What Could Top That?

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What Could Top That?

Readers will recall that the poet was planning to run some refinements on her tiny beeswax van warming system for the more severe winter weather in her new environment. (See How to Cut Chill and Warm Nutritious Food Inexpensively and Safely in a Tiny Mobile Space)

Accordingly, off she went to the Goodwill for a pot lid of the correct size and dimensions to loosely cap the three little burners, keeping radiant warmth at floor level and collecting in soot what would otherwise become smoke smudge on her inside windows.

Well, it worked!

It worked so well, the lid’s handle started melting!

Back the poet went for a lid made entirely of Pyrex.

After less than an hour’s burning at 35° plus wind chill… The poet is a little too warm!

Hint for future experimenters:

This system gets so hot eventually that it reaches a flashpoint at which tiny debris and accumulated soot tend to self-ignite, creating enough smoke to escape the lid.

Though the system can both be visually monitored and fueled as it stands, removing the lid briefly for each fueling will control the temperature to prevent this from happening.

As with all tiny burning systems, never use paraffin wax. It becomes a serious fire hazard as soon as it pools. Beeswax only.

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This poet is physically disabled. Public housing being insufficient to her medical and creative needs, she is presently living, in order to continue working, in her minivan, publishing all of her works using one thumb on the touch screen of her smartphone at an income of a fraction of her nation’s poverty level. She would treasure any donation you might care to offer ~ http://www.UgiftABLE.com ● #72D-31S

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