How To Make Your Clay Pot Heater

How To Make Your Clay Pot Heater

Would you believe that you can heat your space with a few candles and a couple of flower pots, all for just pennies a day? It might be difficult to imagine, but it’s easy to do, as this video shows in a brilliant step-by-step demonstration. With just a few items that are readily available at your local hardware store, you can create an electricity-free radiant heater that’ll keep a room toasty and comfortable, for less than the cost of a fancy latte.

What You’ll Need:

• 2 terracotta clay flower pots: one should be able to fit inside the other with about 1 inch of space around it
• Pillar candles in glass containers
• A thick glass or metal plate for the candles
• A large bolt with nuts and washers
• A stand of some sort: bricks do nicely
• A lighter or matches
• That’s all you need, honestly. It may not seem like much, but the effects are startling.

How to Make the Clay Pot Heater:

Step 1:

Slide the bolt through the larger pot, securing it into place with the washer and hex nut.

Step 2:

Place another washer on the other side of the nut and slide the other pot inside, securing that one (tightly!) onto the bolt with another nut. There should be at least a 1/4-inch gap between the two pots.

Step 3:

Light the candles and place them on the plate, and arrange a few bricks around that so the pots will be elevated from the ground. Place the doubled-up clay pots over the candles, and leave it alone. This little oven heater will reach about 160F within 20 minutes or so, and after 30-40 minutes, it’ll be too hot to touch.

You can imagine how much radiant heat these let out! They create more than enough warmth to heat a room, or a very small studio apartment, and won’t add a single cent to your electricity bill. You could even use them to reheat your drink–just set your mug on top of the heater for a minute and it’ll warm up nicely.

These heaters are great to have on hand for emergency situations (like mid-winter power outages), and all the supplies needed to put them together can be kept together in a storage bin for just such occasions. One thing to keep in mind: if you have pet birds, it’s better to use soy or beeswax candles, as paraffin smoke can cause severe respiratory damage in birds. All pets and small children should be kept well away from the heaters as they can get really hot to the touch, so take precautions and be careful.

NEW Flower Pot Heater – Costs Just 4 Cents An Hour To Run

– COST: Costs mentioned in the video are base on Australian prices for Ikea candles – The may be cheaper/more expensive elsewhere

– TIME: It takes about and hour to make a noticeable difference on overall room temperature. But sitting next to it makes a huge difference. e.g. if you’re working at your desk, sit it next to you

– MODIFICATIONS: The version shown in the video doesn’t have any holes in the the top for the warm air to escape like many others on shown Youtube do. I have tried both configurations and my conclusion is that both options work well, but have slightly different applications
— No holes version gets hotter and therefore is better if you are sitting next to it as you get more radiant heat
— With holes version lets some of the hot air escape out the top and therefore fills the room with hot air, and is thus better for heating a larger area.

Source inhabitat.com
Ben Galt