3 Camping Life Hacks: Hardware Store Re-Purposing

hey guys what's up this is Matt with the Nampa hacker channel and welcome to my lodge also known as the garage and what I wanted to do today is show you three simple camping life hacks using material that you can pick up just about any hardware store now these simple hats taking just simple items from the hardware store can make life out in the backwoods a lot simpler and a lot more comfortable so check out these life hacks and let me know what you think okay the first thing that I wanted to show you is a product called reflect ik's reflectix and what reflectix seems to be is just basically lightweight bubble wrap covered with mylar on both sides and I got to tell you guys this is fantastic I got a whole roll which is it comes in in this width right here and the length was 10 feet long so it's basically the same size width wise as your normal sleeping pad plus 10 feet long which gives you a couple extra feet to do projects with what I use this for and I got this at Home Depot and it was I think ten dollars for the roll or nine dollars something like that and what I did is I cut it down to the size of my sleeping pad and I've used this with hammock camping and also just laying it down on the floor on top of the sleeping pad and I just get incredibly toasty with this this right here reflects back to you 97% of radiant heat so when I was using this just the other day out in the woods with my sons I was doing some camping it was I think around 39 40 degrees outside and I had my sleeping pad I had my reflectix right over the top of that I laid down right on the reflectix and then I had a wool blanket over me and I was toasty all night long just with the wool blanket and the reflectix so this works really good in the hammock what I do is I have my sleeping pad down the reflectix down and then my sleeping bag over that and I am toasty warm all night I have my first hammock hang it was about 29 degrees when I started sleeping and when I woke up it was a little bit warmer but I was toasty warm sleeping in the hammock with this reflectix also what you can do and I have a video on this and I'll leave the link you can make pot cozies with this now these pot cozies are great what I actually did with this one this is the Stanley Adventure mug and what I actually did with this is I wrapped it in the reflectix and it worked so well then I put boiling water in this took it in the backyard and I set it out there an 18 degree weather for an hour and when it was done I put my finger in it to see if it was still warm and it was still scalding hot so this is no joke reflectix for the price about nine ten dollars for ten feet you can't beat that this could help you stay warm in the backcountry it could help you keep your foot food warm you can make little sleeves little envelopes so you could put your mountain house meals right into them and it'll keep them warm for a long time there's no end of things that you can do with reflectix so this is a great camping hat guys so I would encourage you go to the hardware store pick up some reflectix okay the second life pack this is called Tyvek Tyvek and Tyvek is made by the DuPont corporation and what it's used for is it's it's wrapping for construction on houses so when you see a house being built and they have you know all the plywood out and everything before they put the actual siding on they usually wrap it in this material called Tyvek and what it does is Tyvek is waterproof but at the same time is breathable and it's ultra lightweight it has the consistency of butcher paper so what you can do with it for a camping situation is you can take this take the material crumple it up throw it into the dryer let it you know go around the dryer with you know like a shoe or something in there to give it some weight and this will come out left with that paper crackly sound and more like a fabric and then you'll have an ultra lightweight fabric this waterproof yet breathable and what you can do is you can turn this into the tarp a bivy bag you could use it as the footprint for your tent as you know an under base layer to keep the moisture from the bottom of your tent and this stuff tends to be a little expensive but I found that if you know people in construction that work on houses man they throw this stuff away like you wouldn't believe they go through it really quickly and they have no idea what you can do with it other than slap it on the side of a house so often times it'll just give it to you or you can go in with a couple of guys and pick it up at Home Depot and you can make a you know I kind of have a bivy bag making party and just make a bunch of bivy bags but I'm gonna link to a video where a guy shows how he can make a bivy bag out of this material and it's fantastic this is ultra lightweight stuff guys and it's extremely durable so check out Tyvek and you could find this in the department store kind of in the lumber area so Tyvek okay guys for my third life back here I just want to show you basic double sided velcro I picked this up and I think it was Lowe's and I think it was like I don't know seven eight dollars and I got several feet of it came in a package and this is double sided velcro and it works great for taking their gear and you know lashing it together so everything stays together this is my therm-a-rest sleeping pad and it just rolls it up really nice and tight it's sturdy also on backpacks I I hate having extra strappings here so what I'll do is I'll actually take it and I'll just take a you know a couple inches and I'll actually velcro it together so I don't have a bunch of dangly straps hanging around cuz that really annoys me but you know something that you can pick up just for a few bucks and it just makes your camping experience that much better to be able to secure your gear so anyway that's my basic three camping hacks for using things that I found at Home Depot and Lowe's velcro Tyvek and reflectix three great products they can be repurposed for your outdoor adventures so anyway this is Matt with the Napa hiker Channel god bless happy trails

Channel: NampaHiker

Views: 473,215

Rating: 4.5891843 out of 5

Keywords: Life Hacking (Literature Subject), Hardware Store (Industry), Camping, tyvek, reflectix, velcro, backpacking hacks, camping hacks, nampahiker, nampa, backpacking tips, camping tricks, backpacking tricks, camping tips, tyvek bivi bag, tyvek tarp, hammock camping, Home Depot (Business Operation), Lowes, camping ideas, backpacking ideas, how to make a pot cozy, how to make a bivi bag

Id: cWJ9atezpoY

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 11 2015