BobS, I want your Thermette, too. I think it may be a great companion to a solar oven for the reasons you cite: when you are in a hurry, at night, and when there is little sun.
A thermette is pretty bulky, too. Folding solar could give it a run for its money.
Almost all solar ovens can at least pasturize water [?160 degrees?]; better ones - and that's my goal - can get well over 250 degrees.
Plus, unlike a Thermette, solar ovens can do their thing unattended for hours; do not require finding, igniting, or expending fuel - ever; and do not advertze your presence like a fire either while in use or after you have moved on; and can be built from found materials. They probably could make a mean signal mirror.
All of those virtues convince me solar is worth experimenting and investigating as another layer of redundancy and self-sufficiency.
While a solar water heater can be unattended for hours, it does in fact take hours to boil the same amount of water a Thermette or Kelly Kettle can do in 5-min or less. Also you should re-aim the solar cooker throughout the day to keep it pointed at the sun so it’s not the set it up and forget it thing you make it out to be. The setup time for both would be about the same I would imagine. The Thermette fills with water in just a few seconds, but it does take a min to get the fire going. But 5-min from starting the fire I will have boiling water, this process is repeatable even faster for any additional water boiling as the fire is already started.
As far as building a solar cooker from materials found, I would say it’s a lot easier to find a few sticks then the material to make a solar water heater.
And 2 or 3 min of picking up sticks will give me enough free fuel to boil several gallons of water. I can also cook with the Thermette (as can those that have a Kelly Kettle) while boiling the water. It gives me a lot of choices in how to do the job in a very short time.
Yes people may be able to see the smoke from the Thermette or Kelly Kettle, but it produces less smoke then you may think. And as far as the remains being found. Is this really an issue? If so I would use my alcohol stove or Svea stove, or dig a small area to use the Thermette in and when done spread the ashes around and cover the spot over with the removed dirt. I have done this with small camping / cooking fires in the past and you are hard pressed to see that a fire was made there.
If trying to remain stealthy I would suggest that a 5-min fire is no more going to be seen then spending all day in a spot waiting for a solar water to boil water. But again I don’t see this as an issue at all.
And if there is a fire ban on in the area I’m camping in, the Thermette works on top of any camp stove. It works slower this way, not as fast as with a wood fire. But it’s still much faster then a solar water cooker.
I’m not trying to take apart the idea of using solar as a way to cook and make drinkable water. I’m just pointing out how the Thermette & Kelly kettles work and can be used, and continuing the debate to help all of us get the most information we can to be ready for any given unknown situation.
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