Okay so Autumn is upon us and soon enough houses will need to be heated.
I live in southern Europe and it definitely gets cold but it's not like temperatures drop to ungodly degrees. I don't have AC, or a fireplace, every year all I do is have a small electrical heater by my desk(plus some residual heat from having the PC running all day + cooking) and that works out just fine but still, the heater alone almost doubles my electrical bill in the winter months.
This year I'm working from home meaning I'm gonna use even more energy in general and will definitely require more heating for longer periods so I wanted to experiment with alternatives.
I was wondering if heating up water and basically using that has my local space heater could be viable. I find that when I have a electric heater it's all too easy to press the button to turn it on even if I don't necessarily need it because it's extra cozy so having to heat water would force me to be a lot more intentional and aware of when I'm using extra heat. Oh and my stove runs on butane which is relatively cheap(way way cheaper than electricity) so it's not like heating water would become too much of an expense. And of course during really bad days or when I'm getting out of the shower or something I could still rely on the electrical heater if I really had to, the idea is just to cut down hard on its use.
Thoughts? Is it too much of an impractical idea? My question to PrepHole then would be what would be the best container to store boiling water that I could have by my feet while I'm at the desk?
You know that bag that cartoon characters put on their head when they're sick? that's what those are.
I was thinking something that would be larger so it could hold more water that would last longer and wouldn't be too much of a pain transferring the water from the pan to it back and forth. That sounds like a pain to pour the water into, would probably need a funnel or something.
Hell maybe just having a pan by my feet would work fine?
Just use an electric blanket. space heaters are 100% efficient (Every bit of power you put in gets turned to heat.) so the question then is how do you keep the heat just around your feet. Boiling water is dumb, Consider an electric blanket or look west and take the mocc pill.
>space heaters are 100% efficient (Every bit of power you put in gets turned to heat.)
actually that makes it 0% efficient
if it was a lightbulb?, yeah
heat is the desired output
All the light is turned into heat energy about 1 nanosecond after being emitted from the bulb moron, except it spreads that energy around the room equally so it's arguably more efficient.
He means if it was a lightbulb which produced nothing but low grade heat, it would be 0% efficient. The efficacy would be 0 Lm/W.
Actually that makes you a moron. The desired energy is thermal, and that's what you get.
>Boiling water is dumb
Idk man maybe it's because it's not very cold right now even though it's the middle of the night but I'm currently testing out my idea with a pan by my feet and it seems surprisingly effective. Maybe it will get old depending on how often I have to reheat it but so far I'm pretty satisfied with this level of warmth.
Definitely want to invest on some quality slippers and I might give an electric blanket a go. After some research it does look a lot less energy demanding than a classic heater. Thanks for the idea.
>pan of hot water in bed
>what is a hot water bottle
But they're actually not even 100% efficient by your argument since some of that energy is turned into visible light.
Ever heard of storage heaters? They heat up ceramic bricks on cheap rate electricity and then the heat escapes slowly as needed.
Basically, I'm saying you should buy a heat brick and cook it in the oven to heat it up instead of boiling water. Has the same benefits as water but less risk of spill/splash/mold.
Light turns into heat eventually as it bounces off surfaces. Which heats the space. Making it efficient.
elecricity requires a turbine and transportation. going from
fuel -> heat -> movement -> electricity -> (wiring heat losses outside your home) -> heat
is a lot more inefficient than going simply
fuel -> heat
>100%
Ans heat pumps are more than 100% efficient as they move heat from outside to inside of the house.
Watch this video with respect to "thermal storage"
?si=uZja00jQ9AZcyDd-
Solutions to your heating problem that take advantage of phase change in material can help reduce heating costs and improve efficiency assuming you also have good insulation. Fwiw, I think boiling some water (and then letting it rest, so as not to continue wasting energy on only creating steam) would probably help. On the whole, you might have a setup that includes intermittent boiling water, parrafin wax, and electric heating.
As a side note, a good wood stove might help you, too!
Plasma TV ON
computer ON
75w lamp bulbs ON
bed heater ON
yep its winter time
It seems your goal is to reduce your power bill cheaply. Your current plan is to make being warm such a pain in the butt that you will only do it when you NEED to. It's an interesting plan but dumb one. Assuming you don't have a fireplace electric heat will be your most efficient option. Electric space heaters spend a good amount of electricity evening the air around you which will drift around the entire room. A heating pad can be placed between your shirt and your jacket or your butt and your chair thus providing all the heat to your body and very little lost to the air.
Your current boil water method wastes a lot of heat heating up the air around the boiled water same as your space heater and the only real gain of efficiency is how much less often you will use it. Just stick a heating pad on the back of a desk chair and enjoy the warm.
>be you
>only have t-shirts
>get hard nips in winter
>don't like having hard nips
>too cheap to use my electric heater
>my gas is cheaper than electricity
>idea: use gas stove to heat up water
Why don't you just switch on your stove when you need some heating?
Gas burners are awfully inefficient at heating up the air as you have to constantly renew the oxygen in the room to sustain combustion. You have to transfer the heat to some mass (like a water pot) but then that mass has to radiate the heat back at you. You would need pipes to pump the water through the stove, and you basically reinvented a boiler / gas furnace.
you need the same amount of air to combust gas to heat water as you do to just combust gas on its own
Nightcaps and robes worked for centuries. Wear thermal underwear to begin with and quality wool socks with slippers. Sweaters, robes, hats of choice etc all conserve heat. Terrycloth robes are quite comfy.
If you favor military stuff it's designed for constant use. Quality clothing lasts many years. Get duplicates so you can wear one set while washing others. I do all the above despite not being poor because it works.
Then work on not being impoverished because starving oneself to prosperity is ineffective. Success is very DIY.
Anon, why don’t you wear more clothes? Wear two pair of socks, long underwear under your pants, shit like that.
seal up your house, get a few rugs
The excess moisture can cause mold issues.
You can have the container be enclosed and give off it's stored heat through it's exterior
looks bretty cool ngl
the mold is coming
the mold is coming
the mold is coming
the mold is coming
Dunno if it was already answered, but heating water as heat source is a terrible idea, (unless you actually colonial house with a wood stove and builtin pipes for that purpose)
but mainly, you would need to keep a constant heat on the water, as someone who used heat humidifier, it actually has the opposite effect as it makes you house humid and humidity makes things colder
like for example if you were to go in a sauna wearing clothes, the humidity would soak in the sauna and it warm, but when you left the humidity would make it even colder drying out
it also poses a higher danger element in the sense that if you keep it boiling constantly you need to refil with water constantly as well, and if you don't you run the risk putting your house on fire
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_water_bottle
Used to be made from ceramic (gin bottles) but nowadays rubber.
They’re common for in bed, but if you cover yourself with a blanket and put one or two in there, works fine, used this when heating was out. You fill them with 1L water from the electric kettle. Stays hot for about 3 hours, and then warm for 3 more at 16C room temp. Don’t let your room temp fall below 16C it’s bad for your house
Boiling water IME is inefficient and doesnt work. So I made a wood stove out of a water heater. But dont want to plumb the chimney. So put it on my porch and the radiant heat you can stand around and get warm and theres no heat loss to the big sliding glass door it sits in front of. Theres heat GAIN. since the glass of the door heats up. and I can make warm food and tea on the top of the wood stove.
This is much better and can be plumbed through a window. I run it on a lithium battery pack as a portable power station. If I think theres a chance of a winter power out I pull both my shit out.
But its really about the size of the room. In act of absolute desperation you can throw a blanket over yur head like a tent and burn a candle in your lap or heat hot rocks and drag the rocks inside as a heater. It works in a tent size space.
Thermal siphoning
I put a cast iron pot full of water and spices/oils/citrus/cedar on the wood stove to increase the humidity in the winter
Sorry for phoneposting, but you know such thing as butane heater exists, right? Install a splitter before your oven and run a loose hose acroass the floor leading to your room and connect the heater there.
Gas powered heaters give off a ton of moisture, no? You'd definitely want one that's designed to be ran indoors and has proper safety features that you don't accidentally gas yourself
Of course they're designed for indoors. Why would anyone put a heater outdoors? But yes it'll humidify the room, butane burns into CO2 and water vapour.
Lots of those are used by icefishers and some campers here
yes but certainly less so than burning gas and also boiling a pot of water
just wear warmer clothes bro
Sounds like a recipe to make the inside of your apartment feel gross because it's at like 80% humidity all the time.
not op but have you guys ever heard of a lid?
Solar hot water.
if you are going to use electricity then just dump a heating element in the bottom of a huge pot of sand. Dont electrocute yourself. The sand will act as a giant thermal battery and release the heat slowly.
This. Building sand, metal bucket, set on ceramic tile(to protect floor, to to make a moron candle pot). Going to cost a lot of juice though.
go out and find refrigerator/ac junks and get a compressor. make your own heat pump. fricking around with electric heaters is just moronic.
A heat pump is 2000$, there are subsidies and it will save you about 70% on heating if you are currently heating electrically.
On top of that you can use it to keep the moisture indoor down and that makes heating air cheaper. Or use it in summer to cool your place.
This thread is about to die but I'm in the same zone as OP. By far the best thing you can do is insulate your roof and attic if you have one. Get 2-3 of the mineral wool bales and get to work, very easy to install (but use a mask and eye/hands/arms protection or you'll get cancer). Second best thing, but more expensive, is to install double glazed windows. Just these two thing and you barely won't need heating around these parts besides wearing thicker clothes.
Apart from that boiling water to use as a heat source is energy inefficient and using those electrical heaters is extremely expensive.
Do they sell warm slippers and boots in your impoverished third world nation? Warm knee socks?
Clothing is far more efficient than external heat and autism.
>Okay so Autumn is upon us and soon enough houses will need to be heated.
It was 35 C today
Like...what if the walls...were just the tank for the hot water heater...
>hot water heater
tell me moron... why would you need to heat hot water.
Well you need water and heat
I boiled water one day when i didnt have an electric heater
A 100w infrared bulb works great to keep yourself warm.
A 3ft 180W tubular heater will stop a room from freezing without using too much energy
lol stop being not white. im good down to freezing with the windows open. women actually cuddle me cause i am a btu creator, eat a lot, be white, have a fast metabolism, thats literally it.
Chain enough residential solar panels together to reach 110v (about 3-4 of them) or 220 (europours, double the #),
feed the output into an old-school electric stove heating element and have that buried in sand, in a metal container.
As the sun comes up, it will heat up the coil, and the sand will gradually release the heat throughout the day.
You are all missing a very important point. Boiling water COSTS ENERGY. If your goal is to heat the room using gas, then just leave the burners bare or place a large thermally condauctive mass over the burner. If you must boil water, do not let it boil. Only let it get hot. You will be WASTING ENERGY otherwise.
the output of heat is limited by the resistance of the element. so if this doubles your bill then you may as well cook a lot of soup, all the time. you could warm a can of soup Infront of it but it may take several hours to become warm all the way through. Cooking really isn't an option because these disperse the heat.
other information that might help, if you can fill your living space with rugs, hanging drapes on the ceiling, command strips and lightweight foam boards and handing drapes on the walls, you can improve the thermal insulation of the house. make sure if you are in an older house that all the seals are properly filled. in short you may be able to double up on your heating wih cooking but ultimately the best thing to do is to increase insulation and let your body do the heating. exercising can help, and then take a nice warm shower. if you space bead sheets off of the wall you can make a thermal barrier using the air.