Peax Solitude 4 Tipi Wood Stove Recommendations

[Dalbec0331]

Hi everyone!

I am looking for recommendations on what size backpacking wood stove to use in the new Peax Solitude tipi. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! For context I'm planning some late season hunts in or around 6k-7k feet.

 

[Andouille]

I ran an Argali stove in my Peax tipi last weekend in 20-40 degree temps and got a good 3-4 hrs burn time after developing a hot coal bed, loading the stove with 2" diameter logs, then closing the damper and vents. I had hot embers still remaining in the morning (~8 hrs). Based on my experience, I'd say that you want a stove with 1,100 or so cubic inches of volume for sufficient warming and run-time in temperatures around or below freezing. Any larger and you'll give up tent volume and roast, any smaller and you'll be loading the stove all night to keep a flame going.

 

[Dr.Chill]

Can anyone speak to differences between the Seek Outside (medium/large) and Argali Skyline titanium stove (or any other brand competitor for that matter)? The fold out legs on the Argali look way easier to set up than the SO screw in legs. Just picked up a SO 4-person tipi and need a stove for it.

 

[Andouille]

I can speak to a few points about the Argali stove in comparison to what I have read/published specs for the Seek Outside stoves.
1. There is zero setup for the Argali stove legs, just flip 'em out and done. The drawback to these legs is that they cannot be "stabbed" into the ground for added stability (possible with SO legs).
2. The overall stove setup is very intuitive and takes just minutes with the insertion of 8 threaded wingnuts being the primary step- this appears to be a marginally simpler process than the Seek Outside stoves with their all-thread rods. Regardless, both appear much easier to setup than Lite Outdoors cylindrical stoves.
3. Argali stove, bag, spark arrestor are a few ounces heavier than the similarly-sized SO SXL stove. 8 oz is my guess, and is likely due the larger packing case for the stove.
4. Argali stove doesn't pack as flat as the SO stoves due to the "L" brackets on the side panels. The packed thickness is something like 2.5" in the carrying case.
5. The only drawbacks to the Argali stove are 1) slightly higher price, 2) slightly higher weight, 3) slightly thicker packed size, and 4) dang stove door falls out if opened more than 3/4 of the way... great way to melt a hole in your tent footprint (did that!).
Overall, I bought the Argali stove because it was available and the right size for my Absaroka, but the SO SXL stove would have been my first pick had it been in stock because of the slightly lighter weight and lower price. a little extra fiddling with all thread is not a big deal.

 

[Dos Perros]

I use a Seek Outside medium in a tent that size. It's 680 cubic inches. Get it roaring and it'll get hot in there. Agreed that it'll put out heat for a couple hours, and if you want longer you'd have to go larger. I'd argue a larger stove would just put out more heat over a similar duration, maybe slightly longer. I also have the SXL so just using it as a comparison. I do get more time and total heat out of midwestern hardwoods compared to Rocky Mountain pines.