Survival Stove

This stove functions 100% as well as I expected it to. The thing cooks hot! I went on a backpacking trip with my wife last weekend and the temperature was in the 20s. This stove was great because we were able to boil a large amount of water without needing to bring tons of fuel with us. It works as advertised where most types of biofuel you come across on the ground works with it. You need to get the fire going before you turn the fan on or else it will not start. The only downside to this stove is that it is a bit bulky and heavy. I still gave it 5 stars because I knew the dimensions and weight before purchasing it. These are the only ways to improve an impressive stove. I went with this model over the Biolite which uses similar technology. The reason I did was because you can feed the fire without having to remove the kettle from the fire whereas with the Biolite you are not able to. Great stove for the price.

Works better than I expected. To light this stove, I scrape a little pile of fatwood shavings on the bottom plate of the firebox, then I collect a fistfull of very fine twigs from the ends of fallen branches, especially from hemlocks as these are tiny and burn easily. I light the fatwood shavings with a ferro rod and put the wad of fine twigs into the firebox. As soon as they catch, I turn on the fan to high and it takes off. Really takes off. As the small twigs are consumed I add small broken up twigs to get some coals going and then start dropping in my main fuel, which is made up of sticks about 1-1.5" in diameter which I cut into 1" long cylinders with my pocket saw. These give a nice hot fire and burn longer than twigs do. Generally, I use this stove to boil water for mountain house meals and it will boil the water very quickly. Almost too quickly, you don't get a lot of time to play around because it does it's job so fast. This past weekend it was in the 20's where I was and the water I boiled started off with ice floating in it. This stove was still able to boil 16 ounces in about 5 minutes. The first time I used this stove I was disappointed because it didn't seem to be burning hot. Then I remembered the little slider you open to adjust the burn temp. When I opened that all the way it instantly took off. It is important to read the instructions and keep the fan going until the coals are all burned to ash. If you turn it off too soon, that's when the base can warp. I've always kept the fan on until the fire is gone and have no issues, just one side of the fire box has warped and I don't think there's any way around that. It hasn't affected performance and the firebox still folds up and stow nicely. Despite the fact that I do like this stove a lot, there are a couple of concerns that I have. The first is the feet under the stove. The aluminum base is cast, and whoever is supposed to do the final sanding on this casting didn't do a very good job, they left sharp edges on the six feet that cut through the carry bag the stove comes with. Not a functional problem, but hard on the carry bag and any other gear it is stowed with. I'll have to take a file and knock down some of those knife edges. The other is the fragility of the electrics. The battery box is thin brittle plastic that would break easily. I carry it in a hard sided earbud case to prevent this. Also, the plug that the battery box plugs into on the body of the stove is exposed and would break easily if it were dropped on it. There is no protection for it at all. So, if anyone from Vital Stove reads this I would urge you to address the fragility of the battery box and the connections. After all, the stove is useless if these break and the rest of the stove is built very well. If I had to pick between the Biolite stick stove and this one for extended use, I would be hard pressed to do so. If I needed power generation, then the Biolite is the obvious choice. If I just needed heat to cook on, then I would probably choose this stove instead. The Biolite has a circuit board, a rechargeable battery, a thermo electric generator...there are too many parts of it that could fail rendering it useless. Despite my concerns about the fragility of the electrics on the Vital stove, if they did break you could do some field repairs that would at least make it function with nothing but a Swiss Army knife and the remaining parts of the stove. This kind of simplicity is important if you need to rely on it for any length of time.

I saw this it seemed to good to be true. I found videos on this thing. Everyone raved about the compact size, the output of heat (up to 20,000 btu) and the fact that it can be fueled by most anything that burns from wood to paper, to charcoal fatwood etc. I was amazed that it did indeed boil water in a few minutes. The unit can handle up to 50lbs. of weight as well. A wonderful addition, (that is on my wish list) is the grill unit for about 110 bucks that will grill, steam, or smoke your food. It too comes in a pretty compact unit. This Vital Stove is great for camping, tailgaiting, or an emergency stove at home in case you lose, electricity or gas. An incredible marriage of form with function. Highly recommend.

This is a very nice survival stove, it's built solid and generates a lot of heat quickly. Just make sure you gather all your fuel ahead of time because you will be feeding the fire constantly. I like the fact that it can burn many different things as fuel and it packs very compact. It is not light but worth having in your hicking gear. I packed some tinder and extra batteries in the stove and I also have a couple of rechargable batteries with a compact solar charger in case of longer term need.

This stove is compact, very solid feeling with shiny polished windscreen pot stand. Starting a fire is the easiest thing due to the airflow as it blows any fire to a red hot ember and lights heavier wood pieces. The fire is very controllable using the fan sliding door. Cooking on a skillet was a joy as I could control the heat to keep it just right. Most wood stoves have no heat control. The high speed makes it burn like a forge, very hot. The fan allowed me to use damp wood, actually wet and blew it enough to get it lit and burning with almost no smoke. I highly recommend this stove for camping or emergency use for cooking or to create major heat at a camp. I think its fun to use and really will heat up water or cook a meal faster than any other. The fan is almost silent, not at all bothersome. I posted a video of stove use on youtube, search vital stove, my site is daddated1, I have my video there. Enjoy.