Emergency space blankets provide a false sense of security! We were snowshoeing the other day with folks who did not seem to be Prepared for an adventure even a couple of miles back into the snowbound wilderness. They each used a small "fanny pack". I asked them what they would do to keep warm during an emergency stop and stranding - to care for an injured companion, or if the weather closed down to hard wind driven rain or snow and familiar trails and ways disappeared.
All of them said they carried a "space blanket" to keep them warm. There-in lies the danger! I have heard this claim before, that "a space blanket provides warmth". I have always understood that the term "space blanket" is a misnomer: the thin plastic sheet is neither a miracle material nor a blanket!
The thicker the blanket the higher the insulation rating. Blankets do not add heat unless the blanket is warmed, as in an Emergency Room. Warmth must be added, under the insulation. It is well known that body heat is lost in 5 specific ways: Convection, Conduction, Radiation, Evaporation and Respiration. Excessive body heat loss leads quickly to hypothermia. The thin shiny plastic sheet heavily advertized as an "Emergency Space Blanket" has no insulating qualities, indeed, the plastic immediately becomes as cold as the rain or snow or the wind blown air and will immediately conduct that cold through wet clothing to the human body.
Also, it is almost impossible to close out the cold wind. I learned this personally, at the finish line of the New York Marathon in If you lie down on a plastic space blanket placed on the snow, the cold will immediately be conducted directly to your compressed clothing.
If your clothing is damp or worse - wet to the skin, you might as well lie down in an ice cold mountain stream.
An inexpensive alternative to the metalized Space Blanket, is a common heavy duty trash bag or two. You must carry extra insulating clothing layers and an insulating ensolite pad in a lite day pack designed for the Season, the forecast weather and the individual trip! Learn about individual "clothing insulation layers" and "shelter" listed in the Ten Essential Systems. The five ways that heat is lost by the body:.
Conduction Heat will be lost through contact with wet surfaces at a lower temperature than that of the body. Technical under-layers that "keep the skin dry" help block this factor. A mandatory waterproof-breathable Gore-Tex outer layer breaths perspiration and keeps your insulating layers dry. You must carry a lite 6 oz. Radiation Heat is lost through radiation from all over the body.
This is the least significant factor. Your clothing, hats and gloves help block radiation. Evaporation Heat is lost through the body's natural cooling system perspiration which evaporates from the skin and clothing wet with sweat, melted snow, rain, stream crossings and more. A Gore-Tex waterproof-breathable outer layer breaths perspiration and keeps your insulating layers dry Respiration The only other way in which heat is lost is through respiration breathing , and this should be attended by covering the mouth and nose area with a wool scarf or a special mask.
You may need to stop, stay in one sheltered place and limit your heat loss from heavy breathing while trying to find your way. An emergency blanket helps you keep much of the body heat that you would lose naturally by preventing it from escaping through radiation and convection. They have a double-sided design in which the outside of the blanket can help protect against the loss of body heat through exposure to the elements while the inside of the blanket has thermal-reflective qualities which redirect heat radiating from the body back to the person rather than allowing it to escape.
An emergency blanket cannot keep you from losing body heat through conduction heat-transfer. This is important to know because the loss of heat through conduction is a natural process that happens in all environments, but is accelerated in cold environments. This is because the temperature of an environment is also conducted into your body and your clothes as your natural body heat is conducted out.
As a result, you will lose more body heat as your body tries to compensate for the surrounding environment, and unless you have some type of heat being conducted into your body to replace what you lose your body temperature will continue to drop.
In fact, in a cold environment, you will eventually lose all of your body heat even with the help of an emergency blanket and become susceptible to freezing. Along with its inability to generate new heat on its own or help you completely retain your body heat over long periods of time, there are other flaws with an emergency blanket that should be taken into consideration — especially if you intend to rely on it in a survival situation.
One main concern with an emergency blanket is that they are fragile and are very easily damaged. As a result, they are very easy to rip when trekking through the outdoors on obstacles such as branches, bushes, or even sharp rocks.
If an emergency blanket gets even a small hole in it, it will not be able to help you retain your body heat and will become virtually useless. This is because an emergency blanket is designed to help you stay warm by reflecting the body heat that you radiate back to you rather than allowing it to escape. If you were to wear an emergency blanket while wet, it would reflect this cold air back to your body, which would make you colder and prevent you from drying off.
Bearing in mind that emergency blankets can use solar energy to warm you up, it can seem like a good idea to use it to help you sun dry, right? In order to utilize solar heat with an emergency blanket, you have to turn it inside out to use its reflective side. The problem with this is that the outside of most emergency blankets are designed to be water repellent to keep you dry, which means that the blanket will not absorb the water molecules as they start to evaporate from the heat.
Although there are a number of flaws in emergency blankets that should always be taken into consideration, they can still be useful in a survival situation. Emergency blankets work best when used with other camping gear meant to help protect you from the elements, which can compensate for the weaknesses of an emergency blanket.
One of the best ways to use an emergency blanket is with a sleeping bag. If you wrap up in an emergency blanket before and then bed down in your sleeping bag for the night, it will keep you from losing much of the body heat that you would have without it. As a result, you will stay a lot warmer throughout the night.
Correspondingly, your sleeping bag will protect your emergency blanket and keep it from getting damaged. This combo is definitely a win-win! Another way to utilize an emergency blanket to your benefit is to use it with insulated clothing made out of wool, fleece, or polypropylene. Unlike emergency blankets, insulated clothing can keep you warm by generating heat as well as helping you retain your own body heat. In addition, insulated clothing is usually much more durable than an emergency blanket.
When paired with insulated clothing, emergency blankets can enhance this ability to retain your body heat and can provide further protection against exposure to the elements. Most emergency blankets do work for helping you retain body heat and they can warm you up through solar-heating. As such, if you want to use an emergency blanket to keep you warm then you should utilize its solar-thermal capabilities as much as you can.
As long as you sit in the sun, the thermal-reflective properties of the blanket will help you keep warm. However, this method will not work in the shade or at night. The less room between you and the blanket the better. For nighttime use, turn it into a makeshift sleeping bag by wrapping the blanket around yourself and tucking 3 of the 4 corners under your body so that there is only one opening big enough for your head to stick out. However, you will need to make sure not to roll around because it will be easy to rip the blanket.
One way in which an emergency blanket can be repurposed is as extended protection from the elements, such as a windbreaker or a canopy. If you're stranded out in the woods and need help, being able to create a signal is helpful to notify others of your location. Well, that highly reflective cheap emergency blanket you happened to toss in your pack or survival gear can be used as a signal mirror in just a few seconds. Start by cutting a square from one of the corners of the emergency blanket.
A square that's four to five inches on each side will do the trick. Next, try and find something small and flat you can use to stretch your small piece of the blanket over. You want to find something as flat as possible to create the best reflection. Things like plates, the bottom of a water bottle, or flat pieces of wood or rock work well.
And there you have it. Pull the improvised poncho over you and place your head through the head hole and you are both protected from falling rain or snow and have insulation from the cold since the blanket will reflect your body heat back to you.
Photo: Hiking Mastery. I hesitate to mention this use because of the durability concerns I spoke of, but in a pinch and if you're careful, a cheap emergency blanket can make a great rain catch. For this to work, you're simply creating a channel for the rain water to flow towards a bucket or rain water catching system. Because of the durability of the blanket, you'll need to be sure the channel you're creating runs smoothly and the blanket stays tot, otherwise, it will become too heavy for the blanket and tear at the points you've secured it.
However, in a pinch and if you're not in need of the blanket for warmth, this is a great way to capture water and build up your supply during an emergency or survival situation. Since they're cheap, compact and lightweight, there is no reason not to have a few cheap emergency blankets in your survival supplies - having one in an emergency car survival kit can really help in a pinch. Because even though they may not make a great "blanket", you can see there are several great uses for them if you use them for tasks they're better suited.
And that's what thriving in a survival situation is all about. Using your tools and the knowledge you've developed to get the most out of the gear you have at your disposal and maximize your chances for survival.
If you have any other great uses for cheap emergency blankets, let me know about them in the comments. Kevin is the co-founder of Go Time Gear. Get free survival and emergency preparedness tips directly to your inbox. If you're not completely satisfied for any reason within 30 days, we'll do everything in our power to make it right.
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