'Fireplace' burns Sterno

[John Kogel]

My client was a little disappointed to learn that his so-called gas fireplace is just a metal shell with 3 canisters for burning gelled alcohol.

Do they give off any heat? I've never come across one before.

Don't try to read that lingo under the mouse turds. It's French.

Click to Enlarge

40.28 KB

Click to Enlarge

83.32 KB

Click to Enlarge

52.22 KB

[rkenney]

My only familiarity with burning alcohol fuels are miniature steam engines. No visible or faint blue flame, good heat for steam boilers (better than pellets), no smell, CO2 fumes (no venting).

Never seen one, but these people seem to think so.

Sterno fireplaces:

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum ... 348319/pg1

[ericwlewis]

we had one of these in our condo when I was in high school. My dad had made the hearth hollow to store our giant VCR in when it wasn't taping or playing Magnum P.I.[:-thumbu]

It did heat up but I don't think it got used much because my dad was a real tightwad penny pincher.

[John Kogel]

They say it is safe to burn in an unvented enclosure, or maybe it's not.

http://www.realflame.com/product.cfm?id=124&f=0

I used to do slashpile burning for logging outfits, and we all knew the petro-gel was toxic. The guy with the toxic materials ticket mixed the gel with diesel and gas.

Then we would pack bucket loads or plastic pouches of the stuff out to the piles and make like pyromaniacs. The rule was "Don't get it on ya".

OTOH, if the canned heat is pure alcohol, our systems could probably tolerate a fair bit of that. []