Turn a Candle Into a Radiator
Today is a cold, wet dreary day. Which inspired me to dig the Kandle Heeter out of the garage.
Parked next to my mouse, this little device brings the temperature of my 8×12 office up from shivery to cozy - not quite enough to take my lovely handknit wool socks off, but a great antidote against a dreary January, and a definite cat magnet.
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How it works: That top terracotta pot is actually a nest of several, spaced with metal bolts. Heat rises from the candle and then absorbs into the ceramic, which is a high ‘thermal lag’ material. High thermal lag materials are dense and heavy - tile, concrete, water - all of these store heat well. The pots won’t hold it forever, but they concentrate it, slowing down its exodus to the ceiling. They keep the heat near my mouse hand - which definitely increases my productivity!
The developer says a 3″ dia. by 3″ ‘dollar store’ candle will yield about 50 BTUs an hour, for a total of 1000 BTU. I get about two days per candle, so that’s 0.50/day. If all my winter days were wet, cold, and in need of paraffin cheer (sum total of mid-Dec thru March = 105 days), that’s about $50 for a heating season. And it smells nice.
Granted, I live in mostly sunny Northwest Florida, so my heating bill is pretty small compared with snowy places. But this one with the silly name is one of those ‘value added’ ideas - if I’m going to burn a Christmas gift candle, I may as well get full value.
(Check out their other nifty ideas: using an incandescent light bulb instead of a candle, and other open-architecture common-sense energy concepts.)
UPDATE: Here’s a podcast interview with inventor Doyle Doss. (Ed. note: Max tells us the podcast isn’t there anymore, but he’s reposted it at http://www.thelindbergreport.org.)
I love candles.
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Their Veg-A-Lot Insulated Growhouse looks really cool — especially for the freezing east coast. Could be a cool idea for restaurants, to grow their own herbs and veggies year round.
Thanks for featuring Doyle and his products. I interviewed him months ago as part of the Green Options “Greening the Golden Years Podcast” series.
Boy, am I embarrassed! Thanks for linking to the podcast, unfortunately, it isn’t there anymore because of the expansion of Green Options. However, as an interim measure, I have posted the podcast at http://www.thelindbergreport.org.
Great Find, thanks so much, I am going to attempt to build one of these myself
[...] this at Green Building Elements. Could be a nice addition to low energy consuming environment.., like an Earthship. You can buy [...]
What a great idea! I burn candles all the time because I like the smell. I can warm up the house at the same time! Well…the bathroom anyway.
A furnace is about 106 times as cost efficient as that candle. Of course its kind of hard to just heat your hand with a furnace. I googled BTUs per dollar and found that at 80% efficiency (typical for a GFA furnace) I can get 106,667 BTUs for a dollar. Your candle gets 1,000 BTUs for a dollar. Another way to look at it–how warm would your room be if you had 106 candles burning in it? That’s how many you could buy for the price of a gas furnace.
I wish I had thought of this when I was a kid - I remember doing homework with an angle poised lamp over my had so that it was warm enough to hold my pen and I could see what I was writing.
Buy local organic candles (is there such a thing?) and this is a WINNER!