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Bear with me on this for a bit while I set the scene! I was solo camping in the Arctic (Lapland) last November in an 8-man plus 1500 ci s/s stove (my large SO stove was clearly not big enough for this expedition). No liner in tent. Condensation per se was not really an issue - frost would form on inside of tent when stove not burning, but cleared almost immediately when stove fired up. However, heat retention in the tent when the stove was in use was certainly a problem - warm when blazing away, but as soon as the fire died down a bit temperature drop was rapid. I imagine that liners would help, as would a larger stove, and I'll be looking into both those solutions - the SS XXL would be on my shortlist. But it must be remembered that the 8-man is a big tent, with lots of air inside.

However, looking at the problem logically, there is a major issue. Heat rises. So, much of the heat generated goes straight up, and vents out through the top vents, upper tent fabric and/or the stovepipe jack. The liners would cut down on heat loss via the tent fabric, but would this be a major improvement as it doesn't address the heat loss at the top of the tent. Closing one of the top vents might help, but closing both vents in a tipi with a wood-stove going would create an unacceptable risk in my view. And it's my life, so what I say goes:) And yes, I always leave a gap at the bottom of the door zip to aid ventilation, regardless of the temperature.

So - possible solution? How about hanging a circular or conical disc of reflective material from the drying loops near the top of the tent? Clearly a decent-sized hole in the middle would be needed to clear the pole and give a safe distance from the stovepipe. Similarly, it would need to have a gap between the disc/cone and the sides of the tent to ensure ventilation will still occur, but would still reflect a goodly portion of the rising heat back down into the body of the tent.

So - brilliant idea, or complete lunacy? I'll leave it to you to decide. Over to you Kev!

It does work . We made a prototype a few years ago. I tested it in different configurations to -25f ( what I do for testing lol ).

In the end we never pursued it for a few reasons , but perhaps we can revisit . At the time , material supply of a lightweight reflective that worked was not good , and fiddle factor high


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Btw an XXL creates a ton of heat . I won't carry one far but boy it makes heat if you have the wood for it


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Glad to hear my idea wasn't totally off the wall. Even if you'd had it several year earlier!

Personally, for a stay longer than a few days in serious cold weather, I'd be prepared to put up with a bit of additional set-up time and weight to improve the temp utilisation inside the tipi. My initial thoughts were of four or five thin aluminium plates, equally sized to make a disc and hinged together with small keyring loop things so they pack small. Would need a couple of strings attached to each plate to provide the structure of a disc that would then hook onto the upper loops of the tipi. Although I'm sure that someone on here could come up with something better!