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Thursday, October 31, 2024

Good to know

 

I have seen these "heaters" earlier somewhere else, but this looked simple enough and in these days of uncertainty and high energy prices it could be used to heat a small room, garage, bathroom, supplemental heat, etc.  There may be better designs out there, but this is a good starting point. A couple of commentors mentioned placing pennies underneath the pot to elevate it and allow for better airflow, etc. for example. I am sure there are mods for improvement and efficiency, but this would work and especially in pinch.




23 comments:

  1. It is one candle power worth of heat, no matter how you slice it.

    The candle heats the pot, the pot heats the air.
    No more hat than the candle by itself.
    No extra efficiency , no gain in energy.
    A candle heats about 75 BTU per hour, more or less. You need about 25 BTU per hour to heat one square foot of home, more or less.

    Do The Math.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And compare that to the now almost non-existent 60 watt incandescent light bulb at 204 BTU per hour. If you are old enough to remember those, you'll realize how much light bulb heat we used to pump into our buildings before even figuring in the furnace or fireplaces.

      One light bulb is a lot more heat than a candle. If one of those wasn't really enough to warm a winter room, one of these sure won't be.

      Delete
    2. I'm glad one other person gets it.

      Next on the agenda , royal purple oil doesn't add 3 mpg, haha

      Delete
  2. Leaving aside the obvious problems of fire hazards, combustion products and vaporized oil in an enclosed space, and the complete lack of any actual data on either cost or effectiveness, this is a tautology: a fire will radiate heat. The sort of thing I'd expect from a naive ten year old, an aborigine, or the drug addled homeless. As far as it heating anything more than perhaps a couple of cubic yards of space by more than ten degrees above ambient, forget it.

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  3. "Electircity"? I prefer that new-fangled "electricity".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ol’ Nellie sure made her some of that ‘tircity, heck I’d take one of those in the terlit heah. Gets wicked cold in theah ayuh!

      Delete
  4. My previous stove didn't have an oven light, so to proof bread, I used a candle beneath clay pot. This brought oven temperature to approximately 70F. Note: lip of the upside down clay pot needs to be elevated slightly for flame to breathe. I live in the mountains. It worked.

    Beyond warming your hands though (or proofing bread in an oven), they probably aren't going to be of much use.

    Correct my math:
    My oven has 3.5 cubic feet of space (3.5 x 12" = 42 cubic inches), and can be heated to 70F with 1 candle pot. My living room is 10'x20'x8' = 1600 cubic feet (or 19,200 cubic inches). So in theory, I'd need 457 clay pot candles to warm this room.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 6048 cubic inches in the oven, 2764800 cubic inches in the living room. Still 457 candles though.

      Delete
  5. In a very small place this works. You may have seen the survival videos where a single candle is placed on the ground and the person huddles around it with a cover of some kind from head to toe to capture the heat. But at home I would simple go to my closet and grab a fleece sweater and put it on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This video:
      https://youtu.be/ysw6CEbSiak

      Delete
  6. Back in the day we would heat tents at Boy Scout camp with an open candle. Usually worked pretty well...

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    Replies
    1. They sell 48 hr liquid candles. Great to keep in your car for winter travel between Buffalo and Syracuse. That alone in your car will keep you from freezing to death best effort.

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  7. This is not all that new.
    About 10 years ago a variation on the design was to have 4 clay pots from small to large stacked on a long threaded rod seperated by and secured with nuts and washers. The smallest would fit with a small gap into the next and so on. They would all fit inside within the largest pot. The rod went into a stable base. The pots were 2 inches above the base. I used an old scrap piece of marble countertop for the base.
    6 candles underneath.
    The pots held the heat and became too hot to touch.
    However, while it did hold the heat it was restricted to only the immediate area within a couple of feet. Enough to jeep you alive in a Calgary winter emergency (if you have LOTS of tea candles. Lol)It was more a fun project for me and my young daughter than anything else.
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  8. Far better option is here:

    https://www.walltentshop.com/products/window-stove-plate-kit

    Their stoves are well made and worth the price but 2 week plus timeframe.

    A window stove pipe and the correct sized chimney cheaper wood stove is amazon easy.

    And you can cook on it. All applicable don't be stupid with fire is needed.

    A fire mat like they use in floor tent cooking is important as getting burned out isn't good. A 4 inch standoff bit of steel roofing can keep the walls and such cool for safety.

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  9. Coal Cracker Bush Craft.
    This is about all you're going to get when heating with a candle.
    https://youtu.be/ysw6CEbSiak

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  10. There is worth to these type of stoves if we consider it inside a tent that is inside your house. And if it’s in your basement all the better.

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  11. Having oil heat hooked up to your EU2000 that runs 4-6 hrs a day can get you by with about a gallon or a bit more of fuel day day or better yet a similar ~2000 watt inverter dual fuel generator that rundz on propane as well. An oil burner starts with a 700-1100 watt surge that runs at about 350 watts.

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  12. How many of you ever put a light bulb in the well house to keep it from freezing up

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    Replies
    1. Mine was dug 6 ft into the ground in the Colorado Rockies and a 100 watt bulb actually kept it relatively warm.

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    2. Lived in the 60's in a house with a crawl space basement . The water pipes near the hatchway would freeze so on the colds nights my Dad would go down and turn on tht light. On real cold nights the light went on plus the faucet would drip on purpose. Those were the days . And I knew we were poor.

      Delete
  13. Let me see if I understand this correctly, this is a heating system for when the power is out……

    But you use the microwave and refrigerator to prepare the work around…

    Am I missing something here..??

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  14. Dads been gone 15 years now but talked many times about using a kerosene lantern under his legs and a wool blanket over the knees in the old model T... (Or was it A???) And in other applications as well.

    ReplyDelete
  15. *********
    "But you use the microwave and refrigerator to *prepare* the work around…"
    *********

    Preparation maybe????

    ReplyDelete

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