled back to enter, it creates a sort of traffic flow to that side. Gear is stored behind the ‘closed’ door flap. That is also the stove side. The stove itself can be moved around a fair bit despite the pipe exit hole being a fixed location in the canopy. There is ‘play in the joints’ where the pipe meets the firebox, so if you want to use a nest you still can by scooting the stove a bit towards the door of the tent. The firebox can face any direction depending on where you want to feed it from. It makes a tremendous platform for cooking too.

Given the 11” top width of that small Bear Paw jack, slide it down the side panel from the apex until it fits fully (but barely) inside the adjoining panel (ridge) seams. For a standard 4-person’mid, that will put you 10” below the peak.

Heat from the pipe won’t damage the tent fabric as long as you have a few inches of the jack material in between. But I have used trekking poles as the center support and they didn’t like the pipe heat as much. Dedicated carbon center poles seem to be nearly impervious to pipe heat, but trekking pole grips and plastic “flex” tips can warp and melt. Minute 3:33 shows the relationship (briefly) between the stove and the trekking pole support:

 

[Mike M]

Thanks.  Thoughts on having the stove at center rear- one person on each side (4 person mid)?

[Matt Dirksen]

(Having just shoved 25 feet up my own chimney…)

has anyone tried using flexible stainless steel chimney liner for a flue? In my recent experience, it’s rather rigid but could offer some placement flexibility I suppose. Although I was using 6”, I believe they sell diameters down to 3”.

But I have zero experience with wood stoves in hot tents and am simply throwing out an idea onto a wall of BPL wisdom to see if it sticks…

perhaps literally…

Rockford Chimney Supply

[Philip Tschersich]

Thoughts on having the stove at center rear- one person on each side (4 person mid)?

That should work fine. That’s how have our Redcliffs set up. Check out 50 seconds into this vid:

I do see that the MSR FrontRange seems to have a large peak vent on the back wall. You will need to work around that, presumably by putting the jack a bit lower down the wall.

[Mike M]

Perfect- thanks!  I think that’ll work :)

[Manfred]

Philip,

I’m becoming a fan of your videos :) Really nice work!

SO replied to me that they will neither put a stove jack into my HMG tent nor will they sell me one to do it myself. I must say I’m pretty bummed by that as I would have paid for the modification in addition to buying the U-turn (and most likely a Flight One for Gela). In the past they have been very accommodating. In 2014 they made me an Unaweep in Cuben for crossing the Brooks Range with my twin sons. That pack rocks – not only did I carry it on this recent snowshoeing trek or with my packraft across the Brooks Range – I have also carried out a bear in it with David in Kenai (90 lbs) and over the years several caribous on Adak (80 lbs). Based on that prior experience with SO I thought they would do the modification for me.

[Manfred]

Double

[Manfred]

Found this on Bass Pro in my search for a stove jack. Does anyone have any thoughts or feedback?

[Manfred]

It seems that the stove jack on Bass Pro uses the same material as this stove mat/tent shield. It withstands temperatures up to 575F.

Buying the 3’x5′ mat would provide the opportunity to cut the fabric into any shape desired and make the hole the ‘right’ size. That bears the question what the right size for the hole is when using a 2.5″ stovepipe . The stove jack on Bass Pro can be ordered with a hole of either 4, 5 or 6″.

Any thoughts on choosing one alternative over the other?

 

[Rob P]

I’m not sure how good this one is, but would this one work?

https://luxe-hiking-gear.com/collections/tent-wood-stoves-and-accessories/products/tent-stove-jack

[Philip Tschersich]

@Manfred- I can’t tell what the large piece of material is made out of. It might not be the same fabric as the jacks and not rated for direct contact with the hot pipe. You would have to email or call them. You want a reasonably close fit so the pipe doesn’t flop back and forth in the hole in the wind. I cut mine so the pipe slides in easily, but with minimal slop.

Here is the fabric on R.S.B.T.R.

@Rob- Sure, looks fine to me. I’m not sure how many siliconized woven fiberglass fabric manufacturers there are or if some are better quality than others.

[Mike M]

for a 2.5” pipe I’d get the Bear Paw small, you don’t need a ton of fabric and can the hole to the exact size needed

[Author]

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