Thread: All about gas stoves.

I'm going to hospital pass the heat exchanger theory over to this fellow (Who is an actual stove designer) : https://youtu.be/EvWrxG30sNc

Have a listen to what he says about the heat exchanger (HE) pot in particular. So HE's are more efficient then? Well, yes and no. The reason that particular stove is very efficient is because it's a total system. It's built to remove other factors which come into play like wind and falling canister pressure it also burns incredibly hot because of the 100% primary air system. As he says, it's crankin'.

I can tell you with all other things being equal, that a HE pot will boil water faster and use less fuel than a non-HE pot but there are other factors at play that effect us hunters.

Take a look at this chart I've drawn. If both people start off a 14 day trip with a 230gm canister the person with the non-HE pot is actually carrying less weight the entire trip (but taking a few minutes longer to boil water each time). If we wanted to do a 11 day trip however the person with the HE pot only needs to carry a 110g canister which net weighs 211g and the non-HE person has to carry a 230g canister which net weighs 362g to be able to complete the trip because otherwise he'd run out of gas on the morning of the 8th day (I screwed up and drew around day 7 first).



So HE pots themselves show the most benefit for trips around that 9-11 days duration. Keep it in perspective though, If "Pot A" person slips and gets his boot full of water on the walk in he's lost all advantage he had! That's how small the advantage is in the scheme of things.

The reason you'll see HE on a lot of the stoves now is because they're designed as a complete system as I said earlier and as a system they're very efficient. They aren't selling you magic beans. The HE does work. What most people want nowadays is water to boil fast. HE's achieve that.

Some points to remember when dealing with heat exchangers: Not all heat exchangers are created equal (See below picture). Not all stoves sold with HE pots are created equal and may not even operate with the same principles ( Jetboil vs Reactor). Weight matters to hunters. The length of trip you're doing matters.

Overall effiency depends largely on how you use your stove (blocking wind, using the correct level of output etc). How fast water boils is not necessarily a measure of effiency.

Different types of HE pots: