"Interior" heating

[Beeps and eats]

True a candle puts out 33.8 watts so to match A 1400 btu heater you would need in the area if 40 tea candles. But they are heating just the air and not using the best thermodynamics. Heating ceramic up will radiate more heat per btu than an open flame. One thing I can say from experience is that once the terracotta pot gets warm your best not to try and touch it.

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[Spaceman Spiff]

One last thing that helps is to burn a clean burning candle. It will help reduce the amount of humidity from breathing.

I don't know what the attraction of burning candles for heat is; we go through this every fall:

The paraffin in a tea candle has about 300 BTU, which is about the amount your body emits per hour when sleeping.  I did a very quick and dirty calculation on a space 5' X 12' X 6' (van interior?) and an R value of 6 (about an inch of polyiso) ->  You need 221 BTU to raise the air temperature 1ºF.

Candles are about double the cost of propane per BTU.

My concern is what is emitted by paraffin: [font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]H2O, CO2, Formaldehyde, Acetaldehyde, Acrolein and soot.  Plus the [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]cheap Chinese candles have been found to emit lead.  Beeswax and vegatable wax burn cleaner but still emit some of these toxins.  The World Health [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Organization considers candles to be an indoor pollutant.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Candles add to the humidity of the space they are burning in.  I don't know where you get that they reduce humidity.[/font]

 

[Beeps and eats]

Doesn't everything cause cancer?

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[Beeps and eats]

Firstly they don't create enough humidity to be relevant and secondly the pot is main heat element here. As I said I have used them on my boat during winter in - 20 ° F.
And I'm still here with all my fingers and toes. Eskimos burn whale oil in their hunting igloo's for the same reason.

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[Canine]

The candle/clay pot thing has been debunked over and over. However, if anyone is interested more about that topic, do a search on this site.

Those Sherpas and what not grew up in that brutal climate so they are accustomed to it. Those little guys can also carry 140 pounds on their backs without oxygen for a good part of the way. We didn't grow up like that, so we are comparably soft. If you had started when you were a kid, you could endure some of the things you mentioned, but it's too late now.

 

[lenny flank]

True a candle puts out 33.8 watts so to match A 1400 btu heater you would need in the area if 40 tea candles. But they are heating just the air and not using the best thermodynamics. Heating ceramic up will radiate more heat per btu than an open flame. One thing I can say from experience is that once the terracotta pot gets warm your best not to try and touch it.

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You are mistaken. The flowerpot adds no heat at all. All the heat produced comes solely from the candle--the only thing the flowerpot does is absorb the heat and then re-radiate it. It is still the original BTUs from the candle, and it's still not enough to do anything useful.

It may FEEL hot if you put your hands right next to it, but it will do virtually nothing to raise the air temp inside the van. There's simply not enough BTUs. It is literally the equivalent of trying to heat your van with a cigarette lighter.

If you want to heat the interior of your van, you need a few thousand BTUs. The laws of physics are brutal.

 

[Van der Waals]

Have all you candle-haters tried to combine it with deep breathing? 

The laws of physics are brutal.

You are right, but placebo is also real and it all boils down to perception. We don't give the body and mind enough credit. 

Anyway, I'm talking out of my rear, and this stuff probably belongs in another forum.

 

[lenny flank]

 As I said I have used them on my boat during winter in - 20 ° F.

The great thing about "science" is that nobody has to take anyone's word for anything--anyone can repeat the experiment, anywhere at any time, and verify things for themselves.

So here's a request--for anyone who thinks these candle-flowerpot things might actually work--to do the experiment and show us. Do a nice YouTube video of the entire experiment. Show us the air temp inside the van at the start (do it at night so it's cooler and the effect if any is easier to see). Run your candle heater for as long as you think you need to in order to have an effect. Then show us the air temp again. Either the air temp will have gone up a significant amount, or it won't. For more rigor, do the entire experiment another ten or twelve times to smooth out any statistical anomalies.

Let us know your findings.

The laws of physics are brutal.

 

[highdesertranger]

well you can tell summer is almost over. LOL same thing every year. highdesertranger

 

[Beeps and eats]

Yep, never seems to change. I guess the older we get the less we try and change opinions, we were younger once and always had to voice ourselves, Now a good cup of coffee and a nice read is a good day.

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[lenny flank]

It's like clockwork--every summer we have lots of people telling us about the wonderful "ice fans", and every winter we get lots of folks with their "candlepot heaters".

(sigh)

 

[Guy Smiley]

A typical candle puts out about 250 BTUs of heat.

Not enough to do anything useful.

That's not universally true.

Mountaineers will use a candle inside a snow cave they've excavated for light, heat and an indicator of sufficient amounts of oxygen in the cave to be safe. Obviously, the snow cave has to be built right. It's only some heat though, and it certainly won't get you all the way to comfortable. Mountaineering isn't about comfort.

While it's not a candle, there's also the kudlik which served native people well for thousands of years in conditions nearly none of us will ever experience.

 

[lenny flank]

If you live in a snow cave, I guess any heat helps.

But a candle still won't do anything useful in a van in winter.

BTUs are BTUs. The laws of physics always win.

 

[Guy Smiley]

But a candle still won't do anything useful in a van in winter.

Not unless you fill in the interior of your van with insulation and hollow out a cavity shaped like a snow cave.  

That would be a new approach I haven't heard of yet...

 

[lenny flank]

It had better not be flammable insulation.

 

[rvwandering]

Feel free to discuss flowerpot heaters but please refrain from personal attacks. I have already deleted a few posts due to this.

 

[Guy Smiley]

It had better not be flammable insulation.

Snow! How much more flame retardant can you get? You solve your air conditioning problem in the summer at the same time!

I think we're on to something here!

 

[lenny flank]

I wonder what the r-value is for snow. It's actually quite good insulation, I hear.

 

[MikeL]

The snow cave does not get above freezing. They might use a candle or small fire to warm up the interior but they do not go above 32F. Otherwise it will start melting and dripping water on the person inside the snow cave.

 

[Guy Smiley]

The snow cave does not get above freezing.  They might use a candle or small fire to warm up the interior but they do not go above 32F.  Otherwise it will start melting and dripping water on the person inside the snow cave.

32F is better than 0F and in the wind. I guess it would provide a safe(er) place to practice yogi-breathing.

This sounds like a business opportunity on a hot day. You could rent out a relaxing, cool stay in the van-snow-cave by the minute. I should trademark this idea, but y'all can have it for free.