Cheap Electricity free space heater.

[bbob203]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwElWD_qqCc

[njdub]

Great post! That's actually really creative. Might have to try making one

[8v-of-fury!]

huh, I want to get like a long burn candle.. and try this over night in my car. Keep it all contained within like a metal box of sorts.. and I guess a window might need to be cracked for oxygen issues..

A supplement to a block heater? haha

[Toby]

A burning candle only puts out as much heat as a burning candle puts out. All of the other silliness does not increase its heat output.

[8v-of-fury!]

harness, not increase.

[bbob203]

there will always be skeptics. 

[theman53]

Did some internet searching, lots of answers, NASA even said that it was possible to get a flame to burn down to 250 degrees with the perfect conditions.
The outer core of the candle flame is light blue -- 1670 K (1400 °C). That is the hottest part of the flame. The color inside the flame becomes yellow, orange and finally red. The further you reach to the center of the flame, the lower the temperature will be. The red portion is around 1070 K (800 °C). The reason there is this variation in a candle's flame color is because air convection pulls the warmer gasses upwards
Either way, it is a cheap source of heat.

[clbanman]

BTU's on the candle flame don't increase just because you put a couple of flower post on top of it.   All this is doing is catching the heat on a surface that makes an easier to measure point to check heat, but it doesn't increase the total BTU's.   Check out the math at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCAfAT9MVrY  by a guy who was thinking of using these to heat a greenhouse. 

[745 turbogreasel]

If that guy is as bad at science as he is at construction, Id guess he's asking the wrong  questions.  Really, could not get an upside down flower pot to balance   I skipped through some of the rambling, but it doesn't seem like he mentions the size of his greenhouse at all.  He also neglected the benefit of CO2 in his greenhouse form burning candles, and  asking for a 20 degree rise is a lot....Is he trying to greenhouse where it 10F out?  FWIW, I built a wood  fired system for a small 20x30 greenhouse. The guy burned 6-7 cords in 3 months, and had to wake up and feed the fire 2x/ night.  Candles would not be efficient, and even propane would cost thousands.

A candle puts out about 77W, ~98% as heat.  3 of them  is similar a medium computer working hard. which is pretty significant in a small or cold space.

[libbydiesel]

The BTU content of wax is fairly similar to that of home heating oil.  Even wholesale in bulk you're looking at 4X the cost.  If purchasing actual candles, the cost difference would be even more dramatic.  Placing the candle under a flower pot will not assist in more a complete combustion.  If anything it will do worse due to less oxygen present.  It will keep the heat more localized to the flame rather than sending it up to the ceiling but the total amount of heat put into an enclosed space would be the same or perhaps a little worse due to less complete combustion.  Venting your combustion byproducts into your living space is not good except possibly in a greenhouse where the added humidity, CO2 and CO will not cause big problems.  Paraffin is also petroleum based so there isn't any environmental advantage over burning home heating oil.  

I'd be far more interested in a VW turbo-diesel powered generator that ran on waste vegetable oil and stored it's waste heat for use in home hydronic heating.  With a decent exhaust heat exchanger  and catalytic converter you'd end up with EXCELLENT efficiency with low pollution from a recycled fuel source that was already carbon-neutral before it's first use...  

[8v-of-fury!]

I'd be far more interested in a VW turbo-diesel powered generator that ran on waste vegetable oil and stored it's waste heat for use in home hydronic heating.  With a decent exhaust heat exchanger  and catalytic converter you'd end up with EXCELLENT efficiency with low pollution from a recycled fuel source that was already carbon-neutral before it's first use...   

I can dig it. How would you store the waste heat? To heat some effective heat holding liquid that then ran to a "heater core" in the house?

[libbydiesel]

I'd have a large insulated coolant storage tank and run in-floor heat in the house.  You could also do a heater core style heater or use baseboard heaters but for comfort, tho, in-floor heat is unbeatable.

[TimpanogosSlim]

I think what this is doing is letting you harness the heat of the candle as radiant heat rather than just letting it flow to the ceiling in a convection current. For whatever that is worth.

Wax candles are detrimental to air quality, but whatever.

I'd have a large insulated coolant storage tank and run in-floor heat in the house.  You could also do a heater core style heater or use baseboard heaters but for comfort, tho, in-floor heat is unbeatable.

i know a guy who grew up on oyster bay. Power used to be out for days after ice storms. his father was an engineer, so they developed a system where they could shove a cast iron radiator into the fireplace, and a system of pipes took heated water all through the house - circulating strictly due to heat differential.

Said it worked so well that when they used it they ended up opening a lot of windows to let the excess heat out.

When they sold the house, the buyer stipulated that the house had to come with a full schematic, parts list, and documentation of procedures and troubleshooting methods. And the new owners never did figure out how to work it.

[TimpanogosSlim]

I'd be far more interested in a VW turbo-diesel powered generator that ran on waste vegetable oil and stored it's waste heat for use in home hydronic heating.  With a decent exhaust heat exchanger  and catalytic converter you'd end up with EXCELLENT efficiency with low pollution from a recycled fuel source that was already carbon-neutral before it's first use...  

Don't really need the turbo. Folks have built gensets with old vw 1.6D engines.

like this guy: http://www.oldengine.org/members/jdunmyer/genset/

Consider how the accursed EGR cooler works on an ALH. A heat exchanger is a heat exchanger. You'd just need an exhaust system that happens to have a lot of coolant lines running through it. Think of the reservoir and distribution system as the radiator for the engine - though you might need a bigger pump on a pulley to keep the fluid moving.

[8v-of-fury!]

I dunno about you, but I can get out after driving and grab on to my tail-pipe without burning myself.. I don't think it would extremely effective unless it was going full balls all the time. But I do suppose, they could hold a steady 1000f EGT without harm.. that big of a cooling reservoir and it would be very well cooled.