My idea is not to use my electric heater all the time so I'm looking for an alternative way to heat my room
Does this work?
Any other ideas?
That looks ridiculous, but you can literally but all this at the dollar store, minus the bricks. Probably won't heat your whole room.
Would some wool clothing be a better investment?
The candles heat goes into the room no matter if you put some dumb ass pots over it or not.
They arent going to make the candles heat output any higher by catching it
>>1012079
Yeah, its a meme.
The pots don't increase the heat output (duh, conservation of energy), but they do get hot and act as a radiator, so if you're right next to it you can feel the warmth coming off of it.
>>1012087
You're correct. What the pots and metal do is catch some of that heat and divert it outward, so less is wasted by going straight to the ceiling. They don't make much difference, but multiples will make a room noticeably warmer.
>>1012079
It won't make your room any warmer than just a candle would.
What they do, though, is store the energy and release it slower. So you will have a, big mass near you that is nicely warm, for a long time
>>1012090
To be honest multiple candels in a closed room already make int noticeably warmer.
>>1012086
You honestly expect me to go around dressed in wool like some sort of mansheep?!!!1
>>1012079
>>1012087
It provides a wider heat column in the air allowing more heat transfer to the mass of air in the room before the heat is absorbed into the ceiling. A ceiling fan would be much more effective.
The main problem is soot/smoke. You shouldn't be breathing in candle smoke.
As for heating/cooling, I suggest assessing your room's weatherization. Make sure all cracks and holes are properly sealed. Put a plastic window seal layer over all your windows (the kind you use a hair dryer to tighten up so you can't even tell it is there "Duck Brand Shrink Film Window Insulation Kit") Make sure all electrical outlet boxes are sealed too.
When you run hot water in the sink, bath, or shower let it stand until it is room temp. You'll get all the heat out of it you can that way.
You can invite friends over or get a dog or two for pets. Both make great heaters.
>>1012079
>My idea is not to use my electric heater all the time so I'm looking for an alternative way to heat my room
okay
>Does this work?
the pots don't do anything. nobody ever in the whole world heats their cold houses with candles and flowerpots. never in the past, and not now.
candles do release heat when they burn, but the cost is the matter here.
a candle flame only produces about 80 watts of heat, a tea candle only burns for maybe 2 hours at best, and it probably costs at least 50 cents to a dollar or more
most places on Earth,,,,, using an electric heater to make the same amount of heat costs much less than that
also is you burn lots of candles in your home, you do get the soot problem someone else mentioned
>Any other ideas?
wear more clothes.
synthetic clothes will insulate better than cotton, and cost less than wool
if you want real heat: get a brood lamp ($15) and a 250-watt IR bulb ($5). Put it next to you, and aim it at you. That way it heats ONLY you, and doesn't waste power heating up the whole room.
>>1012079
>believe this works
explains why you can't afford electricity
>>1012083
never had to use a lantern indoors in the summer huh?
>>1012119
>using an electric heater to make the same amount of heat costs much less than that
this
just run the heater less or turn down the heat
>>1012119
>tea candle ... probably costs at least 50 cents to a dollar or more
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Tealights-100pk/45924264
Try $0.04 freedom dollars each.
>>1012079
Nothing heats up a bedroom faster than a beast of a computer rendering fractals at insane resolutions
Seriously though, as long as the house is kept warm enough to keep pipes from freezing, then some thick wool socks, flannel PJs, and a hoodie will do the rest. Keep your feet warm and you'll feel much warmer than not.
>>1012166
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50097995/
Even cheaper if you have an ikea near by.
$0.035 per candle
$0.035/4hrs=$0.0088 per hour
The average 120v heater is rated for 1500 watts. The average tea light is 80 watts.
That means it takes 18.75 candles to match on heater.
18.75*$0.035=$0.66/4=$0.165/hr
Average cost of electricity in the US is $0.12/kWh
1.5kWh*$0.12= $0.18/hr
It's still a stupid idea to try and heat your house with candles, but it is technically feasible. Buy some wool socks.
>>1012251
Huh. I didn't expect it to take so few candles to (theoretically) match a heater, or that it would cost less (even if it's only 1.5 cents less).
Still though, a 1500 oil immersion heater is probably more efficient at heating the air in a room.
>>1012253
Totally, plus if you figure with 19 candles burning in a room, you will need ventilation to keep the CO levels low and O2 level high enough. Which generally means opening a window which will remove heat.
Not to mention the fire risk that comes with 19 small candles.
It's a regular thing (around here anyway) for boyscouts to big out a hole in a snow bank, cover the hole, and heat it with a tea candle. Keeps you plenty warm in the middle of a midwest winter.
I've heard stories of scouts using a can of sterno or multiple candles before and having their shelter collapse due to the snow melting.
>>1012255
Yeah, snow is an amazing insulator, and water's large latent heat of fusion means it can take a decent amount of heat before melting.
It's one reason that igloos are a thing when needed.
>>1012119
In the UK a pound will buy you fifty tealights. Shitty Chinese ones, but 2p each is a saving over electric heating.
It's a similar principle to storage heaters, which use electricity to store heat in firebricks between 11pm and 7am, when historically electricity was cheap.
Nowadays with more efficient heating methods the opposite is true, you can't turn them off unless you get up halfway through the night, so it uses eight hours of electricity for lousy heating.
Post WW2 tech basically. Thrown into prefabs as a temporary measure. Tfw when I've been evicted from this, the shittiest of accommodation before now for not being able to afford the rent, while working 40 hours a week as a duty manager.
In the UK there is a housing crisis, the top 5% own 80% of properties and gouge people, even for the most basic of fleapits.
>>1012261
'Course, don't most houses in the UK use the hot water heater as a heat reservoir and the use that heat to warm the house at night?
>>1012266
It depends. Most UK houses have a central heating system that does both hot water for taps and for the radiators. Most are pretty atupid though and are pretty much an on/off solution.
Most houses have moved away from boiling an entire water reseviour to on demand solutions using the on/off switch so they dont normally sit with a full tank of hot water.
Most people in the UK are savvy enough to realise you do not a warm house at night, we have duvets for that! Id like to think most people program there heating for an hour before they wake up and a few hours on the night at most.
>>1012079
Yeah, it works!
...it's a magic way to fuck up thermodynamics.
With just some more stuff like a rubber band and some office items you can build a nuclear plant.
just water cool your computer and put a series of pipes under your seat, before the radiator
enjoy nice and toasty gaming all winter long
>>1012253
>Still though, a 1500 oil immersion heater is probably more efficient at heating the air in a room.
you're doing it wrong
a bunch of candles would heat the air in the room, and a 1500 watt oil immersion heater would heat the air in the room,,,, but that's not what you want.
to conserve energy here, you want something that will heat YOU as much as possible, while heating everything else as little as possible.
that is what makes an IR-radiant light bulb heater more effective.
It does give off some warm air, but a lot of the energy it radiates is in the direction that it is pointed--so you can point it at you.
>>1012261
>It's a similar principle to storage heaters, which use electricity to store heat in firebricks between 11pm and 7am, when historically electricity was cheap.
yea, but a candle flame is way too little heat to be effective in this use--unless maybe you sit on a metal chair positioned directly over the candle flame.
>>1012251
>dat math though...
They list the weight at 2lbs 13oz. Lets assume thats all paraffin wax.
$3.49/2.8125lbs = $1.24/lb of wax
1lb of paraffin can realease 18,600 btu. And we all know that there are 3412 btus in 1kwh.
18600/3412 = 5.45kwh
$1.24/5.45kwh = $0.228/kwh. A little less than double the average national electric rate in the US.
Now you point out that an electric heater is 1500 watts, or 1.5kwh lets work in reverse to see how many candles we would need to keep going to match this.
1.5kwh×3412 = 5118btu
5118btu / 18600btu/lb = .275lbs
2.8125lbs / 100candles = .028lbs/candle
Each candle burns over 4 hours, so each candle burns .028/4=.007lbs/hr
Now, we figured out we need to burn .275 lbs of candles per hour to match the heating capacity of an electric heater. If each individual tea light can burn .007lbs/hour that means you would need .275/.007 = 39.28 burning at a time to heat the room at the same rate as an electric heater.
Lets have even more math fun!
.007 lbs/hr is
.007*18600= 130 btu
Lets see what a 60 watt incandescent light bulb does!
.06*3412=204btu
Well shit folks, lets throw flower pots over light bulbs!
>>1012079
Four candles?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi_6SaqVQSw
>>1012100
i honestly laughed at this.
Thanks.
pic related: rather than try to heat your room with candles, you should just try to make an air conditioner
it is much more effective since you will waste a lot more time and money that way, and still accomplish nothing useful
Its many times cheaper and more effecient to put on another layer. Wear socks.
>>1012100
Yes.
Done it before, pretty nice. Cosy af
>>1012329
fix'd the pic
yeah its solid but a pain in the ass
do it like they do here when people have no heat get a propane torch and just run it on a table or something where it won't get knocked over maybe run a fan, open the window a pinch so it doesnt get too smelly
i've seen this done in -40 in a mobile home with no power and in many situations, so it works good
other people get oil drums and turn them into wood stoves inside their house with venting outside also, you could do that
also if you live in a uninsulated shed like a bunch of people, you can either run a big construction heater intermittantly, because the lack of insulation provides venting, or else just get bulk old newspapers and insulate with that, it helps alot, you can usually get cheap OSB to put over it and put in some metal halide lights to warm it up a little
we had a shed where kids would always come and go and it was usually the warm shed because of moss growing on roof and kids coming in and smoking weed with blowtorches every half hour or so
it's easy to stay alive in the cold, comfort is another story. alternatively, drinks will warm you up nicely if you are already inside
>>1012079
The flower pot heater? Yes, it does work. 4 candles will indeed heat one flower pot. Why do you need a warm flower pot, though?
Well, each candle will give off about 0.5W, 4 candles will give you 2W, that's enough to heat one flower pot. That's a little less energy one LED light bulb can offer, except that LED light bulbs give off more light. If you need one warm flower pot, and light would be convenient, you can put one LED light bulb inside your flower pot, it will get warm eventually.
It will never heat one whole room. Did you try halogen heaters?
>>1013493
>Well, each candle will give off about 0.5W, 4 candles will give you 2W, that's enough to heat one flower pot.
Not even close.
Source on the "wattage" output plox
>>1012079
They work great, depending how big your room is
My bedroom is on the dark side of our house, so it is always cold and in winter it is an icebox
Have a walk in closet, built a single platform bed in the closet, stays nice and toasty all year long, small space that even my body heat can warm up
I used some 2" insulation on the walls and ceiling and some Mylar bubble wrap under that
Dog lives in my mini bedroom all winter
Made the rest of the room great, no bed so I got a couch, it's like having my own apartment
I knew I saved a thread for some reason. here is the context, guys
Setting all the efficiency talk aside...
Isn't there an offgassing risk in heating nuts, bolts, and washers in a (ideally for heating) closed space? I remember some DIY anon poisoned himself by constantly heating galvanized metal under poor ventilation.
>>1013716
>synergistically
>>1013751
That's just a property of galvanized steel
Look up "Welder's Flu"
>>1012079
Get a sweater and socks. If if you don't live in a country with several daytime in a row with sub zero c temperatures you should be ok not heating.
Be careful if you are not renting, temperature under ~14°c is bad for your wall on the long run
>>1012109
>You can invite friends over or get a dog or two for pets. Both make great heaters.
I really fucking laughed at the thought of inviting friends over to your shitty cold house only for their body heat haha
>>1012079
>waste heat energy from candles by heating all the shit covering it
>>1014862
>what is conservation of energy
The theory is sound and is used in everyday applications. Greenhouses use largecontainers of water to hold daytime heat to extend growing seasons. Mass heaters use furnaces to heat rock,plaster, and mud masses so that they radiate the heat into the room slowly and uniformly.
Its just the principle doesnt do shit with a kilogram of clay at most and a couple watts of heat energy.
>>1012079
You are better off doing what my uncle did when he was in his bachelor days. Put foam in every window and then plastic over it. Then insulate every other place you can except for the walls adjoining your place to the other apartments and suck in as much warmth from your neighbors as you can.
>>1015207
Always get the upper unit if you're renting and paying for heat.
>>1015215
how have i never thought about that..
>>1015349
If it is a walk-up, the upper units are usually the easier to get since old people don't want to climb stairs.
Unfortunately, if you live in a hot place the opposite is true since you pay more for cooling than heating.
>>1015215
If heating is free then get a basement unit. I had the basement and had a landwhale of a neighbor living above me.
The only thing that gave me the ability to put up with his stomping around was the fact that even on the hottest days my AC never kicked on.
My friend who was the maintenance man said the guy kept his AC at 58.
Get a dog.
Any dog that is 40 pounds or bigger.
They are little walking heaters that fart.
>>1012079
It doesn't do anything aside from holding on to the heat from the candles. It doesn't create any additional heat. You won't notice it doing anything unless you're like a foot away from it.
>>1012119
Remember the brood lamp is more effective if you make chicken noises
>cuck cuck cuck
>>1012303
This is kind of clever...
>>1014859
A couple years back we had a miserable wet and cold winter. I was renting a shack in someone's backyard that had no insulation. Long story short me and some girl who got kicked out of her parents survived that winter on like 200 a month. It was rough and I wouldn't recommend it.
If you're too cold to sleep and you don't mind using some homeless tech you could get you one of those reflective tarps for 100% discount from you local camping store and a mummy sleeping bag for relatively cheap. If still cold light a candle and drink some bourbon, think of the nice sunny beaches you left behind when you moved back to your home town from Orange county
