very simple home made emergency heater

colonel holman

colonel holman

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How To Heat Your Home Using Just Tea Lights And Flower Pots
DINA SPECTOR
JAN. 6, 2014, 12:28 PM



Dylan Winter/YouTube
Boat owner Dylan Winter explains how to make a DIY heater using just tea lights, a loaf tin, and flower pots.

As parts of the United States prepare for record-breaking cold temperatures, a YouTube video showing an alternative way to heat your home might come in handy.
The video, which we first found on Why Don't You Try This, was made by journalist and boat-owner Dylan Winter. All you need to make this do-it-yourself heater are tea lights, a loaf tin, and two clay flower pots.

You can find tea light candles at pretty much any drug or hardware store. A pack of 50 is only $5.99 at CVS, for instance.

In the video, Winter places four tea lights into a loaf tin and covers them with a small flower pot that's turned upside down. He then covers the drain hole on the bottom of the small pot with the metal casing from one of the tea lights. The small pot is covered by a bigger flower pot and the hole is not covered.

The system works because the inner core of the small flower pot gets very hot, says Winter, heating air between the two pots. The warm air then flows out the hole of the larger pot, warming the room.

It sounds like a great idea, although we advise anyone who experiments with this contraption to be very careful. Be sure to put the homemade heater in a safe place where the candles won't get knocked over.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-...a-lights-and-flower-pots-2014-1#ixzz2pwoVnpR8
 
A candle only generates 50-100 BTUs. The pots may help it heat air more efficiently, but there is only so much potential heat there.

This may work ok for an insulated tent, I wouldn't count on it for much more cubic area than that.
 
I made one of these. It works, it gets hot enough that you can't keep your hands on it. I use it in a small room that is down the hall from the wood stove in the living room. I have to get longer burning candles though, mine only last a couple hours. Would go through a lot candles if I kept it burning all day.
 
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Millwright said:
A candle only generates 50-100 BTUs. The pots may help it heat air more efficiently, but there is only so much potential heat there.

This may work ok for an insulated tent, I wouldn't count on it for much more cubic area than that.
Click to expand...

Yep I've seen single candle heat a one man tent inside of a larger tent.

BTU's are BTU's it doesn't really mean much if they are getting the flower pots really HOT, it's about ENERGY/BTU's.
 
I remember a simple emergency heater that was discussed in a certain training class years ago. Great for small areas and relatively cheap and portable. Large, metal coffee can with the lid; large, full roll of toilet paper; denatured alcohol (lower water content than rubbing) and matches or lighter. Store the roll of toilet paper in the can. When heat is needed pour some of the alcohol over the roll in the can and light it. Use the alcohol sparingly until a proper quantity is determined and be sure to keep it capped and away from the flame. The roll acts as a wick and the alcohol burns slow and clean.

During winter I keep the fixins' tied up in a plastic bag in the back. If used in a vehicle be sure to open a window about an inch or so and when you want to put the flame out just put the lid on the can. I think a quart of denatured alcohol will produce 10,000 to 12,000 BTUs of heat when burned.
 
Unless it's combusting additional fuel, I'd imagine the total amount of heat generated is the same either with or without the flower pot. So unless my understanding of thermodynamics is wrong (always possible), I'd think all you're doing is creating a more obvious radiator.
 
Steel Chips said:
denatured alcohol (lower water content than rubbing)
Click to expand...

Rubbing alcohol IS denatured. What you want is 90% or 99% alcohol. Rubbing alcohol is 70%.

Also bear in mind an alcohol flame is almost invisible. If you get some spillage on fire, you might not notice it right away.
 
I'm going to give this a try in the laundry room. It's really cold back there and the cold finds it's way up here to the living room. IF that warms the laundry room, it would help keep the rest of the house warm. Not a good when the candle only lasts a couple hours, maybe I can use one of those 8 hour home interior candles and get some relief from the creeping cold.

ETA: I'm using an 8 day candle, one of the tall ones. Put it in a deep pan with a cookie cooling rack over it, the pots on top of the rack. There's about 1/2" between the candle and the bottom of the pots. Started it about 3 minutes ago and put a thermometer in the room to see if the temp goes up.

ETA: [FONT=Verdana,Arial]about 30 minutes... the thin coat of snow has melted off the outside pot, but it's still cold to the touch. I'm having serious doubts about this working. Could be cause of that gap between the pot and the candle, in the video it looks like they had a larger gap between their candle and pot. [/FONT]

ETA: An hour later and the little pot is heating up, but the big pot is still real cool, not cold, but very cool.
 
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A common small portable electric heater puts out 5100 BTUs.
A single candle puts out 80 BTUs.
63 candles equal one electric heater.
 

​

Do Clay Pot Heaters Work?​

I love it when people ask if somethings works without defining what they mean by “works”. Without a definition, any explanation is useless.

If we define works as “producing heat” then clay pot heaters work, but so do candles on their own! This is easy to test. Stick your finger in the flame of a burning candle and you will convince yourself as you sit in the hospital waiting room.

If we define works as “producing more heat than the candles alone” then the answer is a resounding NO!

First Law of Thermodynamics​

The first law of thermodynamics says you can’t create energy. Energy can be converted from one form to another, but the total amount of energy in any closed system is fixed.

This is a fundamental law of science that is well accepted and taught in many entry level science courses. It was first published by James Watt in 1774 as part of his work on the steam engine but others helped refine the wording.

A burning candle converts the chemical energy in the wax to heat energy. One tea candle will produce around 30 watts of heat. The way you burn the candle does not change the amount of heat produced, provided it is fully burned. A candle outside a clay pot or inside a clay pot still produces 30 watts of heat.

The clay pot is the same before you light the candle and after the heater cools down. Since it does not change, the first law of thermodynamics says it can’t produce heat. Adding more clay pots or using different sizes of clay pots or any of the other suggested designs will not affect this.

Anyone who claims that one clay pot heater design produces more heat than another is deluding themselves because none are more efficient than just using the candles on their own.

(From John70's posted article above, emphasis mine. WT.)
 
for safety sake - make anything that utilizes open flame your last resort - especially if your personal situation involves kids & pets - if you need to use candles try to fasten down the holders using hot melt adhesives or velcro - don't use them for moving around the home - save your battery ops for that .....
 
hiwall said:
A common small portable electric heater puts out 5100 BTUs.
A single candle puts out 80 BTUs.
63 candles equal one electric heater.
Click to expand...

I have a few of the small electric cube heaters - simple thermostat - small circulating fan >>> if the temp gets extreme for a few days I'll deploy them into the closed off bathrooms & pantry to safety heat the plumbing - even with sub-zero temps they rarely run keeping it above freezing .....
 
We heat with non-electric propane. We have a 2-3 year supply of propane. This year we are using some electric heaters for the first time ever. It is cheaper to heat with the propane but who knows what the propane situation will be next summer when we usually fill.
 
Millwright said:
A candle only generates 50-100 BTUs. The pots may help it heat air more efficiently, but there is only so much potential heat there.

This may work ok for an insulated tent, I wouldn't count on it for much more cubic area than that.
Click to expand...
I heat a 2400 SQ ft house with nothing but candles in pots from 1999-2003. That house was broken into and things were photographed and some posted on line by anons starting at the time I started getting thousands of daily hate mails that lead me to this place and somethingawfuldotcom making as much fun of me as possible to shut me up and shut me down.

When I saw the first thread posted here about it a year, two or three later,(Maybe it was at Carnicoms or RMN Outpost, though) I was a bit..surprised...seeing as how I INVENTED it on my own out of need, starting in 96 to heat my music studio, which was a 24x24 brick building with typical roof.
I went whole hog when I moved into that larger house, and it was impressive. You are an idiot if you argue that it does not work.

It is 100% doable and I could teach every single person here how, but you would need to become a candle maker as well, and rely on reclaiming candle wax and procuring new wax or candles on big sales to make it worth while. I would say I had approximately 100 candles going, maybe a little more, at one time, and I could make some candles that burned continuously for up to three days.

It works. But using small pots is not going to impress.

To heat large spaces you will need very large ceramic or metal pots/barrels and plates to go on top and bottoms of the set up. 10 gal or even bigger, with the tray pot as well that fits.

You need to monitor the pots all the time, but I was able to create soup can candles that could burn with a lentil size flame continuously for three days. I could put up to ten of those in the ten gallon ceramic pots with augmenting votive candles between each can, so the pots would get very hot. One in each room with a few gallon size pots with six candles did the trick..and did it well.
The house was toasty and not laden with soot in the air as long as the candles were monitored and the soot buildup taken care of.
You also need to monitor the soot buildup and keep that in check inside the pots. You also will likely become familiar with poor wax conditions/mixtures that can lead to a flame out inside the pot. A lot of Dollar Tree/Chinese wax is generally dangerous that way, especially after reclaiming it from previous melts.
 
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WalknTrot said:

​

Do Clay Pot Heaters Work?​

I love it when people ask if somethings works without defining what they mean by “works”. Without a definition, any explanation is useless.

If we define works as “producing heat” then clay pot heaters work, but so do candles on their own! This is easy to test. Stick your finger in the flame of a burning candle and you will convince yourself as you sit in the hospital waiting room.

If we define works as “producing more heat than the candles alone” then the answer is a resounding NO!

First Law of Thermodynamics​

The first law of thermodynamics says you can’t create energy. Energy can be converted from one form to another, but the total amount of energy in any closed system is fixed.

This is a fundamental law of science that is well accepted and taught in many entry level science courses. It was first published by James Watt in 1774 as part of his work on the steam engine but others helped refine the wording.

A burning candle converts the chemical energy in the wax to heat energy. One tea candle will produce around 30 watts of heat. The way you burn the candle does not change the amount of heat produced, provided it is fully burned. A candle outside a clay pot or inside a clay pot still produces 30 watts of heat.

The clay pot is the same before you light the candle and after the heater cools down. Since it does not change, the first law of thermodynamics says it can’t produce heat. Adding more clay pots or using different sizes of clay pots or any of the other suggested designs will not affect this.

Anyone who claims that one clay pot heater design produces more heat than another is deluding themselves because none are more efficient than just using the candles on their own.

(From John70's posted article above, emphasis mine. WT.)
Click to expand...
I always get a chuckle out of people who think that they are so clever by keeping the oven door open after baking, and that the escaping heat will somehow scavenge more efficiently, heat that would normally just be 'lost' if they kept it shut.
 
wobble said:
I'll get my bicycle generator hooked right up to it after I drink an energy drink and take a crap to get the load out if me so I can pedal like there is no tomorrow..
Click to expand...
Whatever works for you to keep warm. I have 3 of these tea candle clay pot heaters and I am looking at parts of them scattered around the room as I type this. My little $12 heater is cranking out the heat keeping me warm.

It's more the open flame part that is dangerous. Many places burn down in the cold because of people trying to stay warm with open flame heat. Have a toasty day!! Blessings
 
Broccoli said:
Whatever works for you to keep warm. I have 3 of these tea candle clay pot heaters and I am looking at parts of them scattered around the room as I type this. My little $12 heater is cranking out the heat keeping me warm.

It's more the open flame part that is dangerous. Many places burn down in the cold because of people trying to stay warm with open flame heat. Have a toasty day!! Blessings
Click to expand...
The thread is about the clay pots and potential design/concept for emergency heat.
But you need electricity for the electric heater. I guess you could build one and make your own electricity, enough to run a 400 watt element..
I rather enjoyed the success and find it funny how many people argue the negatives and also argue that it wont work.
And the flame is not "open".
All the flame is under ceramic pots. No flame is exposed to any materials other than the ceramics or metal.
 
If people are serious about adding a marginal amount of BTU's to a room at an actual 1200/1400 BTU's/hour, and do it much more safely!, get a Dietz oil lantern with a 7/8 inch wick. Those would be the models - Jupiter 2500 (BIGGEST fuel tank - made to take the chill off greenhouses, pumphouses, etc.), or the D-lite, Air Pilot or Blizzard (all 3, smaller tank) .


Otherwise, get serious, and get a proper kerosene heater for $180-200.00/unit, putting out ~ 24,000 BTU's/hour.
OR go with propane bottles and a Mr. Buddy heater which will get you 4000-18000 BTU's/hour for $90-150.00/unit.

You don't get something for nothing.
 
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WalknTrot said:
If people are serious about adding a marginal amount of BTU's to a room at an actual 1200/1400 BTU's/hour, and do it much more safely!, get a Dietz oil lantern with a 7/8 inch wick. Those would be the models - Jupiter 2500 (BIGGEST fuel tank - made to take the chill off greenhouses, pumphouses, etc.), or the D-lite, Air Pilot or Blizzard (all 3, smaller tank) .


Otherwise, get serious, and get a proper kerosene heater for $180-200.00/unit, putting out ~ 24,000 BTU's/hour.
OR go with propane bottles and a Mr. Buddy heater which will get you 4000-18000 BTU's/hour for $90-150.00/unit.

You don't get something for nothing.
Click to expand...
I'd figure out a similar concept to gather the heat production from the lamps that would not cause issues.
Putting a lamp like that inside a fluted pot would be immediately dangerous, but suspending or erecting a cradle for a large stone over the flame would do similar things to conserve and radiate the heat, but you would need a lot of lamps and I dont think the environment would be all that pleasant to be in with 100 fuel lamps going, but with larger flames, perhaps less lamps would be needed to match the output of 100 or so candles.

I am currently working on a compost pile design with embedded tubes to gather the heat and funnel the heat into the already existing HVAC to augment the utility side of heat production. As long as I have wood(reduced with chipper) and other crap to toss in there I have heat generating compost, and with the right attention to processes, that pile can get very hot for a very long time and all I have to do is feed it and keep the conditions proper to keep it going.
 
Wicks can be purchased on ebay in long rolls.

Two photos of my Dietz Air Pilot, No. 8 , completely made of all brass.
It is dusty from hanging in my basement for 20 years. I paid $50.00 for it
from an antique store along the Mississippi River years ago.

Dietz 8, Air Pilot.JPGDietz 8, Air Pilot.JPG

Dietz #8.JPG
 
bw said:
It may get hot, but there's not much heat contained in the wax of a tea light candle.
Click to expand...
Especially since they are half the height they use to be and have an even smaller wick. All the vintage warmers for food that worked with a t-light fail miserably with the ones available now.
 
I've been grabbing and restoring various Dietz lanterns when I run across them, but leaning toward the older ones made in USA. Parts and globes are easy to find. Lehman's, Kirkman, etc.

The Dietz models (like MW's lantern above) with the 7/8 wick will give off more light and heat, and are fairly cheap for what you get. Safe, functional and simple. Not saying the new-made ones aren't OK, because they generally are. Also have a couple old, (immediately post-WWII) Feuerhand German-made brand lanterns which everyone raves about. They are nice, but not THAT much better. They, or the new-bought ones, don't have the wider wicks of the four mentioned Dietz models.

These two below are pretty cool, and pretty, too! They usually live in a south-facing kitchen window because I enjoy the colors in the sunlight. Actually were used by various utility companies across the country in the day (up until the 1950's?) as hazard/road warning lights. One is factory-stamped from Minneapolis (MNPLS) Gas Co. and the other from City of Oakland. You can see the key chained to the orange one for the wick raiser. Supposedly, the workers carried the keys to keep the public from messing with the lanterns. Also the factory stamped ownership to keep people from ripping off the lanterns. :lol:

The little green one is a Feuerhand Super Baby Spec. , probably in the 70 YO range, but burns like a mini-champ.
Haha...I should have lit them for the picture, but too late now.

20251207_142941.jpg
 
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