Talkback: EOCA Launches New Gear Section On Its Website

Nick P 10 wrote (see)

"The Kitchen: Don't cook inside your tent!" Why not? I cook in the front porch of my tent all the time! I have the door unzipped at the top for venting. I didn't realise I was trying to kill myself. Any clarification?

Tent fabric is flammable and combuction produces poisonous fumes!

All tents come with safety warnings and the rule is - don't cook inside your tent.

But in practise, most of the time in UK conditions you've little option if you want hot food, so most people do cook inside their porch, but very, very carefully - common sense stuff like ... make sure it is well ventilated, keep your stove well away from the tent fabric, secure any flappy bits, know your stove (you don't want it to flare up) and don't leave it unattended.

I've seen a tent disappear in flames on a campsite, it was over in an instant and very frightening to watch.  Fortunately nobody was in it at the time.

Thanks for that MoS. Pretty much what I thought, but nice to be told

Scary stuff the burning tent! Do you cook in your tent?

Yep, mostly wild-camping and in one of the porches of a 'superlight Quasar'.

The scary, burning, tent incident didn't put me off cooking in a tent because when you're in control of what you're doing, you can take precautions to stay safe.

But it did put me off busy camp sites where you can't control what other people are up to.  The two most worrying aspects of seeing that tent go up were -

- firstly, was there anyone inside?, but once it became apparent that there wasn't ..

.. the pieces of flaming fabric floating around on the breeze threatening to set light to neighbouring tents, one of which was  mine.

edit -

Whoops, spelled combustion wrong in my first post

The "Don't Cook In Your Tent" reeks strongly of arse-covering, both in a guide like this and in manufacturers' instructions.

You have to be careful and you have to realise the risks, but much like going out on your own or not wearing Stout Shoes With Ankle Support it's something that actually goes on a lot and needn'tmean the end of the world.

Looking further at the stove stuff, unless you're snow melting  for your water supply I'd say "burn power" is mostly a big "So What?"  It's beloved because it's something you can measure and use for comparisons, but it's like comparing car top speeds when you only ever drive in a 30 zone and keep to the limits.

Pete.

What about the bottle for fuel? Any thoughts on that?

They recommend plastic, but if you buy a fuel bottle it is usually in metal

Parky Again wrote (see)

metal fuel bottles tend be aluminium. meths rots aluminium over time. sometime, someplace, somewhere it will leak everywhere.

metal fuel bottles tend be aluminium. meths rots aluminium over time. sometime, someplace, somewhere it will leak everywhere.

I've had a 300 ml Sigg full of meths for over 20 years now now and there don't seem to have been any ill effects.  How much time?  I've never come across the suggestion that meths will rot aluminioum before now.  I'd have thought e.g. Sigg would make a point of telling folk that, but AFAICT they don't.

Only thing I've heard it's especially bad for are the seals in portable stoves that are designed for petroleum based fuels, that being said in a primus instruction manual.

Pete.

If you have lined Sigg bottles they may not get rotted by meths. 

My old plain unlined aluminium Sigg bottle (early 80's ) which I used for my Trangia certainly rotted out  catastophically after about 10 years, and was not that good before that ('bits' in the meths).

 Do they still even make the old plain  unlined type?

Pop bottles are fine for meths - I've used em for years inside my pack with no leakages

I've  never really 'got' Sigg bottles   - or any other bottle/canteen other than Platypus types. (except a hip flask)  

Not when there are so many high quality polythene bottles freely available. (once you've used the original contents)