Clay Pot Heater?

[pksmart]

I tried searching this thread but couldn't easily find this.

Does anyone know the pro's and con's of using clay pots and tea lights to heat up a small area in a car?  I did this for a rental home that the landlord kept waaay too cold for me and it worked pretty good in my bedroom.  It really took the chill off ( in northern Illinois winters).

Thanks!

-Pam

 

[MrNoodly]

Flames in small flammable spaces aren't a good idea.

 

[pksmart]

I agree, but the flames are contained in clay pots.  And they are tea lights.  Not exactly big flames or anything.

 

[bullfrog]

Not a lot of heat either but does trick your mind into thinking you should be warm! Spend your money on some nice thick wool socks and hats with ear flaps.

 

[AMGS3]

How cold does it get where you're at?

Here's a 5 min video made by a guy who tried to use the clay pot heater with 4 candles to heat and dry out his boat. It is a cautionary tale.


If I were you, I'd get a little buddy heater. And never leave it on while I was sleeping. Get a good properly made for cold weather sleeping bag. Some thermal longjohns. As mentioned above, socks and a bomber hat. The risk of knocking this thing over in the middle of the night is too great, and the danger of a fire if you did is too much.

If needed, use a hot water bottle to preheat your sleeping bag. I've been using this hotwaterbottle method for the past few weeks with a blanket/afghan/quilt stack and it's really nice and cozy. Im saving my sleeping bag for when I really need it. In a car you could use those plugin thermal coffee mugs to heat the water. My sister used to have one that would heat water to steaming. Also you could use the same water over and over again.

For me, making sure I have a hot breakfast is crucial to staying warm in the winter. I live in northern MN. So I plan for that. Being properly dressed for the weather at night and getting something warm in my tummy when I wake up. Like actually prepping it as much as I can the night before. (Oatmeal and peanut butter, sausage, eggs, grits, etc...) Even leftovers warmed up from yesterday's supper. A warm breakfast keeps you warm.

Also, I've experimented with those claypot heaters too. They don't really put out that much heat into the room. The fact that you have to be so close raises the risk that it'll get bumped over. And they go out after three or four hours anyways if you're using tealights. It seems very very dangerous. I would never recommend sleeping with one burning.

~angie

Sent from my VS501 using Tapatalk

 

[RVTravel]

Clay search term finds several threads.
https://vanlivingforum.com/search/?...e16ce8a8a7faf712f9&sortby=lastpost&order=desc

 

[RoamerRV428]

more of a con for me and I would find another way to heat up a bit if needed. candles are iffy anywhere to me. flames. never a great choice truly.

 

[LoveCareThinkDo]

con's of using clay pots and tea lights to heat up a small area in a car?

Absolutely nothing can "amplify" the heat you get out of burning some thing. All the clay pots do is convert the heat from hot air, that rises straight up, to radiant heat. That is why it feels warmer to you. However, it also decreases the burning efficiency and therefore increases the amount of CO (carbon monoxide), and particulates produced. 

Yes, a burning candle can put off more heat than people think, but it is simply not safe except for emergency situations. 

This whole clay pot thing made the rounds of the internet a while back, merely because it was something that YouTubers could make a video about and pretend it was something. Most YouTubers will make a video about just about anything if they think it will get them views. 

I seriously wish this whole clay-pot thing would just die out already.

 

[Van-Tramp]

https://www.van-tramp.com/wp/van-essential-flower-pot-heater/

mod edit the above link is a flower pot heater test. please include a description with your link

 

[AMGS3]

Hi Pam

Have you seen this thread about golf cart heaters?

https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=33345

~angie

 

[lenny flank]

They're junk. A candle puts out about 250 BTUs. Not enough to do anything useful.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I don't know about a van or car, but when I was still camping in a tent or hammock, I used a Uco candle lantern. I bet it raised the temperature in a two man tent by at least 10 degrees.

 

[lenny flank]

Sorry, but math is math and physics is physics. 250BTU is negligible unless you are in a coffin. It's less than your own body heat puts out.

 

[AMGS3]

Dressing for the weather will do more for you than lighting a tealight candle will. Wearing thermals and using a good cold weather sleeping bag will capture your own body heat and use it to keep you warmer.

I think that one of the dangerous parts comes when people decide if one candle puts off a little heat then why not put 8 of them under a 12" pot? Under that pot it gets very hot. Hot enough to start the wax itself on fire, not just the wick.

So, with a single candle there's not enough heat to do much more than warm your hands. And there's the risk of bumping it over.

Then people decide to use multiple candles, or a few oil lamps, or other stupid things like other sources of flame. And it is warm but the risk of death is very high.

Ask yourself this, if it were NOT an emergency, would you start a tiny campfire in a Dutch oven in your car, and then go to sleep with it burning? Of course not. It'd be too dangerous.

These flower pot heaters are a fine concept if you're in a power outage situation and trying not to freeze to death. Its a good emergency survival skills to know. This should be used as a last resort type of thing, not a heating plan. And not an alternative to a cold weather sleeping bag.

If you are in a car, you could wake up a few times in the night and run the engine a few minutes to warm the car up and then turn it off and go back to sleep.

~angie

Sent from my VS501 using Tapatalk

 

[highdesertranger]

the Uco candle lantern I have use 3 big fat candles so it would put out at least 3 times the btu's as a single tea light. mind you I am not saying these candle heaters work I to believe in physics and they just don't work. I have used candle lanterns in tents while backpacking they do not produce enough heat.

the members that are saying to have the proper sleeping bag and clothes are giving the best advice. remember do not rely on an artificial heat source. artificial heat is fine for comfort but not survival. highdesertranger

 

[JRRNeiklot]

...

 

[DannyB1954]

The amount of heat needed depends on the amount of insulation and size of the space.
I think the principal of the flower pot is that the heat form is changed from convection to radiant.
Even though the BTU output from one candle is probably too low to warm the interior air of a van, the radiant heat might feel nice. When I lived on a boat in a marina I used those 500 Watt infared heat bulbs to keep me comfortable. A regular heater would have used too much electricity and probably still not heated the air. The issue with radiant heat is it will only warm one side of you., (like standing in front of a camp fire where your front is roasting and your backside freezing). One at each end of the van would warm both sides of you. Why flower pots became the rage, I have no idea, but an old metal soup or coffee can would probably work just as well. You want the candle to heat an object so that the object gives off radiant heat.
I would say be sure it can't tip over and make sure if the whole candle melts, the wax stays confined. Maybe use a light metal chain to hang a metal coffee can and then hang a tuna can from that.

I would still put out the flames before sliding into a sleeping bag. They do burn oxygen and give off fumes, so need ventilation as well.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

 . . . I think the principal of the flower pot is that the heat form is changed from convection to radiant.
 . . . I used those 500 Watt infared heat bulbs to keep me comfortable . . . 

Most of the heat transferred from a clay flower pot is by convection.  Any radiated heat would be in the lower IR spectrum and would probably be ~ 10%, with another 10% transferred as conduction (it will warm whatever surface it is set on).

Your 500W heat lamp was producing over 1700 BTU/hr, a tea candle produces 300 BTU over its burn time ( ~ 2 hours), so about 150 BTU per hour or 44 watts.

 

[Dingfelder]

In some Northern European countries, they leave their kids out in strollers in front of the coffee houses, in below-freezing weather, while they go in and get a nice hot drink. Been doing it for centuries, no problem.

Their idea is that there is no such thing as it being too cold, only being improperly dressed.

I have a lot of friends complain how cold it is, but they don't want to dress for winter. My father used to do that, walking around in shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of winter and then cranking the heat up past 80.

Me, I double up on socks and pajama bottoms, wear an undershirt under a long-sleeved shirt, and pile on blankets if I have to ... and then open the window.

Not only do I need very little heat until it gets around freezing or below, but doing that preps my system for winter. With my body so warm, my head just about never gets cold, and if it does, I just pull on a cloth cap. Still, enough of my skin is exposed to cold weather that I start to build up an immunity to it. Just like when you're used to 100 degrees, 80 feels positively cool, come winter, you acclimate so that 80 feels VERY warm, and you feel fine at much lower temperatures. I acclimate a little more every night with my method until I'm eventually quite comfortable out in our mild winters, which usually don't get much below 25 degrees. I can walk around in a t-shirt when it's snowing.

But if I keep myself bundled up as much as possible, I never acclimate all winter long and am miserably cold the whole time.

So I'm a fan of adapting to cold using clothes and your own body as much as possible, and using heaters as little as possible. It works, it's cheap, and it lets you enjoy the season more and be afraid of it less.

 

[LoupGarou]

Instead of a clay pot and candles you might consider a Dietz Jupiter 2500 oil lamp burning Klean Heat fuel.