Zippo hand warmer in hammock?

[gargoyle]

My brother had a zippo heater that leaked fuel. Quilts, food and clothing got soaked with fuel.
While the spill may have been preventable and can happen with any liquid fuel, it was a mess.

Hot water bottle may leak, but that's only water.
Good quilts, rated for temps expected, is the best option.

[brohawk]

My brother had a zippo heater that leaked fuel. Quilts, food and clothing got soaked with fuel.
While the spill may have been preventable and can happen with any liquid fuel, it was a mess.

Hot water bottle may leak, but that's only water.
Good quilts, rated for temps expected, is the best option.

Sound advice, Thanks. It was just an idea to climb into a warm bed without the jumping jacks.

[Wkerber]

I've used the hot hands in my hammock before and they worked out decent. I'm not going to try a liquid based fuel heater in my nylon hammock. I had a zippo hand warmer years ago and tried it a couple of times for ice fishing and duck hunting. I never got burned by it, but it was too hot to put inside my snowsuit/hunting coat for me and provided little benefit if I put it in an outside pocket. I didn't know that they still made them anymore, but it looks like it still get's decent reviews.

Update:
I meant to add that if I'm really cold, I put the hot hands inside my cuff under my wrist. Seems to heat my core up better that way. Also, hat and gloves make a huge difference.

[W8lkinUSA]

Yikes. I have 2 that were used for two winters while riding motorcycle and sitting on patios at night during the winter. I've replaced both burners and have been lucky without burns. Sounds like burns are inevitable...?

[LuvmyBonnet]

Yeah, I'm not getting flame source of any kind near my hammock or tarp. Even candle lanterns can be extremely dangerous. Silnylon isn't a pretty sight when it catches fire and melts on you.

[Just Bill]

I didn't get any failures with a modern one... though I've heard the old horror stories too.

Ultimately for me, it was another piece of gear to carry that wasn't that effective. It also introduced potential for issues with little or no benefit.
I didn't feel concerned about getting burned, more the opposite... it wasn't that hot stored in the included pouch. It's not a zippo lighter... a batch of fuel doesn't last that long so now I needed to carry another fuel bottle, another type of fuel, etc to use it for even a short trip. So I felt like I ended up with a whole system of stuff I wasn't that impressed with. Basically; the upside of introducing a fuel that could melt my gear or me wasn't worth the minimal benefit.

IF it's cold enough to need external heat. It's cold enough you need to boil water for hot drinks to stay warm or even to simply obtain water in the first place (melting snow).

In addition, if it's that cold you need to keep a small bit of water on your person or in your sleeping gear so you have a 'starter' to melt the next batch of snow.

So since you need to boil water, and you need to keep a bit of that water near your body anyway... the ol hot water bottle tricks do the job.

I still like a nalgene for this purpose and a 16 ounce bottle is about the perfect size to carry both on you, and in between your legs. Preferably filled with a bit of hot tea or coffee too. Folks get more dehydrated in the winter than they realize... and sipping a bit of warm tea around midnight or 1 am when you stir is a good use of that 16 ounce bottle.

If winter backpacking I tend to boil up a couple liters of water at night, so I fill up the platy bladder with nearly boiling water for the next day.
The natural place to store that is the sleeping gear, which means things get warmed up.
A platypus bladder can take boiling water and is rated as such. I've tried it at home with success, but in the field it always seemed to be common sense to me to put a cup or two of cold water in the bladder so I wasn't pouring full boiling water directly in. Even if you come to a full rolling boil on your snow melt you can always set it aside for a bit to cool a hair too.

One tip...
Put the bladder into the footbox of your top quilt... and ball up the quilt. The hot water bottle will not warm up your whole quilt or sleep system just laid in there. But if you put it in the footbox and then wrap your quilt around it then it will transfer more heat to the whole thing and last longer.
Bonus tip... switch into your sleep socks while you boil the water and put the socks you were wearing right on the hot bottle. That will dry them out well for use in the morning.

The main thing with the hot water is getting the 'jump start'. If you go to bed warm, you'll usually stay warm.
Insulation works both ways... when it's cold it takes a good amount of heat to drive all the cold air that's trapped in there out. If you don't have quite enough initial heat in your body to dump into the system before you fall asleep then you get cold... even in really warm gear. That's why a few jumping jacks and a bit of food before you hit the hay is effective too. You need to make a good push to get the system up to temp so that the low output of your sleeping body can maintain it.

Some folks don't like the hot water trick because the water will cool down relatively quickly. So they feel it didn't do the job.
But when you look at it as something to heat the down up and kick start the system it is very effective.

A side tip... don't go to bed with too many clothes on. Rather put your jacket or other heavy layer over the foot box of your quilt or on top of your gear.
Since your job when you crawl in is to pump heat into the system... going to bed with all your insulation on means you are limiting the heat you're dumping right into your sleep gear. So what happens is you feel warm and toasty, but you don't drive all the cold air out of your sleep gear... you fall asleep, your metabolism drops off... and you wake up cold a few hours later.
The only solution here is to get up, do some jumping jacks, make a hot drink, and rewarm yourself before you crawl back in and try to push the cold air out of the system.

If you're seeing alot of frost on your sleep gear- then you know you need more insulation. You've got too much heat escaping.
But most folks bring warm enough gear- they just don't warm it up right to make it through the night.

[Primal Hiker]

I've used Zippo hand warmers in my sleeping bag in my hammock on several nights. I've always been careful not to overfill it and will be even more careful after reading this thread. I also test them for leakage before starting them. I suppose there is some risk that the fluid will expand when warmed and that is a risk I hadn't thought of. But my experience has been that there is room to overfill; so if I underfill, I feel pretty safe. And even underfilling they easily last through the night. So I expect that I will still use them on very cold nights in the future.

[Pennsy Camp and Canoe]

i own two zippo hand warmers and love them, bever had a leak or burn, although i switch my warmer from pocket to pocket, leaving it in one place for an extended amount of time will bake the skin (i believe there is a warning about that in the instructions). They work great for what they're intended to do, warm your hands.

That said, i have never slept with one, mostly because I don't like the idea of the fumes/co2/etc in my bag with me, and because of the burn warning above.

[OneClick]

Aren't they supposed to be kept in a pouch that's included? Maybe it depends on the brand. The one I have, not a Zippo, says that in the instructions. It's a little fleece pouch.

[georanger99]

I have two.... use them every winter...if you read and follow directions, you will have no issues whatsoever.
1. Use the spout it came with to fill. ( this prevents overfilling)
2. Place in protective pouch it comes with.

Follow those simple rules and youll stay safe and warm. They are amazing and hands down 50x better and last 10x longer than hot hands.
My 2 cents.

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