jason carr's mousepad - what kind of stove - disaster planning survival preparationcoleman stove lantern

What stove[s] should I get?

What do you need to do with your stove?
- heat water to boiling or near-boiling for disinfection?
- heat water to boiling or near-boiling for cooking?
- cook single-pan meals for yourself or others?
- cook multi-pan meals for yourself or others?
- cook only in an emergency or also use it for camping/hiking?
What kinds of fuels are you considering?
- do you have prior experience with a given fuel?
- do you have stockpile of a given fuel?
- have you standardized on a given fuel?
- what do you expect availability of this fuel to be if SHTF?
- do you need a renewable resource like wood or ethanol (via brewing and distillation in long-term SHTF scenarios)

I'll try to present each technology objectively. Pay special attention to the fuel columns.

stove comparison chart

billy can, open fire, wood stove or wood gas stove

Stove	Fuel	cost of stove	weight of stove	cost of fuel	low-temp performance	ease of use	best for	worst for
"Sportster" style: Coleman 550B multifuel, 533 dual fuel.	coleman fuel or unleaded, kero on some	medium, ~$50	heavy, ~32oz	low	good	requires full attention	hiking, BOB, feeding 1-2 people	ultralight backpacking, feeding more than 2 people
Euro self-pressurizing: Svea 123 series vertical stove, Optimus 8R/111 lunchbox stoves.	coleman fuel or unleaded	high, ~$80	medium ~19oz	low	good, but requires priming	requires full attention and willingness to perform pleasant rituals	camping, feeding 1-2 people. Simplicity and durability.	ultralight backpacking, feeding more than 2 people. Parts availability
Skeleton-type liquid fuel: MSR Whisperlite Intl, Whisperlite, Dragonfly.	coleman fuel	high, $80+	medium, 16oz	low	good	requires attention	expeditions	abusive users, need to simmer
Minimalist screw-on-canister: MSR Pocket Rocket, Superfly. Brunton Raptor, Talon. Coleman F1.	butane, isobutane, or propane	medium, $50	very low, 2-4oz	very high	poor	very easy	ultralight packing, minimal cooking	campsite or other heavy use cooking
Suitcase stove Coleman 424 two-burner dual fuel	coleman, unleaded	high, $100	very heavy, 160oz (!)	low	good	requires attention	family cookouts, campsite cooking, heavy cooking. Permanent cooktop.	backpacking
Suitcase stove, propane Coleman InstaStart PerfectFlow.	propane	high, $60	heavy, 160oz	medium	good	very easy	tailgating, medium cooking	backpacking, heavy cooking
Esbit	esbit tablets, triox	very low, $4	very light, 3oz	high	good	very easy	BOB, survival cooking or water heating	windy conditions, anything more than very light cooking
Alcohol stoves: Trangia basic, minitrangia. Liberty Mountain Westwind. Vargo Triad. Home-made penny, altoids stoves.	ethanol (denatured or everclear), methanol for jetted stoves. 70% Isopropyl not practical.	free to low ($20)	ultralight 1oz to medium	medium-high	poor; boiling points 147F (methanol) - 172F (ethanol)	easy to use, may require assembly	ultralight packing, roadside scavenging, silent cooking, dark cooking (blue flames generally)	camping, more than light cooking
traditional fire	wood,other combustibles	Generally free. Can cook in open, or make billy can	none to minimal	free	good if tended	easy to keep going; can be hard for the untrained to start fire.	long term situations in wooded areas, soothing to onlookers.	windy conditions, treeless or picked-over areas. Areas where you don't want visible flame.
Stove	Fuel	cost of stove	weight of stove	cost of fuel	low-temp performance	ease of use	best for	worst for

my personal choice

I use liquid fuels: coleman fuel, unleaded, kero.

Why not propane or other compressed gas solutions? Here are my excuses for not going propane ("profane") even though the market is definitely headed that way:

IMO liquid fuels will be easier to source in a disaster scenario. Fuel in your car tank is fuel for your dualfuel gear.
Liquified gas fuels have reduced performance in the cold. Part of this is a relatively high boiling point like 11F for isobutane and 30F for butane; propane is the exception (lights fairly easily down to -40F). The other problem is that gases have reduced pressure when they are cold. And they get colder as you use them because the gas is decompressing.
according to Coleman propane costs 5x as much to run as Coleman fuel and 10x as much as unleaded (for those models that can run the latter, using $2.50/gal unleaded). I don't know how they calculated that.

I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations here. I was surprised to see propane (in the bulk 20# canisters) is pretty cost efficient in a typical suburban scenario. Downside: hard to stockpile as canister deposits are $30-$50. Stockpiling other fuels is not an issue.

BTU per $1 spent for fuel
45,658 - unleaded by the gallon
18,200 - coleman fuel by the gallon 
16,483 - propane in 20# canisters (up to 20,000 with a good fill and aggressive price)
 7,912 - propane in 1# canisters
 4,125 - SLX denatured alcohol (apparently denatured with 50% methanol)
 3,562 - methanol (HEET) 
 2,787 - generic butane canisters, generally 8oz
 1,945 - isobutane canisters (MSR, JetBoil, etc in larger canisters)
   837 - ethanol (everclear)
   722 - hiking butane/isopropane canisters (ie, powermax)
   618 - Coughlin's hexamine (like esbit, just less $$$)
   450 - esbit (yellow flame, sticky, nontoxic)
   337 - triox (tactical blue flame, not sticky, toxic)

and by the pound:

21656 - propane
21165 - butane
18500 - coleman fuel
14220 - isopropyl (~90%, but difficult to use cleanly in stoves)
12926 - esbit / hexamine
12764 - ethanol
 9755 - methanol

/ GnuPG public key