Firebox Stove VS Ikea Hobo Stove

in this video we'll continue the series comparing stoves one against another for this test the IKEA Hobo stove and the Gentoo firebox not before you laugh and turn this video off I think you'll find this interesting keep watching alright before we begin the test I thought it's worthwhile just taking a minute to go over the criteria once again so we're going to break the criteria down into two categories first comparing the stoves in terms of their weight their size their compactness and their versatility then we'll go into the performance of the two stoves how much wood each will them hold each of them will hold how quickly if they come to a good sustainable fire how quickly they'll bring two cups of water to a boil how long will that would last before it turns to ash and just how much ass is left in the stove afterwards okay now let's take a look at the two stoves as with the other videos in this series we're going to share it off here with the stoves in their storage state as they would be in your backpack that way we can get an idea of just how much space they'll take up and then we'll also start talking about the weight so the clear winner here is obviously the firebox stove it takes up very little space it's flat running about seven inches long maybe not even a half inch thick so very flat very compact it doesn't take up a whole lot of space the Ikea does take up considerable amount of space in your backpack however that can be compensated forward to a degree by either having a pot that will go inside of it or having it go inside of it like a larger pot as well as you can store other things inside both of those items to get the most space usage in your backpack so size wise or compactness we have to give it to the firebox without doubt now let's just talk about weight so for the weight the firebox comes in at two pounds two ounces nine hundred and sixty three grams now if there's one complaint I've had about the firebox it is the weight now I'm not a long distance ultralight hiker so the weight is not a huge issue for me but I can see it being for people who want to lighten their pack up this is a heavy stove it's got to be one of the heaviest you can purchase now for that heaviness you are getting durability and stir there's no question about it that this is a heavy but durable stove now for those of you who may not be aware of this and it is big news to those of us who like to follow Stowe's Steve is currently in the testing phase were at a titanium version of the Gentoo firebox and that's kind of exciting I imagine it will be considerably more expensive but it'll be interesting to see what it comes up with in terms of weight but I'm sure Steve will do a thorough test and it won't come to market until he's happy that it will be as durable as functional as the original firebox is all right we'll talked about the firebox let's go over to the Ikea now I have the IKEA in a stuff sack and I do have a part with it I won't be using that part today and you'll see why in a second but I just wanted to show you this as an alternative way of building out a cook set for the IKEA and you'll see why here so this one is brand-new brand new and has not been used yet at all but what's different about it is two things first off the pump that I have in it rests perfectly down inside and I think that's for a reason it also came from Ikea this is also from the same line of utensil strainers that akia has really the classic Hobo stove comes from I just happen to find that in the thrift store Value Village really and I picked it up and Wow perfect fit so that's was a quite opportunistic I do have the lids I've talked about in the past and I'll put a link to where these lids can be purchased on eBay that happens to fit perfectly on top of that pot I did use a stainless steel skewer from our dollar store too as a bail for this pot and this rounds off the the assembly of the port just nicely a set of aluminum cross Spurs from one inch aluminum stalk that go on top of the stove perfectly and of course the conduit clamps that I fold out to give the stove a little bit of lift off of the ground and some additional stability alright I'm going to set the pot aside and the crossbars just over to the side for a second because here's the other thing that's different about this and you'll see this more able to compare them when I assemble the firebox in a second but based on comments I had from a few of my viewers somebody had suggested why not build one of the ikea Hobo stove so that it has double feed ports like the firebox stove does so I did I have now cut two holes at different heights just about the same size as what's on the firebox and so that's an option for use in this if you want to run sticks in like the firebox at two different heights so they cross over each other inside of the stove and you get a very efficient burn doing that okay let's just talk about the weight of this stove for a second because it's there's something a little strange about it that stove itself with the crossbars comes in at eight point eight ounces or 250 grams now what makes that strange is the stove that I've been using in other videos come in at eleven point four ounces I can't tell the difference to be quite honest I'm not sure why there's a difference but I had to go back and measure both of them again the amount of metal I removed for the feed ports should be a boat the same it shouldn't account for that much of a difference the only thing I can think of is is that maybe this is a newer generation of the utensil strainer and it is not as strong but when I do this Bend test on it I can't feel any difference it doesn't feel any different the composition of the metal may be different on the two of them but when I when I do a magnet test on them they both come up with steel so I don't know how much alloys might be inside of them but you know I guess more time will tell will this stand up as well as the one I've been using for some time I guess we're after a few farmers I should know but for whatever reason this stove as it sits right now is a couple of ounces lighter than the one I have used in the previous videos alright so that is the IKEA and it's a simple steak let's very quickly set up the fire buck stove and then we'll talk about versatility so the classic firebox stove I've used it a lot it is just well it's classic it goes together so simply okay speed of assembly I would have to say that they're you know pretty close the firebox stove does have all the parts are attached with the exception of the ash plate which slides right in and of course the fire sticks which are going to go across the top they would be the equivalents to that to the cross down I have here so the firebox stove it's a little bigger when fully assembled and that can be reflected in fact the fact that there is a little more internal volume for wood both in the circumference although this is not a circle and in the height but they're not that much different you'll see when I put the wood in that they come to be pretty close to each other assembly I'm going to say the firebox stove is a little bit quicker than the Ikea but not by a whole lot ok so let's talk versatility there is no comparison really there is no comparison that's probably the hallmark of the firebox stove is its versatility Steve over 5 bucks stove has done an outstanding job of designing this stove there's in my opinion my opinion only but I think others will agree there's not another stove on the market that compares with the firebox stove in terms of its prism its versatility I have been considering whether the bushbox XL from bushcraft essentials how that would compare I do have the LF we will look at that at some point but in comparison I still feel the firebox is the most versatile stove out there and for a number of reasons I won't go into great depth on that right now only because there is so many great videos and Steve does the very best videos on his channel for how to use the firebox and how to get the most out of it but with a pair of the fire sticks you can set grates inside at any different heights so if you wanted to lay your pond it's little bit smaller in diameter down inside you can do that on the top of course you can set it above the height of the stove by using one set of notches you can set it down lower if you want to use another set of notches you have a wind protection on one side if you want to control a little bit of the draught on this you can it'll raise the plate up if you want to drop some larger sticks down a size and make a Swedish fire torch you can of course use an alcohol stove you can set this up so that the ash pan is turned upside down and used as a damper it just seems to be endless the number of things you can do with the firebox stove and that is with it in its original state so as it is right now now you can add things to this to make it even more versatile all available from firebox of course and I have I was very fortunate when my wife gave me this all except this piece here came with this set and I was given that later on so what else did I get with on top of the original fire box as you see it came with an extra set of fire sticks now I would recommend that if you're going to buy this stove and I'll talk about price in a second that you do consider an extra set of fire sticks it adds a lot of versatility to the stove not only using it if you want to use it for baking or set up an alcohol stove and still have a pot stand on top of it certainly those ones but one of the things I really like about it is the ability to pick up the fire box and move it if you have to for whatever reason to move it from one place to the other while there's a fire going in it these work great for doing that so what else did it come with well it comes with this plate this plate will drop down the side when you put the fire sticks through and allow me to use charcoal or wood pellets and vary the height up and down you know it's close to the pot or the close to the top of the stove as I want that's a kind of a that's a very cool option this is a cool option this is designed to sit in on the top of the stove and circle around a something like a GSI cup or a pathfinder cup or one of the larger canteen bubbles like a Nalgene or what's the other one Klean Kanteen bottles and it will fit inside of this and that will capture all the heat so it's not lost coming up the outside of the pot on the stove this is a small grill so this packs nice and easy with the firebox I can use this on top for grilling I thinks I could use it for a pot stand of course it's a lot of metal there but it is great for grilling anything from steak chicken fish whatever else you want and a large grill this one's brand new haven't used it yet but a large grill so it still packs within the fferent confines or the size of the firebox and disc allows you to put maybe two hamburgers on a number of sausages or one very big steak I guess so these are options that you can in addition to the original firebox setup that give it a lot of versatility okay let's just put these aside for a second we won't be using those in today's test let's talk about versatility with the IKEA hobo so for just a minute so we have said in the past that the IKEA Hobo stove can be fairly versatile in terms of how you want to build it open what additions you want to add to it it is still somewhat restricted I can load this from the top or like the fire from the top or the bottom I have a good capacity for fuel inside of this depending on how you put the feed holes in you can change it to a cross feed you know quite quite easily and get the benefit of doing that I can with some 10 pegs or skewers run through run and lay and alcohol stove down on top of it and of course whatever you want to use for a Pont stand it you know it's really quite limited by your imagination but again it just won't compare in versatility to the firebox still it is a good stove to consider especially if you feel that it's the affordability that we're going to talk about now so we have in the past talked about the nominal price of five dollars for the IKEA Hobo stove depending on how much you're going to spend for the attention strainer for some aluminum bars or whatever you're going to use as a pond stand as well as the the condo clamps or you don't have to you can use bolts for that as I've done in my build up video price for this one ninety nine cents I hope you can see that at our thrift store so and it's brand new underneath that ninety-nine cent sticker is the original sticker whoever owned this never used it so brand new and I picked it up for 99 cents still will give it a nominal price of five dollars probably it doesn't even come to that and if you add in the little pot system that I have for it is still probably comes in under five dollars so the Gentoo firebox comes in at $80 Canadian price at Canadian outdoor equipment I checked this morning before I started filming this video and that comes with it as you see right now so it comes with the stove and two fire sticks if you add the other items that I put together on that on the stone a second ago it comes in at one hundred and thirty dollars so it depends on what you want to purchase this is without question in my mind at least a lifetime investment you're never going to wear this thing out you'll be passing this down to your children and likely to their children I've had some really hot fires in this thing and it has shown no indications of warpage or any damage to it or anything else I do clean it up after each wire I just wipe it down and make sure I get as much of the soot off and maybe cover it with a little bit of oil to prevent rusting not that I've had any rust issues probably because of the maintenance but you know I do clean it up afterwards and it is just ready to go when I want it to be so you are paying more for the stove considerably more of course but you are getting a durable stove that will last you at least one lifetime if not more all right so I think we've covered the issues of the stove in terms of weight size cost and versatility now let's load the Stowe's up with some wood and we'll get underway with the boil test okay off camera I took a moment to load the two stoves up with wood again we're using cut split dried hardwood a combination of maple oak and some birch in there as well it's running about four and a half inches in length and I will be lighting it using a commercial fire starter with some wood chips on top I'm going to try for a top-down burn I say try because I'm going to show you how these two stoves are loaded it may end up me more of a fire torch torch style so this is where there is a significant difference okay maybe not significant but there is a bit of a difference between the two stoves if you look at the firebox you can see that there is still some room inside the stove for a few more sticks if I wanted to do that meaning that it has more capacity than I'm actually using for this type of a burn the IKEA is pretty much loaded to the max I might be able to stick a few sticks in there to fill it up there's some gaps in spaces but you know when if you overfill it it takes that much longer for the fire to get established difference being of course is that with more space inside of a stove more airflow around the wood you're likely to get the fire establish that much more quickly and bring it to a full sustainable fire inside however it usually means that the stove will burn out quicker because of all that additional airflow I guess that's one of the things we'll see during this test is how quickly does the IKEA come to a full fire or not the IKEA sorry the firebox come to a full fire in comparison with the IKEA and if it does in fact run out of fuel quicker than the other one that's that's just one of the things we'll see now I did have at least one viewer comment to me that this was an unfair comparison using the same amount of wood by the way the wood is four hundred and three grams equal to both of these right now they say they thought it was an unfair comparison that I should be loading them to the max to show what the stove is capable of doing when it's at its full capacity they have a good point to be made but this has to be some controllable very variable between the two stoves I am trying to get stoves that are as close together in size as is reasonably possible so the volume of these two stoves are pretty close with a little bit more volume being given to the firebox of course yes I could get more wood in the firebox it would extend the burn it may slow it down and get a nice cleaner burn in the long run but the idea is to compare them with the same amount of wood certainly in other videos I will you know show just how much you can do with the firebox in terms of getting the most out of it as well as what you can do with the IKEA to get the most out of it so let's get this going so to light this up break this firestarter up a little bit put some flame to it are we going yep drop that down inside the IKEA a little bit tricky okay there we go same thing for the fire box our starter is going now how am I gonna do this all right it dropped right down aside as I thought it might see if I can't get the other one to drop down inside a little further here we go I ain't gonna throw a few wood chips on just to kind of speed the process up this would get going without that firestarter alone would be enough to get these two stoves running very quickly especially with this dry hardwood but let's just add a few wood chips speed the process up do so without putting the flames out and it really didn't need this but it'll speed things up a little bit one thing left to do now put the sticks on get the claw Spurs on before it's too hot to be able to do that it will take a few minutes to for these you know fires to fully establish himself and be put the water on so what I'll do is I'll break away for a couple of minutes bring you back when the fires are going well give you an idea how long it took for them to establish and then we'll put the pots on and stare at the timer okay three minutes since I lit the fire starter and propped them into the stove and I did give a slight advantage by you know what 20 30 seconds to the IKEA by lighting it first already you can see the difference in how these fires are getting established the IKEA is burning well enough for me to put the pot on which we'll do in a second the firebox is way ahead of the IKEA in terms of its wood being engaged for fire you can see the height of the flames air flow has a lot to do with this actually it has everything to do with this at this point so the I the firebox is drawing more air through the bottom of the stove and you know the design of it there are a lot of open holes in the bottom to allow for exactly that the IKEA does have air flow all the way around it and and from the bottom but still it's not not lit up as well as the firebox is do you know what's interesting I'm looking down at the ash pan of the firebox and I'm seeing and Cole's starting to drop through which is kind of interesting again that's the purpose of the ashcan but it does show the importance of having those holes big as they are and how they give a benefit of airflow do run the risk of dropping calls through so you do have to use that now let's get some plots on these and get the timer started I do see a bit of a breeze picking up here so I may end up having to put the wind screen around it so on top of the Ikea my inexpensive and quite well liked camel will 1.2 liter pot and I look for something that was very close in size and decided to use the zebra 12 centimeter pot both have two cups of cold water 500 mils of cold water from my tap in them and yeah all right let's get that time for stir it all right timer is started and I will bring it back as they come to a boil and my experience has been this won't take very long especially on this hot day and with this dry wood so we'll come back and a few minutes time I'm sure that's what it will be when these two come to a boil okay as I mentioned it doesn't take long hard rolling boil inside the zebra pot on top of the Gentoo firebox and smokes I didn't expect that hard rolling boil inside of the camel will on top of the Ikea right in three minutes bow for them they came to a boil pretty much exactly the same time right at three minutes so fast efficient they both brought water to a boil pretty much exactly the same time but that's only part of the test now let's just have a look at the burn as it's taking place I think I'm going to need some gloves here all right IKEA still has lots of wood inside of it that looks great the Gentoo firebox still has lots of wood inside of it it is going through it a little quicker than the IKEA but the you know it's keeping pace oh well that's a that's a nice surprising comparison between the two now it's just a matter of waiting to see how long it takes for these to burn down and what we have left after that and that's when I'll bring it back very quick update on the progress of the fires and the two stoves it has been 15 minutes since I first lit the stoves and as you can see there is no active flame in the firebox at this point there are some great grilling coals in there that should go on for a while but no active flame that was expected all that additional airflow led to a quicker harder burn however in the IKEA I still have quite a bit of active flame and quite a bit of fuel to go and that of course was because it was packed in a little tighter so with a little bit less airflow so right now we're going to have a little while to though before these reduce themself to ash and when that happens I'll bring it back and we'll see what conclusions we can draw all right the stoves have cooled down to the point where I can show you what's left in terms of a star still a little bit of heat left in the metal and I think that's probably another point worth mentioning is how quickly the stoves will cool down after a fire so if you're looking to make a quick Shore lunch or a quick lunch along the trail and you want to get moving again the IKEA is going to cool down that much quicker than the firebox because there's just that much less metal for the heat to to have to transfer you mid odof let's have a look there is what's left in terms of ash nothing by the way nothing underneath the stove at all which was good to see so a little bit of ash left there now before I tip the firebox off I want to pull the plate out and show you that there is ash in the ash plate which of course is what it's designed to do and there's what's left in the firebox after the fire now we can draw a few conclusions okay what lessons have we learned what conclusions can we draw up or comparing these two stoves together well in the beginning we looked at the two stoves individually in terms of weight size cost and what we found is that the firebox stove is a heavier stove but much more compact when it's folded down the IKEA is a much lighter stove but does take up more space in your pack unless you of course you fit it with a pot inside or fit it inside of a pot and then stuff out there things inside of it and then you can compensate for that increased bulk this of course is a much heavier stove but along with that heaviness comes durability now I have no reason to think the IKEA won't last a good long time and you know if it doesn't for whatever reason $0.99 I'll build another one although I do like the fact that I can use this and not have to worry about it ever wearing out or warping or in any way not functioning the way it's designed so yes this is a more expensive stove as it is at 80 dollars Canadian now give the links to where you can purchase this in Canada as well as about 135 dollars fully decked out with all the successor EES now one of the things we said is what is the versatility of these two stoves and without question as good as the IKEA is the firebox is just so much more versatile there are so many things you can do with this that I hadn't even begun to explore all the possibilities and if you want to see what can be done with this just go over to the firebox channel with Steve and look at the things that he's capable of doing with that as well as the cooking and the recipes great Channel I really recommend going over and taking a look at what he has okay there is one aspect of versatility that I haven't talked to to this point with any of these stoves and it was brought to my attention by one of my viewers and they were absolutely correct and I want to talk about that now and that is I'm using these in my backyard with killing dried hardwood on a nice hot sunny dry day if this was less than ideal weather such as and the the viewer mentioned they work in the I believe it was the Everglades swamps or maybe it was some small berries within Texas I apologize can't remember which one but they said the wood is always wet and it is always humid and they have trouble making fires in the little IKEA stove or anything quite like it and I can certainly understand that this does not retain heat anywhere near as well mostly because of all the holes on the sides as well of its light weight that's where the firebox shine in anything other than perfect weather this thing is just outstanding this is the one stove that I can count on to work for me in the winter when it is cold outside my wood is either damp and or frozen at the same time it's the dine it's a combination of things well of course the well-designed airflow through this but also the dynamic a size this has a capacity that allows you to get a hotter fire going faster and maintain that heat because of the heavyweight steel it is just well designed for use in cold weather so there's one aspect of versatility that I'll give the extra points to the firebox now if you're looking at things on a budget that's up to you but I'm perfectly happy to continue using the IKEA stoves they do work well in most circumstances this though it's just classy you can't beat it if you can afford to buy one of these things either new or secondhand don't worry if you buy it you can find one of these secondhand buy it you just can't hurt them as far as I'm concerned you know both good stoves all right as in previous videos I've asked people to make comments in this in the below on what they would like to see me compare and I have some great ideas ones that I hadn't considered myself that I will be adding to the list so I asked I invite you again to put some comments below what did you think of the comparison of these two stoves was it really outlandish or was there actually some value and showing these two stoves together what's those would you like to see me compare in future videos but until that happens get out and explore and take that path less traveled it'll make all the difference bye for now

Channel: Mark Young

Views: 26,672

Rating: 4.8760562 out of 5

Keywords: Mark Young, Shunpyke Bushcraft, bushcraft, woodscraft, survival, hiking, fishing, camping, hunting, foraging, DIY, homemade, make it yourself, cooking, plant identification, wild medicinals, medicinal plants, edible plants, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Blue Mountain Birch Cove Wilderness, product reviews, primitive skills, firecraft, mark young bushcraft, wood stove, stick stove, twig stove, firebox stove vs ikea hobo stove, firebox stove, ikea hobo stove

Id: aV9zZKx92rc

Length: 27min 43sec (1663 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 29 2019