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Heating a room for 8 pence a day, brilliant idea!

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Comments

  • prowla
    prowla Posts: 14,312 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    What's the relevance of the pots, tin, etc.?
    They're not going to generate more heat than the candles...
  • good_advice
    good_advice Posts: 2,653 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker Mortgage-free Glee! Rampant Recycler
    What a clever idea! thanks for sharing.
    The secret to success is making very small, yet constant changes.:)
  • and it even includes the good old 'four candles' joke. :j

    If it works, and it states it does, its a brill idea:T
    The first time we said hello, was the first time we said goodbye. As the angels took your tiny hand and flew you to the sky-you forever left us breathless. RIP my beautiful granddaughter :(
  • Andy_WSM
    Andy_WSM Posts: 2,217 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Uniform Washer Rampant Recycler
    edited 7 November 2013 at 8:20PM
    'andles for forks?

    Other than changing the heat distribution the clay flower pots can't add anything to the output. Maybe encourage more convection, perhaps a bit of radiated heat, but the overall output is just the same.
  • Love it. But I'm suspecting he's single? :D
  • lstar337
    lstar337 Posts: 3,443 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Anyone know what the kWh rating of a tea light is?
  • spacey2012
    spacey2012 Posts: 5,836 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    A bigger room for 16 pence ?
    Sooner or later we will go back to the old ways, or we will be fleeced.
    Be happy...;)
  • Andy_WSM
    Andy_WSM Posts: 2,217 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Uniform Washer Rampant Recycler
    edited 8 November 2013 at 10:35AM
    lstar337 wrote: »
    Anyone know what the kWh rating of a tea light is?

    About 100W I think. Trying to find something online to back up my memory though!

    - Inconclusive search. I have found link suggesting anything from 15 - 100W per candle. Admittedly 100W seems on the high side, so I'd likely restate my answer to "about 20-30 depending on the type of candle".

    Just to point out though - a candle will release it's heat into the room whether or not you build a contraption over the top of it. The SAME HEAT is given off. You cannot MAKE heat from flower pots, so you'd have to conclude this is a waste of time!

    Just light a candle and enjoy the warming flicker of the flame.
  • rogerblack
    rogerblack Posts: 9,446 Forumite
    Andy_WSM wrote: »
    About 100W I think. Trying to find something online to back up my memory though!

    - Inconclusive search. I have found link suggesting anything from 15 - 100W per candle. Admittedly 100W seems on the high side, so I'd likely restate my answer to "about 20-30 depending on the type of candle".

    All waxes and oils produce about 12kWh or so of heat per kilo.
    For the case of a tealight weighing perhaps 4g, that's 50Wh or so - over 3h, perhaps 15W.
  • lstar337
    lstar337 Posts: 3,443 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Tea candles are a wax cylinder about 1.5 inches in diameter and * 0.5 inches tall. Volume of a cylinder is pi * r**2 * h = 0.883 cubic inches or 14.45 cm**3. The density of paraffin wax is 0.9 g/cm**3, so we're looking at 13.03 grams of wax. The energy content of paraffin is about 42 kJ/g, so we're looking at 547kJ. There are 0.277 watt-hours per kJ, so we've got about 152 watt hours.
    http://www.quora.com/Energy/How-much-energy-heat-does-one-standard-tea-light-candle-produce#

    152Wh x 8 = 1.216kWh.

    Electric
    1kWh ~ 15p
    0.15p/1000Wh = 0.015p/Wh

    Tea Light
    1.216kWh = 8p
    0.08p/1216Wh = 0.00657p/Wh

    Gas
    1kWh ~ 4p
    0.04p/1000Wh = 0.004p/Wh

    Does that seem right?
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