Hi Robert ! I just wanted to testify that the stainless steel pot idea works wonderful! Up here in northern Wisconsin we recently had a bad and very cold winter storm come through about a week ago or so .Our windchill index was at -45 to -50 °F here and our 106 year old house dropped to 61° F inside .I put 2 big candles with just 6 wicks under a stainless steel pot and over a period of 6-8 hours it raised the temperature by 3° ,which is amazing because we had 40 mph winds and the house gets cool fast when th as t happens. But I'm going to try the carbon felt idea next ,so thank you for the great tip ! Cheers ! 🙂
I used to service fireplaces and install stoves and inserts. I experiment much as you and so many others do. For the life of me I don't understand people who think that the terra cotta pot heaters can't work. Where I live, Mexican chimeneas are very popular. I use one indoors using canles, alcohol stoves and paraffin heaters; all that I've made. CO is well within acceptable limits and I raise the ambient room temp in a 12x20' room by 5 degrees in less than a half hour. Placing a metal bar across the top of the flue with a Sterling motor stove fan on top it makes the room quite comfy, usually about 25-30 °F warmer than outdoors. If I were to put a larger burner in there I am confident that it would get too warm to be comfortable in here. If you've read this far, thank you. PS for the ceramic pot deniers, there's a reason my forge and foundry are both lined with ceramic materials. 😉
A BTU is a BTU is a BTU. The law of conservation of energy applies to the argument. The amount of heat produced by a smallish flame is the same whether you're heating the air (convection) or heating the things around the space (radiant). The BTU output of a candle flame, burning paraffin wax is only about 9BTUs. That's just 65% of the BTUs produced with an electric 4-watt nightlight bulb. A candle burning soy wax only produces around 6BTUs. A typical candle isn't going to create any kind of meaningful heat. However, with that said, Robert is using vegetable oil, which is more closely associated with soy than with paraffin. He also has a flame which is at least 1.5" in height and a wick up to 1/2" in diameter. It's going to output orders of magnitude more heat than a typical candle. For comparison, a typical hurricane lantern with a half inch flat wick can output as much as 900BTUs/hour when burning kerosene. That kind of heating can definitely warm a small room with radiant heat. In 2020, I kept a 125CF polypropylene (PE) greenhouse at 68F when the outside temperature was -10F (a 78F temperature differential on opposite sides of flimsy plastic!!) using a 1500watt oil filled radiator space heater and (3) 1-K kerosene hurricane lanterns to supplement the electric space heater. The argument as to whether a terra cotta pot heater can work or not, has more to do with the size of the flame than anything. A typical candle or tea light candle just doesn't output enough BTUs to accomplish much of anything. The wick is barely a 1/16 of an inch in diameter, and the flame is not much more than 3/8" tall. But if you create your own candles -- vegetable oil, kerosene, paraffin oil, diesel fuel or even vegetable shortening -- with a quarter inch round wick or larger, or multiple quarter inch round wicks, then that terra cotta pot heater will work like a charm. As BTU levels rise, so too will fuel consumption. You'll get the most bang from your buck with diesel fuel, once you overcome its tendency to gel in cold weather.
Put the candle in a tube surrounded by a water jacket and in a hr or two you will have enough hot water to have a bath. Bath by candlelight takes on a whole new meaning. 😊
We've used the terracotta pot and tea light candles with success for a small room, in a power cut. Will definitely have to try the carbon felt wick idea. Thank you for the inspiration and sharing your thinking outside the box, pot, etc.
I've changed my mind back and forth on the terra cotta heater. I think it captures some of the heat that would otherwise just go straight up to the ceiling and made a spider up there think it was Chinook season. It doesn't add one erg of energy given off by the flame, but it re-directs some of that energy sideways to where people are. It'll feel much warmer next to it with a metal or ceramic radiator absorbing and re-radiating the heat to the side. At first, I thought it might be the heat mass of the clay pot extending the release time of the heat, and it would continue to give off heat after the candle was extinguished, but it'd only have as much heat stored up as its heat capacity times its mass would allow, and it's not really that much mass, and the temperatures achieved aren't really that high. You need a lot of mass and a lot of heat put into that mass to do a whole lot after the flame goes out. I just think there's more to the re-radiation of some of the heat, laterally, is what makes it out-perform a burner, alone.
My uncle who’s an electrician and built his own house chose to install electric radiant heating in the ceiling which was interesting because the air was relatively cool but the furniture was warm and it felt comfortable. His house was connected to discounted unreliable power, so was required to have secondary heat (wood stove) in case of an extended outage.
Overhead radiant heat is much better than heated floors for many reasons, although it does mean you (and your cats) can't stretch out on a nice warm floor as quickly. But we're more accustomed to radiant heat from above, because of the sun, and it does warm the furniture. Added bonuses include much lower installation cost, less wear and tear on the system -- and, if it leaks, you know right away and can get at it to fix it much more easily and cheaply.
Nice! Glad someone could use my alcohol trick. I also experimented using of all things, a terracotta wick for the same reason you used the carbon felt & Kevlar wicks, longevity. However at the end of the day, I decided the carbon buildup would eventually clog the terracotta poors and scrapped the idea for the most part but changing the surface of the terra cotta has an excellent result for the flame 🔥!!! If you decide to use the terracotta wick idea there are some very important tricks to get it to light and to stay lit which I won't bother to discuss unless someone wants to try it. Also, another rock wick I wanted to try comes from a material found in a Europe quarry yard with exceptional wicking properties, but they kept dropping the ball when I tried to order the material. Lastly researched the ideal size of capillary tubes (which I obtained) for moving fluids of thin viscosity a long distance, I found it did move ultra thin fluids but could not get it to light 🕯️for more than a few seconds sadly. Can't remember if I tried the alcohol trick or not. GL and TY for the vids as always!
@@MichaelAckerman Ordinary wicks and homemade wicks are fine. Curious? Why put a ceramic cap on a wick, do you mean like a terracotta wick to spread the heat? If so, yes; or glass for light. Not sure if any form of glass will radiate heat but if so, it gives the added benefit of both radiating heat and producing visible light 🕯️!
Thanks to this channel, I bought myself some of this graphite carbon 'welders felt' off ebay, tested it with my blowtorch to make sure I had the real deal, and yup! Now I have a really nice heater/cooker - thank you sooo much!!
Thanks for this and the original carbon filter/felt wick video. This is exciting information and it is appreciated! Very kind of you to share this with the world!
Done this but with a propane burner. I used a old water bath canner for my pot. Definitely more heat than burner alone. Now use it to heat my work shop and water if needed
Some interesting studys on the health benefits of infrared light recently and how it affects the body and the brain, check out med cram. A lot of recent tech advances have removed the levels of infrared from light bulbs and we don't use radiant heaters as much any more. Looking like we are going the wrong way in some respects. Sometimes the old tech is the best. Interesting video, I really like your forever wick design.
I've been using one of these in my office for years every winter and it works really well, I fitted a 4inch fan at floor level which I turn on before I enter the office. My windows used to be full of condensation in the morning and y metal shelving was wet but not anymore.
Remember the Victorian era dark lantern? An aperature could be opened in the opaque shade of an oil lamp to shine a beam. They also got hot enough in a closed space to warm people so much they had to leave or put out the lamp. Good video!
You can still buy candle powered versions. Now that batteries and LEDs are so good for light; they're basically only advertised for their heating properties.
Be handy to keep the cuppa tea hot. I tried the tea light plant pot heater back in spring. I did the (double pot?) method of having the internal one capture the heat and the external one with three small stones as risers trap the radiation in the gap between them to get some airflow going. Cap off the internal pot and the air coming out the hole of the external was reasonable. Place stank of tea lights though.
but with the double pot you take away the radiation heat and you go back to convection heating, wich means you could just as wel use the tealights out in the open i think.
@@gabbermaikel I found it to be warmer with the double pot method than with just the tea lights. Four tea lights got the internal pot to a high enough temp to be painful to touch. Spread over the surface of the pot it could heat a larger volume of air. If I was warming my hands I'd go with one but if I wanted to warm the room, slightly, two works better so far as I've seen. Just one heater won't make much of a difference but it took the sting out of a cold morning in a single room. Edit: a word.
My background is in engineering, physics, and advanced mathematics, but even an old dog like me can still learn new tricks/things. Luv your videos, and hope you never stop posting them...
I put a stove fan on top of the pan and to my amazement it ran and blow warm at me for two hours using 6 tea candles. I'll try it using your carbon cloth idea.
Some other add-ons can be pc heat sinks or "fins" on the metal to increase surface area and having a fan move air over the surface to help distribute the heat in a room.
its quite an amazing selection you find with "portable wood burning stove camping" that you can use as your base burning device for extending this chip oil + carbon felt + jerrys increased under air flow + flue
My "designated outdoor smoking aread" on my apartment patio, is used with plant pot. A medium smalle pot over the candle, with a small pot on top. I drilled a hole in the center of the first pot, and off to the side on the other ppot. Too capture the most heat, and still let the bad stuff get out the tent window. of my " out house small" tent. Works fine. But I will absolutely be checking out some carbon felt and steel mesh.
I always thought about setting up a vent and fan system that would pull the risen heat down to the floor and recirculate it. 🤔 And run it in reverse in the summer. This is a very cool video! Thanks for sharing 🙌
@@orpheuscreativeco9236 Most ceiling fans have a switch so that you can reverse it. One setting works better in the winter and one works better in the summer.
Im in the camp of it does work. I had a few mods to my set up. I used the stack method (one smaller pot and one large pot) My mod was: I used a copper tubing to wrap around the smaller pot and the excess down the center hole of same pot to sit directly above flame. In my head the heat would collect under the two pots, the ceramic would heat up and radiate out, but with the copper plumbing tube being heated directly by the flame the outside pot would be heated evenly instead of the heat loss escaping through the center holes in the pots. I Guess you could say I used the tubing as an internal radiator. My bedroom was only 11 x 12 and I had plenty of furniture to absorb the radiating heat. (Computer desk and chair, book shelves, futon) but it got so hot I had to crack a window(It was the middle of an ice storm 23 degrees F)
The original Kandle Heeter had a steel rod hanging down through the middle to touch the ~1000C flame. That conducted heat to the pot a lot more efficiently than just air.
Robert - love your channel. One reason the shiny, steel pot got so hot is that the polished metal has a low emissivity, meaning that at a given temperature it does not radiate as much. Much of the heat will therefore remain in the metal until it convects away through natural convection. Maybe a follow on video would be on using pans or pots with different emissivities. Cheers.
This is basically what I wanted to add, if yer building an radiating heater, shiny is bad, you want to radiate, so one must chose a proper surface for that. Clay probably has better emissivity, using the graphite cover trick presented by Robert in another video is a good idea. Graphite, being black and somewhat matte should be a good radiative surface treatment. Graphite is also such a thin layer it doesn't pose much of an isolator.
I have the big saucepan method at home. With 4 tea lights its capable of warming a double bedroom sized room by 2 degrees C. I put my smalls on top, and hey presto they steam dry, I put my coffee mug on top and it will keep it warm, it rewards ingenuity.
Robert, I am totally fixated on this idea. Am thinking that one way to really improve the efficiency of the idea is to use a louvered rings around the candle flame. Circular rings can be staked much higher and can give the unit more radiant heat output. Well that is my idea and think it would work. The carbon wick idea you came up with is most certainly a HIT. Well done fella.
@@wendellpowell2653 This was the first thing I thought of Wendell. But I realized right away that the cooling fins are at the wrong angle. Using lovers that are on say a 45 degree angle will let the heat do its thing and rise vertically. This way you can make the chimney as tall as possible with the flame size you are working with. Just my idea. Hope someone runs with it and experiments to improve this type of heater. Peace
This got me thinking about stacked cookware, where the bottom pot warms the pot above it enough to cook in that too. Normally you cook about 2 or 3 pots high, but for a heater, you might be able to go higher.
I make mini heaters that burn alcohol I cover them with tin cans that I've punched ventilation holes in. They Don't really heat the room but they do take the chill off as long as you're close enough you can feel the heat
Doc, I like the idea of alcohol as it can be made from almost anything stored ran in engines. Im too tired to make all the calculations but i worry from direct heating some heat is lost from cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. I guess this is true for all fuel. A friend of mine had 6 guage copper wire running from flame back to the fuel to keep it warm.
@@mike289homebuilt5 I am not that worried about a few degrees loss. I'm burning alcohol in a canful of sand and heating another can.. you can probably find it on my channel by typing in alcohol
I already made a plant-pot heater with 3 pots bolted together and have used it with a range of candles. I used scented candles, DON'T, the carbon that comes off it will stain paintwork. I made my own candles with wax and up to 6 wicks, don't use any additives as they will cause carbon particles to be emitted as they burn. One word of caution the bolt gets exceptionally hot.
This might sound strange, but you might want to take apart a vape if you haven't already. They function surprisingly similar to the heaters you've been building, the difference being you breath the vapors as opposed to setting them on fire.
@@ThinkingandTinkering Agree, good saying there. Perhaps it's another type of ventng system. People vent hot air through small things, cos they can't reach the big things.
The issue I always understood about plant pot heaters, is not that they don't work, it's that, should the clay get hot enough, it can rupture and explode. While the pan is great, I love how that is going to work with pets and children.
The minimalistic heater... you could wrap copper tube around the pot and run it to a tank above the heated portion and make a flowing water heater as well.. unsung a pressure differential pump that just uses the pressure to pump...
It would work even better if you painted the outside--would make it more emissive (emissitive?)/transparent to IR (I mean it would increase the emissivity). Then, if you wanted it to heat yourself more specifically if you're sitting on a chair or the like, you can put some convexed material with shiny aluminum surface behind it to direct the IR towards you.
I've seen videos where they've used pots. But I liked the idea of using several plant pots because (I think) they'll hold the heat longer. By putting a smaller pot inside with a long metal (hollow) bolt down the center of the plant pot hole, you can ad some spacers and bolts above it. Then place a larger plant pot on top of those and screw it down with the end of the long bolt sticking out at the top. You might even go with 3 plant pots. I tried to set one up like that myself a few years ago, but never had a chance to put it to good use.
Ur gonna want to figure out how to make sure to put a seal on the bottom saucer. It a hazard if fuel can seep through, even worse if it is on fire as it seeps
You may want to watch Desertsun02 on his channel. He is quite nifty with pot heaters, not tried myself but the one he has done with some 4" tee duct and a small fan looks impressive.
I think your efficiency of energy transfer from the flame will be much greater if you turn it up side down and allow the flame to hit the stainless steel ! If the flame has to warm the air and inturn it warms the pot you have a very ineffecient step that could be deleted . For best results of effeciency put an aluminium skirt around the pot creating a second skin with a 2mm gap. The hot air coming out the sides will go up the side and travel between these 2 metal skins ! High end camping equipment employs this for best efficiency of liquid or gas fuels .
Maybe you could use the method from video 1640 and rub graphite on a terracotta plantpot... After that video I ve built a mushroom drying rig using this method on a polypropylen plantpot. Then it struck me that I could use the method on regular terracotta roof bricks to get them heatet . It works great.
Hi Robert may I have another suggestion Building a small tin can rocket stove around that fuse. (a smaller version alike the one I ve used in the lawnmower bicyle ) maybe that way there eould be less carbon monoxite buildup
Having watched several Rocket Stove videos I recall the argument that a yellow flame is not completely burning the available fuel which is inefficient, quite apart from the risk from carbon monoxide and the mess from carbon black deposits. How about combining your minimalist carbon foam and copper tube room heater with a long (hot) chimney, arranged to encourage a more complete and efficient burn ?
The original heater used a steel bolt with nuts and washers to make the thermal mass of the plant pot heater. Then the bolt was directly heated by the flame as a thermal mass. With soot being the infrared thermal material. Though correct me if I am wrong.
I was thinking about soot being one of the least reflective materials. Might be just what's needed and the heat source actually producing it as it burns is genius
Hey Mate. I thoroughly enjoy your vid's. & Have learned plenty from them. I was stationed at RAF Upper Heyford, from Oct 80 - Oct 82.. So I know, love & respect the British way of doing things. Your a freaking genius. But you put in terms that is ez to understand. With that said.... 🤔 I got a question about something... But dont want to think that I can just pop in and expect an answer.... So.... Let me know if you got the time... Please & Thank You.. 😎 I always got a kick out of you "Bloody Blokes".... And your females..... They were the best.... ❤️
You're talking about creating more energy than you're using (which is impossible). I think it's a neet concept and certainly good to know if you're living a small tent in some type of survival situation. . . . but for an entire room I don't believe it's very efficient. You would need many of them.
I'm wondering if you could put a "gas mantle" around this, using the heat to create light as well. Using a quite small candle to produce both extra heat and therefore extra light. Curious how much light this would put out. I may try it myself but I'd rather see your look of amazement, it's one of my joys is seeing other people amazed by what happens.
I tried using a gas mantle with a candle and with an alcohol burner. A candle does not get hot enough. Only the tiny spot of blue in a candle flame produces a tiny speck of white in the mantle. An alcohol burner also does not get hot enough to make more than a tiny spot of white appear. You need a hot flame, so perhaps an actively drafted alcohol flame or a gas flame.
thanks for this. frankly - in a no heat situation I'd be glad to have that little candle heat with a clay pot! or a cook pot... it'll heat a tent if thats how you gotta do it this winter.
Robert, can you please make a video testing how long the carbon felt wick will last in a standard full glass of vegetable oil before the wick gets clogged or how many full glass of oil can this wick burn till it needs to be replaced to evaluate the cost effectiveness of this method. This is a great idea but if the carbon felt clogs too easily, it really won't work for a long term heating solution for poor people, van life people, people living off grid, and others that might want to save on heating cost.
I have seen videos where the person was in a van, with 40f / 4.4c temperature outside and slightly warmer inside. after lighting a flower pot heater with 3 tea lights, and waiting an hour, he saw an increase of roughly 2 degrees. He was using an analog thermometer for air temp, and a laser temp reader on the pot which did get up to 200+ f / 93.23+c. Now if you are in a very well insulated house / small room 8'x8' / 2.4mx2.4m it will maintain a temp in the 60's / 15+c if the air is close to that temperature. But again those that say it works always use the laser temp probe, those that don't use the analog air thermometer.
I note a couple of people saying that, at the end of the day, the heating effect produced is limited by the fact that a candle/wick is only going to produce a specific/limited number of BTUs... and you can't produce any more heat than what can be achieved by releasing the energy from those BTUs. However, the whole point of the Plant Pot Heater idea is that, if you just burn a candle (or whatever) those BTUs get converted into light and heat: The light obviously radiates - but a large proportion of that is in the visible spectrum, which (to my limited knowledge) doesn't produce a lot of heat. What little heat (from combustion) is produced by the candle/wick then heats the immediately surrounding air molecules and that, by convection, is dissipated very quickly with little heating effect on objects a few feet or metres away - and eventually ends up heating cold, dark/draughty corners of the room - or usually, any object placed just overhead the candle/wick. Rob's point is that, by trapping all of the BTUs with a "device" (I believe Rob would call it a "Converter") which converts the would-be convected heat into energy which heats the "pot" (or saucepan) - actually, a "proper" radiator, then the converted energy is now travelling on into the universe (room) as radiated energy - which will be transferred by the frequencies such as infra-red - which in turn cause heating by radiation - rather than convection. It's the difference between warm air currents wafting "willy-nilly" around a room (and maybe heating some parts a bit) and radiation energy - which is transmitted in straight lines, effecting thermal change on whatever those rays hit first. I might be wrong and apologise for my ignorance but... I think that's the point of the whole thing? I'm gonna test this out myself... :-)
Had an old oil filled radiator that was not working, stripped the plastic and electric off, I now heat it with 8 tea lights underneath, also I filled 4 strongbow cans with water and heat each can with a candle acts as a small radiator and also the hot water does the dishes, great segment.
Build a double chimney and stuff scour pads inside either that or a Spiral diverter it works on paper lol. Some metals corrode in heat or moisture and release bad chemicals
One interesting note 🎶 is that with thermal heat is that the hotter the heat source, the faster and greater it will disipate into the sourounding area. I know, it's a no brainer but important caviat. Lol
In a previous video you showed the forever wick in a copper pipe lying down on a plate of cooking oil, burning at one end. In the lying down position, I believe that the other end could be lit up, thus burning both ends- double the BTU output. Is this plausable or too danderous?
Two ideas to minimize convection heat and increase radiant heat: 1) use a counterflow heat exchanger to heat the oxygen-rich intake air with the oxygen-poor exhaust air. 2) Use "cold mirrors" to reflect the non-heating wavelengths back to the flame. Cold mirrors and hot mirrors are made with special materials to selectively reflect light wavelengths.
Hi Robert, just a thought in the quick add on, I'm wondering if you had the same result if the temperature gauge was further away. How far away will you have effect from it?
I would prefer the plant pot, but your idea is great either in an emergency or to test the concept out. i actually use a plant pot heater for spot heat in my home office. It works great, though I do use lamp oil, instead of vegetable oil. I do wonder about using methanol, ethanol, etc. in it, but am somewhat concerned about thermal shock on the terracotta. EDIT: I just watched episode 1777, where you address terracotta thermal shock. I like my terracotta plant pot heater since the terracotta holds the heat well and for a long time, though. Is there an alternative that isn't much at risk of thermal shock?
Always love your Videos Rob! For some reason YT stopped showing any of your videos in my feed. I haven't a clue as to why. I've always been a good commenter, Subbed to all your channels + Luke, Like all your videos. I don't know what's happening there but for about 6 months I had 0 videos from your channel pop up, I have to manually search you up in order to see your stuff. What the heck is going on there!?
Today I made a heater by cutting a long skinny carbon felt wick, wrapping some wire tightly around the tip, securing the wire across the top of a can of crisco, and shoving the wick down into the center of the can. The wick would have fallen down into the shortening once it melted and that's why I used the wire; I didn't want it to fall in and be extinguished. The carbon felt burned wonderfully. Now I just need to build an inverted dome over the top, but while I burned it, it gave me light as well as a small amount of heat.
It would be great if you could show us how to make a mantle ? Great amount of light and heat would be great in the winter months ! Please and thank you 👍
Riverside Homestead Life has a great video about using Crisco as the fuel for a 72 hour heater, I wonder if you can get some and try the Forever Wick with it? Im sure thats a winning combination!!
With the right material you can even make a focused beam and heat a particular spot. Just think of those outdoor electric heaters. Aside from simply pulling a ridiculous amount of power, they have reflectors that direct the infrared radiation down toward where you're sitting. If you had a parabolic dish, you might even be able to point it across a field.
we've used pot heaters for years it was something my grandmother showed me they never worried about carbon monoxide in them days😂 and they do work depending on on how much space you want to heat if it's a large space use two
how do you know that? I ask because I think you are making that up. Double glazing and central heating where rare and houses were draughtier - when central heating came in folks started sealing up the house with draught excluders etc - so - my guess is they didn't worry because it wasn't an issue and it wasn't an issue because ventilation was better - but I am happy to admit I am guessing here - are you guessing too?
I have put some old storage heater bricks behind and down the sides of my Morso Squirrel stove , So they will heat up with the stove and store some of the heat .
Now, if you use a cast-iron pot with a flat bottom, you also will have a nifty little hob to boil water on for tea or cooking in the event you have a power outage. 😃
Hi Robert ! I just wanted to testify that the stainless steel pot idea works wonderful! Up here in northern Wisconsin we recently had a bad and very cold winter storm come through about a week ago or so .Our windchill index was at -45 to -50 °F here and our 106 year old house dropped to 61° F inside .I put 2 big candles with just 6 wicks under a stainless steel pot and over a period of 6-8 hours it raised the temperature by 3° ,which is amazing because we had 40 mph winds and the house gets cool fast when th as t happens. But I'm going to try the carbon felt idea next ,so thank you for the great tip ! Cheers ! 🙂
I used to service fireplaces and install stoves and inserts. I experiment much as you and so many others do. For the life of me I don't understand people who think that the terra cotta pot heaters can't work. Where I live, Mexican chimeneas are very popular. I use one indoors using canles, alcohol stoves and paraffin heaters; all that I've made. CO is well within acceptable limits and I raise the ambient room temp in a 12x20' room by 5 degrees in less than a half hour. Placing a metal bar across the top of the flue with a Sterling motor stove fan on top it makes the room quite comfy, usually about 25-30 °F warmer than outdoors. If I were to put a larger burner in there I am confident that it would get too warm to be comfortable in here. If you've read this far, thank you.
PS for the ceramic pot deniers, there's a reason my forge and foundry are both lined with ceramic materials. 😉
A BTU is a BTU is a BTU. The law of conservation of energy applies to the argument. The amount of heat produced by a smallish flame is the same whether you're heating the air (convection) or heating the things around the space (radiant). The BTU output of a candle flame, burning paraffin wax is only about 9BTUs. That's just 65% of the BTUs produced with an electric 4-watt nightlight bulb. A candle burning soy wax only produces around 6BTUs. A typical candle isn't going to create any kind of meaningful heat.
However, with that said, Robert is using vegetable oil, which is more closely associated with soy than with paraffin. He also has a flame which is at least 1.5" in height and a wick up to 1/2" in diameter. It's going to output orders of magnitude more heat than a typical candle. For comparison, a typical hurricane lantern with a half inch flat wick can output as much as 900BTUs/hour when burning kerosene. That kind of heating can definitely warm a small room with radiant heat.
In 2020, I kept a 125CF polypropylene (PE) greenhouse at 68F when the outside temperature was -10F (a 78F temperature differential on opposite sides of flimsy plastic!!) using a 1500watt oil filled radiator space heater and (3) 1-K kerosene hurricane lanterns to supplement the electric space heater.
The argument as to whether a terra cotta pot heater can work or not, has more to do with the size of the flame than anything. A typical candle or tea light candle just doesn't output enough BTUs to accomplish much of anything. The wick is barely a 1/16 of an inch in diameter, and the flame is not much more than 3/8" tall. But if you create your own candles -- vegetable oil, kerosene, paraffin oil, diesel fuel or even vegetable shortening -- with a quarter inch round wick or larger, or multiple quarter inch round wicks, then that terra cotta pot heater will work like a charm. As BTU levels rise, so too will fuel consumption. You'll get the most bang from your buck with diesel fuel, once you overcome its tendency to gel in cold weather.
Put the candle in a tube surrounded by a water jacket and in a hr or two you will have enough hot water to have a bath. Bath by candlelight takes on a whole new meaning. 😊
Hi
I know this is probably a stupid question, but what is a water jacket?
@@jude7321 might be a heat exchanger?
@@stonedsavage7814
Hi. Thanks for answering my question but I don't know what that is either. Sorry for being so ignorant.
@@jude7321 its actually a bath jacket
oh neat!!
We've used the terracotta pot and tea light candles with success for a small room, in a power cut. Will definitely have to try the carbon felt wick idea. Thank you for the inspiration and sharing your thinking outside the box, pot, etc.
cheers mate
I've changed my mind back and forth on the terra cotta heater.
I think it captures some of the heat that would otherwise just go straight up to the ceiling and made a spider up there think it was Chinook season. It doesn't add one erg of energy given off by the flame, but it re-directs some of that energy sideways to where people are. It'll feel much warmer next to it with a metal or ceramic radiator absorbing and re-radiating the heat to the side.
At first, I thought it might be the heat mass of the clay pot extending the release time of the heat, and it would continue to give off heat after the candle was extinguished, but it'd only have as much heat stored up as its heat capacity times its mass would allow, and it's not really that much mass, and the temperatures achieved aren't really that high.
You need a lot of mass and a lot of heat put into that mass to do a whole lot after the flame goes out. I just think there's more to the re-radiation of some of the heat, laterally, is what makes it out-perform a burner, alone.
@@ThinkingandTinkering i tried this with the carbon fiber and lamp oil but the fumes were strong… please let me know what brand of fiber you use…
My uncle who’s an electrician and built his own house chose to install electric radiant heating in the ceiling which was interesting because the air was relatively cool but the furniture was warm and it felt comfortable. His house was connected to discounted unreliable power, so was required to have secondary heat (wood stove) in case of an extended outage.
Overhead radiant heat is much better than heated floors for many reasons, although it does mean you (and your cats) can't stretch out on a nice warm floor as quickly. But we're more accustomed to radiant heat from above, because of the sun, and it does warm the furniture. Added bonuses include much lower installation cost, less wear and tear on the system -- and, if it leaks, you know right away and can get at it to fix it much more easily and cheaply.
Nice! Glad someone could use my alcohol trick. I also experimented using of all things, a terracotta wick for the same reason you used the carbon felt & Kevlar wicks, longevity. However at the end of the day, I decided the carbon buildup would eventually clog the terracotta poors and scrapped the idea for the most part but changing the surface of the terra cotta has an excellent result for the flame 🔥!!!
If you decide to use the terracotta wick idea there are some very important tricks to get it to light and to stay lit which I won't bother to discuss unless someone wants to try it.
Also, another rock wick I wanted to try comes from a material found in a Europe quarry yard with exceptional wicking properties, but they kept dropping the ball when I tried to order the material.
Lastly researched the ideal size of capillary tubes (which I obtained) for moving fluids of thin viscosity a long distance, I found it did move ultra thin fluids but could not get it to light 🕯️for more than a few seconds sadly. Can't remember if I tried the alcohol trick or not.
GL and TY for the vids as always!
Would it be difficult to put a fireproof cap on a cotton wick?
Actually, I don't see the problem with ordinary wicks, but I may be missing something.
it was a good idea mate - thanks for sharing it
@@MichaelAckerman Ordinary wicks and homemade wicks are fine. Curious? Why put a ceramic cap on a wick, do you mean like a terracotta wick to spread the heat? If so, yes; or glass for light. Not sure if any form of glass will radiate heat but if so, it gives the added benefit of both radiating heat and producing visible light 🕯️!
@@MichaelAckerman ordinary wicks burn up. The carbon fiber wick also does but very very much slower leading to him calling it the forever wick.
Will Carbontape work? or is that something else.. Carbontape is normally used with epoxy to make object strong.
Nice to see I'm not the only one working on an idea whilst having an ongoing project in pieces on the bench.
Really enjoying your channel 👍
ahhh - you noticed that lol - nice one mate
Thanks to this channel, I bought myself some of this graphite carbon 'welders felt' off ebay, tested it with my blowtorch to make sure I had the real deal, and yup! Now I have a really nice heater/cooker - thank you sooo much!!
Can you post a link to what you bought please?
Can you tell us the EBay "sellers" info , please ?
Thanks for this and the original carbon filter/felt wick video. This is exciting information and it is appreciated!
Very kind of you to share this with the world!
cheers mate - from the previous video and comments I thought it would be good to go a bit more into the theory
Done this but with a propane burner. I used a old water bath canner for my pot. Definitely more heat than burner alone. Now use it to heat my work shop and water if needed
nice - cheers mate
Some interesting studys on the health benefits of infrared light recently and how it affects the body and the brain, check out med cram. A lot of recent tech advances have removed the levels of infrared from light bulbs and we don't use radiant heaters as much any more. Looking like we are going the wrong way in some respects. Sometimes the old tech is the best. Interesting video, I really like your forever wick design.
I've been using one of these in my office for years every winter and it works really well, I fitted a 4inch fan at floor level which I turn on before I enter the office.
My windows used to be full of condensation in the morning and y metal shelving was wet but not anymore.
nice one - thanks for sharing mate
Remember the Victorian era dark lantern? An aperature could be opened in the opaque shade of an oil lamp to shine a beam. They also got hot enough in a closed space to warm people so much they had to leave or put out the lamp. Good video!
that is a great add - cheers mate
You can still buy candle powered versions. Now that batteries and LEDs are so good for light; they're basically only advertised for their heating properties.
I love how you handle subjects and experiment with your ideas.
Thank you! Cheers!
tried the plant pot heater last year with T candles it worked a treat i might try this method with the carbon felt and oil this year thanks rob.
cheers mate
Be handy to keep the cuppa tea hot. I tried the tea light plant pot heater back in spring. I did the (double pot?) method of having the internal one capture the heat and the external one with three small stones as risers trap the radiation in the gap between them to get some airflow going. Cap off the internal pot and the air coming out the hole of the external was reasonable. Place stank of tea lights though.
but with the double pot you take away the radiation heat and you go back to convection heating, wich means you could just as wel use the tealights out in the open i think.
@@gabbermaikel I found it to be warmer with the double pot method than with just the tea lights. Four tea lights got the internal pot to a high enough temp to be painful to touch. Spread over the surface of the pot it could heat a larger volume of air.
If I was warming my hands I'd go with one but if I wanted to warm the room, slightly, two works better so far as I've seen. Just one heater won't make much of a difference but it took the sting out of a cold morning in a single room.
Edit: a word.
lol - there is always a drawback mate
My background is in engineering, physics, and advanced mathematics, but even an old dog like me can still learn new tricks/things. Luv your videos, and hope you never stop posting them...
You sir, are the Tommy Copper of DIY-science channels! All we need now's a catchphrase.
“Hi!”
“That’s awesome!”
Yes! I was also thinking along the lines of "That's awesome"!!!! I also think Rob needs to trademark that laugh! :-)
lol - cheers mate
I put a stove fan on top of the pan and to my amazement it ran and blow warm at me for two hours using 6 tea candles. I'll try it using your carbon cloth idea.
Some other add-ons can be pc heat sinks or "fins" on the metal to increase surface area and having a fan move air over the surface to help distribute the heat in a room.
Oh, so kind of like using cooling fins, but for the reverse purpose? Nice!
cheers mate
its quite an amazing selection you find with "portable wood burning stove camping" that you can use as your base burning device for extending this chip oil + carbon felt + jerrys increased under air flow + flue
there are just a ton of solutions when you look ate that is for sure - thanks for the reminder of that - cheers
yes i was too thinking that..
can use 3 tea light candle lanterns too i think?
My "designated outdoor smoking aread" on my apartment patio, is used with plant pot. A medium smalle pot over the candle, with a small pot on top. I drilled a hole in the center of the first pot, and off to the side on the other ppot. Too capture the most heat, and still let the bad stuff get out the tent window. of my " out house small" tent. Works fine. But I will absolutely be checking out some carbon felt and steel mesh.
You said it all Robert. Proof of the pudding is in the tastings. Yet another great video . thank you .
cheers mate
I couldn't find 2 plant pots so I used two tin cans, one large one small, in the same way. Seems to work fine.
They will but terracota holds the heat longer after the flame is extinguished.
I always thought about setting up a vent and fan system that would pull the risen heat down to the floor and recirculate it. 🤔 And run it in reverse in the summer. This is a very cool video! Thanks for sharing 🙌
That's what ceiling fans are for...
@@andyreact hahahahaha, yes but not as effective as floor vents. Especially in the summer months. You're circulating hot air down onto yourself 😉👍
@@orpheuscreativeco9236 Most ceiling fans have a switch so that you can reverse it. One setting works better in the winter and one works better in the summer.
@@justinw1765 Yes, they do. 👍 You're not quite understanding the point, and that's okay.
thank you for sharing that idea too mate - how about a bit further pull the air from the attic space?
Thanks for clearing that discussion up. I'll give it a go.👍👍👍
awesome mate
He makes stuff interesting. As an engineer half the battle to win is selling an idea with gusto......
Im in the camp of it does work. I had a few mods to my set up. I used the stack method (one smaller pot and one large pot) My mod was: I used a copper tubing to wrap around the smaller pot and the excess down the center hole of same pot to sit directly above flame. In my head the heat would collect under the two pots, the ceramic would heat up and radiate out, but with the copper plumbing tube being heated directly by the flame the outside pot would be heated evenly instead of the heat loss escaping through the center holes in the pots. I Guess you could say I used the tubing as an internal radiator. My bedroom was only 11 x 12 and I had plenty of furniture to absorb the radiating heat. (Computer desk and chair, book shelves, futon) but it got so hot I had to crack a window(It was the middle of an ice storm 23 degrees F)
I appreciate your videos. Here's a comment for the algorithms. Great job on the descriptions on how heat energy moves.
cheers mate
The original Kandle Heeter had a steel rod hanging down through the middle to touch the ~1000C flame. That conducted heat to the pot a lot more efficiently than just air.
Hmmm...CPU heatsink on top of the rod?
a cast-iron skillet would make a huge difference as a heatsink/radiator
cheers mate
In hvac work we put ac grills in ceiling heat grills in floors return grills by pass from summer to winter
Great information, there is a whole load of different variations on this theme that has possibilities to work.
Robert - love your channel. One reason the shiny, steel pot got so hot is that the polished metal has a low emissivity, meaning that at a given temperature it does not radiate as much. Much of the heat will therefore remain in the metal until it convects away through natural convection. Maybe a follow on video would be on using pans or pots with different emissivities. Cheers.
This is basically what I wanted to add, if yer building an radiating heater, shiny is bad, you want to radiate, so one must chose a proper surface for that. Clay probably has better emissivity, using the graphite cover trick presented by Robert in another video is a good idea. Graphite, being black and somewhat matte should be a good radiative surface treatment. Graphite is also such a thin layer it doesn't pose much of an isolator.
good idea for heating the greenhouse over winter months
for sure
I have the big saucepan method at home. With 4 tea lights its capable of warming a double bedroom sized room by 2 degrees C. I put my smalls on top, and hey presto they steam dry, I put my coffee mug on top and it will keep it warm, it rewards ingenuity.
Your videos are always GREAT---Thank You
Love that desk.
Robert, I am totally fixated on this idea. Am thinking that one way to really improve the efficiency of the idea is to use a louvered rings around the candle flame. Circular rings can be staked much higher and can give the unit more radiant heat output. Well that is my idea and think it would work.
The carbon wick idea you came up with is most certainly a HIT. Well done fella.
" louvered rings around the candle flame " ; find your self a trashed air cooled motorcycle jug or old V/W cylinder .
@@wendellpowell2653 This was the first thing I thought of Wendell. But I realized right away that the cooling fins are at the wrong angle. Using lovers that are on say a 45 degree angle will let the heat do its thing and rise vertically. This way you can make the chimney as tall as possible with the flame size you are working with.
Just my idea. Hope someone runs with it and experiments to improve this type of heater. Peace
This got me thinking about stacked cookware, where the bottom pot warms the pot above it enough to cook in that too. Normally you cook about 2 or 3 pots high, but for a heater, you might be able to go higher.
you must make it mate - I would love to see
@@colleenforrest7936 RIght on Colleen. This is a real logical way of thinking.
Brilliant video and excellent channel. Just one question on this video, could you please show us how you covered the pot in carbon. Thank you.
WOW, This man is a genius!
Works for me, an already Matt Black wood burning stove to feel the radiant heat use 9 tea lights - works just fine.
I make mini heaters that burn alcohol I cover them with tin cans that I've punched ventilation holes in. They Don't really heat the room but they do take the chill off as long as you're close enough you can feel the heat
Doc, I like the idea of alcohol as it can be made from almost anything stored ran in engines. Im too tired to make all the calculations but i worry from direct heating some heat is lost from cooling effect of the evaporating alcohol. I guess this is true for all fuel. A friend of mine had 6 guage copper wire running from flame back to the fuel to keep it warm.
@@mike289homebuilt5 I am not that worried about a few degrees loss. I'm burning alcohol in a canful of sand and heating another can.. you can probably find it on my channel by typing in alcohol
nice one mate
thank you Robert
cheers mate
I already made a plant-pot heater with 3 pots bolted together and have used it with a range of candles. I used scented candles, DON'T, the carbon that comes off it will stain paintwork. I made my own candles with wax and up to 6 wicks, don't use any additives as they will cause carbon particles to be emitted as they burn. One word of caution the bolt gets exceptionally hot.
This might sound strange, but you might want to take apart a vape if you haven't already. They function surprisingly similar to the heaters you've been building, the difference being you breath the vapors as opposed to setting them on fire.
Not strange at all. Vapes are literally just a battery and resistance wire.
lol - I have taken quite a few apart mate but nice pointer for others
Thanks for the class, really interesting 👏
cheers mate
Great idea, would a stove top fan that works off heat on top of the pan help push the heat around the room?
yes, excellent idea, now you're talking
I see you did this already. I had just found your channel on the day you introduced us to the new wick. Love your channel.
"If you have a soapbox you're gonna stand on it" is one of the best lines I've ever heard! Sometimes we all need to sit down and shut up!
lol - absolutely mate - I really don't understand why folks can get so upset about what is really pretty trivial if you think about it
@@ThinkingandTinkering Agree, good saying there. Perhaps it's another type of ventng system. People vent hot air through small things, cos they can't reach the big things.
Excellent discussion of heating modes!
cheers mate
The issue I always understood about plant pot heaters, is not that they don't work, it's that, should the clay get hot enough, it can rupture and explode. While the pan is great, I love how that is going to work with pets and children.
Standing in the moonlight is colder than standing in the shadows of a moonlit night.
The minimalistic heater... you could wrap copper tube around the pot and run it to a tank above the heated portion and make a flowing water heater as well.. unsung a pressure differential pump that just uses the pressure to pump...
cheers mate
It would work even better if you painted the outside--would make it more emissive (emissitive?)/transparent to IR (I mean it would increase the emissivity). Then, if you wanted it to heat yourself more specifically if you're sitting on a chair or the like, you can put some convexed material with shiny aluminum surface behind it to direct the IR towards you.
nie - cheers mate
I've seen videos where they've used pots. But I liked the idea of using several plant pots because (I think) they'll hold the heat longer. By putting a smaller pot inside with a long metal (hollow) bolt down the center of the plant pot hole, you can ad some spacers and bolts above it. Then place a larger plant pot on top of those and screw it down with the end of the long bolt sticking out at the top. You might even go with 3 plant pots. I tried to set one up like that myself a few years ago, but never had a chance to put it to good use.
Ur gonna want to figure out how to make sure to put a seal on the bottom saucer. It a hazard if fuel can seep through, even worse if it is on fire as it seeps
You may want to watch Desertsun02 on his channel.
He is quite nifty with pot heaters, not tried myself but the one he has done with some 4" tee duct and a small fan looks impressive.
Thanks!
I think your efficiency of energy transfer from the flame will be much greater if you turn it up side down and allow the flame to hit the stainless steel ! If the flame has to warm the air and inturn it warms the pot you have a very ineffecient step that could be deleted . For best results of effeciency put an aluminium skirt around the pot creating a second skin with a 2mm gap. The hot air coming out the sides will go up the side and travel between these 2 metal skins ! High end camping equipment employs this for best efficiency of liquid or gas fuels .
I will have to give it a go mate - cheers
A long flat wick dipped in oil would do a long flat flame with a rectangular cake pot above. Thanks for this interesting wick type.
Maybe you could use the method from video 1640 and rub graphite on a terracotta plantpot...
After that video I ve built a mushroom drying rig using this method on a polypropylen plantpot. Then it struck me that I could use the method on regular terracotta roof bricks to get them heatet . It works great.
that's brilliant - this is one of the best posts mate - thank you for sharing and experimenting - you sir are a star!
Hi Robert may I have another suggestion
Building a small tin can rocket stove around that fuse. (a smaller version alike the one I ve used in the lawnmower bicyle ) maybe that way there eould be less carbon monoxite buildup
Having watched several Rocket Stove videos I recall the argument that a yellow flame is not completely burning the available fuel which is inefficient, quite apart from the risk from carbon monoxide and the mess from carbon black deposits. How about combining your minimalist carbon foam and copper tube room heater with a long (hot) chimney, arranged to encourage a more complete and efficient burn ?
nice suggestion mate - but already done it
Awesome. Thanks for sharing!
lol glad you liked it mate
Thanks, but about the soot. What is in it and how does it affects humans? Thankd
The original heater used a steel bolt with nuts and washers to make the thermal mass of the plant pot heater. Then the bolt was directly heated by the flame as a thermal mass. With soot being the infrared thermal material. Though correct me if I am wrong.
I was thinking about soot being one of the least reflective materials. Might be just what's needed and the heat source actually producing it as it burns is genius
Will the pan get hot enough to burn the handles? If so, they will give off fumes. Thank for the info.
That's what I want to know too.
Hey Mate. I thoroughly enjoy your vid's. & Have learned plenty from them. I was stationed at RAF Upper Heyford, from Oct 80 - Oct 82.. So I know, love & respect the British way of doing things. Your a freaking genius. But you put in terms that is ez to understand. With that said.... 🤔 I got a question about something... But dont want to think that I can just pop in and expect an answer.... So.... Let me know if you got the time... Please & Thank You.. 😎 I always got a kick out of you "Bloody Blokes".... And your females..... They were the best.... ❤️
You mentioned that it was possible to buy waste vegetable oil for
You're talking about creating more energy than you're using (which is impossible). I think it's a neet concept and certainly good to know if you're living a small tent in some type of survival situation. . . . but for an entire room I don't believe it's very efficient.
You would need many of them.
Before even watching the video I got to say.
It was IMPROVING that got me
I'm wondering if you could put a "gas mantle" around this, using the heat to create light as well. Using a quite small candle to produce both extra heat and therefore extra light. Curious how much light this would put out. I may try it myself but I'd rather see your look of amazement, it's one of my joys is seeing other people amazed by what happens.
I tried using a gas mantle with a candle and with an alcohol burner.
A candle does not get hot enough. Only the tiny spot of blue in a candle flame produces a tiny speck of white in the mantle.
An alcohol burner also does not get hot enough to make more than a tiny spot of white appear.
You need a hot flame, so perhaps an actively drafted alcohol flame or a gas flame.
Transparent tube, like the Victorians had, but they are expensive, so how can we make something heat proof and transparent?
thanks for this. frankly - in a no heat situation I'd be glad to have that little candle heat with a clay pot! or a cook pot... it'll heat a tent if thats how you gotta do it this winter.
Robert, can you please make a video testing how long the carbon felt wick will last in a standard full glass of vegetable oil before the wick gets clogged or how many full glass of oil can this wick burn till it needs to be replaced to evaluate the cost effectiveness of this method. This is a great idea but if the carbon felt clogs too easily, it really won't work for a long term heating solution for poor people, van life people, people living off grid, and others that might want to save on heating cost.
I have seen videos where the person was in a van, with 40f / 4.4c temperature outside and slightly warmer inside. after lighting a flower pot heater with 3 tea lights, and waiting an hour, he saw an increase of roughly 2 degrees. He was using an analog thermometer for air temp, and a laser temp reader on the pot which did get up to 200+ f / 93.23+c. Now if you are in a very well insulated house / small room 8'x8' / 2.4mx2.4m it will maintain a temp in the 60's / 15+c if the air is close to that temperature.
But again those that say it works always use the laser temp probe, those that don't use the analog air thermometer.
that is interesting and kind of backs up what I am saying - cheers mate
I note a couple of people saying that, at the end of the day, the heating effect produced is limited by the fact that a candle/wick is only going to produce a specific/limited number of BTUs... and you can't produce any more heat than what can be achieved by releasing the energy from those BTUs. However, the whole point of the Plant Pot Heater idea is that, if you just burn a candle (or whatever) those BTUs get converted into light and heat: The light obviously radiates - but a large proportion of that is in the visible spectrum, which (to my limited knowledge) doesn't produce a lot of heat. What little heat (from combustion) is produced by the candle/wick then heats the immediately surrounding air molecules and that, by convection, is dissipated very quickly with little heating effect on objects a few feet or metres away - and eventually ends up heating cold, dark/draughty corners of the room - or usually, any object placed just overhead the candle/wick. Rob's point is that, by trapping all of the BTUs with a "device" (I believe Rob would call it a "Converter") which converts the would-be convected heat into energy which heats the "pot" (or saucepan) - actually, a "proper" radiator, then the converted energy is now travelling on into the universe (room) as radiated energy - which will be transferred by the frequencies such as infra-red - which in turn cause heating by radiation - rather than convection. It's the difference between warm air currents wafting "willy-nilly" around a room (and maybe heating some parts a bit) and radiation energy - which is transmitted in straight lines, effecting thermal change on whatever those rays hit first. I might be wrong and apologise for my ignorance but... I think that's the point of the whole thing? I'm gonna test this out myself... :-)
yeah spot on mate - that is my point
I'm still laughing about the "courtesy of our woke generation" comment!!! You Rock!
Where can you source the wick material? none of the options that I looked at on amazon say if they have plastic in them.
Remember Leslies cube from schooldays? Better radiators are black matt rather than shiny silver.
Crazy busy but can't skip this one😁👍
Tomorrow last day of my internet. See you in spring. Let's see if I can fix a membership then. Be well 👍🖐️
see you in spring mate!
Thank you 🙂👋!
Had an old oil filled radiator that was not working, stripped the plastic and electric off, I now heat it with 8 tea lights underneath, also I filled 4 strongbow cans with water and heat each can with a candle acts as a small radiator and also the hot water does the dishes, great segment.
nice one mate and thanks for sharing
Could Strongbow cans heat water for drinking, if not what would be safe to heat water in for food preparation?
@@jude7321 I use a camping kettle, small, strongbow cans are for dishes and heat.
I wonder if stuffing the plant pot with stainless steel scourer pads would help 'collect' the heat better. Could have other benefits too.
Build a double chimney and stuff scour pads inside either that or a Spiral diverter it works on paper lol. Some metals corrode in heat or moisture and release bad chemicals
give it a go mate and let us know how it works out
Is a "welding blanket" the same material?? Can be bought cheaply in 1 sq foot pieces.
Great idea 👍... But to eliminate the soot,use alcohol or liquid paraffin 👍👍😎
One interesting note 🎶 is that with thermal heat is that the hotter the heat source, the faster and greater it will disipate into the sourounding area. I know, it's a no brainer but important caviat. Lol
nice add mate - thanks for sharing
In a previous video you showed the forever wick in a copper pipe lying down on a plate of cooking oil, burning at one end. In the lying down position, I believe that the other end could be lit up, thus burning both ends- double the BTU output. Is this plausable or too danderous?
Sounds like a great idea I think !
hmmm - proceed with cation I think - but interesting
Two ideas to minimize convection heat and increase radiant heat:
1) use a counterflow heat exchanger to heat the oxygen-rich intake air with the oxygen-poor exhaust air.
2) Use "cold mirrors" to reflect the non-heating wavelengths back to the flame. Cold mirrors and hot mirrors are made with special materials to selectively reflect light wavelengths.
thanks for the ideas mate
Hi Robert, just a thought in the quick add on, I'm wondering if you had the same result if the temperature gauge was further away.
How far away will you have effect from it?
I would prefer the plant pot, but your idea is great either in an emergency or to test the concept out. i actually use a plant pot heater for spot heat in my home office. It works great, though I do use lamp oil, instead of vegetable oil. I do wonder about using methanol, ethanol, etc. in it, but am somewhat concerned about thermal shock on the terracotta.
EDIT: I just watched episode 1777, where you address terracotta thermal shock. I like my terracotta plant pot heater since the terracotta holds the heat well and for a long time, though. Is there an alternative that isn't much at risk of thermal shock?
Always love your Videos Rob! For some reason YT stopped showing any of your videos in my feed. I haven't a clue as to why. I've always been a good commenter, Subbed to all your channels + Luke, Like all your videos. I don't know what's happening there but for about 6 months I had 0 videos from your channel pop up, I have to manually search you up in order to see your stuff. What the heck is going on there!?
Today I made a heater by cutting a long skinny carbon felt wick, wrapping some wire tightly around the tip, securing the wire across the top of a can of crisco, and shoving the wick down into the center of the can. The wick would have fallen down into the shortening once it melted and that's why I used the wire; I didn't want it to fall in and be extinguished. The carbon felt burned wonderfully. Now I just need to build an inverted dome over the top, but while I burned it, it gave me light as well as a small amount of heat.
Hi Rob, do you have the link to where I can buy your carbon felt please? Many thanks
I'm curious what the average burn time on the veggie oil looks like?
What if you used an old kerosene heater, replacing the wick with the carbon material and vegetable oil for the kerosene?
It would be great if you could show us how to make a mantle ?
Great amount of light and heat would be great in the winter months !
Please and thank you 👍
I'll look into it mate
Riverside Homestead Life has a great video about using Crisco as the fuel for a 72 hour heater, I wonder if you can get some and try the Forever Wick with it? Im sure thats a winning combination!!
With the right material you can even make a focused beam and heat a particular spot. Just think of those outdoor electric heaters. Aside from simply pulling a ridiculous amount of power, they have reflectors that direct the infrared radiation down toward where you're sitting. If you had a parabolic dish, you might even be able to point it across a field.
nice idea mate - cheers
we've used pot heaters for years it was something my grandmother showed me they never worried about carbon monoxide in them days😂 and they do work depending on on how much space you want to heat if it's a large space use two
Yes they didn’t worry about it. It did kill a lot of people. But they didn’t worry about it.
@@ecospider5 so did the Luftwaffe but what historical documents did you get your information from.
nice - cheers mate
how do you know that? I ask because I think you are making that up. Double glazing and central heating where rare and houses were draughtier - when central heating came in folks started sealing up the house with draught excluders etc - so - my guess is they didn't worry because it wasn't an issue and it wasn't an issue because ventilation was better - but I am happy to admit I am guessing here - are you guessing too?
@@ThinkingandTinkering sorry mate I think I replied to the wrong comment 😂
I have put some old storage heater bricks behind and down the sides of my Morso Squirrel stove , So they will heat up with the stove and store some of the heat .
good one mate
Now, if you use a cast-iron pot with a flat bottom, you also will have a nifty little hob to boil water on for tea or cooking in the event you have a power outage. 😃