Let’s face it!
Cold weather inhabiting the air during a camping night can be comforting at times but not unless you’re trying to catch some shut-eye.
In which case, you would want to apply some safe tent heating ideas and tips so that the starry night chills don’t disrupt your sleep. When you’re outdoors, you might sometimes experience freezing temperatures that may ruin your entire camping escapade, if you let it.
The most common means to keeping the interior of your tent heated would be to use a tent heater. Other than that there are several inexpensive tips you can follow to successfully keep warm.
Read on to find out!
Also, keep in mind that it is quite difficult to maintain an atmosphere of heat within the thin bounds of the tent so be prepared to try out a combination of these tips while maintaining a cautious approach.
Let’s Begin!
Table of Contents
Safe Tent Heating Ideas: 10 Actionable Ideas To Make Your Tent Warm & Cozy
1. Use Camping Heaters
Most newbie campers who simply wish to enjoy the outdoors for the first time without much hassle can opt for something lighter, cleaner, and as easy to manage such as an electric tent heater.
Simple tent heaters like Mr. Heater can be quite useful and least stressful since it doesn’t involve combustion. Also, check out our layest guide on choosing the best tent heaters for camping.
Although, they would require power sources like a camping generator. So unless you are traveling in a group where each tent would share a single generator, there is no point in carrying one on your own.
There are other variants of camping heaters that also have a regulating thermostat that ensures your tent is neither too hot nor too cold. Then again, these heaters may last for a couple of hours until you recharge them again. Some may be solar charged while others require an electric port.
Anyhow, camping heaters are portable and may even have a timer that shuts off the heaters after there’s sufficient heat for your tent.
There are also heaters that are propane-powered. These heaters run on propane gas and they are fuelled through a hose that runs from the gas tank. These heaters can keep you comfortably warm all throughout the night.
You also need to ensure that these heaters are not kept in close contact with any of the objects in your tent since they become quite hot. Although, there are gas heaters that come with an oxygen regulator that shuts off the gas heater whenever it detects that oxygen levels are low in your tent.
Modern gas heaters are also known to be equipped with thermostats and a rotatory heat supply.
2. Use Candles To Heat Up A Tent
You have surely heard of romantic candle-lit dinners but have you heard of candle-lit tents?
It is one of the oldest and most traditional settings to help heat up a tent. You can use a candle lantern to help light up a tent and keep it warm. For more heat, you can opt for a triple candle lantern instead of a single lantern for thrice the heat.
Before you are ready to tuck yourself in for the night, light up your lantern and place it in the tent for an hour or two. This will help build up the heat in the tent for a while.
3. Stones Can Be Used As Natural Heaters
Generations of campers have used this method since before the availability of modern technology. It involves using heated stones to keep the inside of the tent warm.
It is such an ancient technique that even cavemen have been known to use it. When you reach your campsite, scout out a few dry rocks of large or medium sizes.
Place these rocks around your campfire and not in it since that makes it more difficult to retrieve them. Turn the rocks on all sides with a stick or any other tool in order to get the rocks evenly heated.
Place these rocks around your tent but not too close to your bedding or your tent since it risks melting or getting burned.
4. Make Your Own DIY Tent Heater
A camper’s affinity for creativity is their greatest tool for survival. No tool is more efficient or easier to carry than the capacity to Do it Yourself.
If you know-how and have the means for it then you can make your own DIT tent heater that doesn’t require any source of electricity. There are of course various ways you can do this but the following is one such way;
- Carry a set of candles and a couple of flower pots of varying sizes (one small one large) with you.
- The light around four or five of these candles.
- Place a flower pot with a hole on the end face down over these candles.
- Take a larger flower pot and place it over the small one.
- The heat emitting from the candles would heat the air between the pots.
- This warm air would rise up through the hole of the larger flowerpot which would circulate within the tent.
Voila!
Now you have your own DIY tent heater.
5. Use Your Campfire Ring As A Natural Source Of Light
This method is more plausible only if you have a large tent. When you stop your campfire, the remaining remnants remain for quite some time.
You can build your tent over the ring of your stubbed-out campfire or use the remains to heat your tent. Take caution as some of the campfire remains may still be hot enough to burn a hole in your tent.
The only drawback to this tip is that you would have to wait until the expiry of your campfire before you can put it into action. This is why most campers are discouraged from it but it’s still one of the safe tent heating ideas to keep in mind in case of emergencies.
6. Carry Some Extra Bottles
I think this tip probably crossed your mind once or twice and why shouldn’t it?
It is quite effective.
When you’re on your way to a camping trip, it’s only common sense to carry plenty of water. If it’s winter, then packing a thermos is a compulsion to keep warm.
Pack a couple of these hot thermos so that you can place the warm bottle within your tent to keep warm. Carrying hot water bottles is also an efficient space-saving technique.
Hence, it solves two purposes.
You can also store these hot thermoses within your sleeping for added heat while you sleep.
7. Camp Fire Leftovers Can Be Turned Into Tent Heater
Most of the time, the coals or logs you use to fuel your campfire are not utilized to their full potential. We often leave the campfire unattained.
But the right thing to do is to reuse.
Make a small hole in the ground and place leftover logs or coals in it. Then cover it carefully with dry soil or sand. Safety is important as the logs are still hot therefore handle them cautiously.
Then cover the hole with a blanket and prepare your tent over it. The heat emitting from the hole will keep you warm through the night.
8. Thermal Blankets Can Also Come In Handy
We all carry blankets to winter camping trips. Replacing regular blankets with reflective thermal blankets can double the benefit. These blankets trap the heat inside your tent.
Since the heat cannot make it outside the tent it keeps you warm and cozy all night. The heat your body generates stays with you, as you have blankets working like an insulator between the tent and your body.
9. Choose A Camp Stove That Serves Both Cooking And Heating Purposes
We all carry portable camp stoves to our trips. Cooking is essential in all lodging scenarios. It is hard to rely on only a campfire for cooking and boiling purposes.
Now imagine a stove that can also be used as a tent heater once you are done with cooking. It would serve both purposes hence saving a lot of safe in your luggage.
Portable Propane Camping Heater & Stove serves the dual purpose. It can be most important to carry with you on your upcoming camping trip.
Just make sure your stove-heater is well equipped with all safety features. Because anything that has the potential to cause a fire requires extra attention.
In case you want to know more about the camping stoves, then read our detailed article on the best 2-burner camp stoves or best camping wood stoves.
10. Don’t Forget To Get Rid Of The Morning Frost
Dewdrops fall through the night as the temperature falls. Dew accumulated on your tent roofs can turn into frost or otherwise condensate and both can cause the temperature inside your tent to drop down rapidly.
So clean up the morning frost as soon as you wake up. A tent brush can be used to brush off the frost.
Another effective way is to cover the tent with a waterproof tarp, this way the dew will never make it to the tent walls. If you don’t have any waterproof tarp you can also use plastic garbage bags.
Conclusion
The risk involved in outdoor journeys has never stopped explorers. Neither is it going to stop your desire to meddle in nature.
So, after gathering a lot of information on winter camping and safe tent heating ideas, we have mentioned the best ones. And it can be assured these are enough to keep you warm in any situation.
So, buckle up campers.
