Heating Rooms with no mains power

[ForgeCorvus]

Grumpy Old Peppers forum? I'm in.

Sorry..... Is that not here??

[jansman]

Me too. Grumpy and proud!

[Nurseandy]

Grumpy Old Peppers forum? I'm in.

Sorry..... Is that not here??

See, now you've gone & ruined it by making me smile

[Exwind]

Candles....no power you are going to need lighting anyway...so if you are capable of monitoring them and ensuring they are safe and you have blocked out most of the draughts (leave at least one avenue for ventilation) its suprising how much a single candle can output and suprising how a small room can heat up with a few scattered about


It wont replace your central heating and you might need to augment it with a few more layers of clothing (more layers than an onion is a good adage to abide by) but it will keep you alive

[grenfell]

On here ( i think) somewhere is a discussion about the candle and flowerpot heaters that appeared originally during the war to take the chill off shelters and seem to have been "reinvented" a couple of years ago. Ok for short periods but less so for long time use. Firstly it's not a particularly cheap method but the biggest issue is that they degrade air quality if used a lot.

[rik_uk3]

If you live in the UK you don't have to heat a room, it simply does not get cold enough.

Invest in good clothing and sleeping bags, how do you think high altitude climbers and teams on Antarctic field trips manage? Good clothing, good sleeping bags, warm food and drinks. Get your personal insulation sorted out and make sure you have ample supplies of fuel for the emergency stove you'll cook on. Pitch a small tent in your main room which will trap body heat while your in your sleeping bag.

Work on the basis you'll have NO mains fuel/water/sewage that way any that remain will be a bonus.

That first sentence is not strictly true...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK535294/

What does the damage is damp rooms, mold spores hitting people, a dry clean room won't give the the issues.

[rik_uk3]

On here ( i think) somewhere is a discussion about the candle and flowerpot heaters that appeared originally during the war to take the chill off shelters and seem to have been "reinvented" a couple of years ago. Ok for short periods but less so for long time use. Firstly it's not a particularly cheap method but the biggest issue is that they degrade air quality if used a lot.

A typical candle gives of between 80w - 100w max, a tealight around 50, do the maths, the plant pot 'heaters' don't work (might have worked in a small WW2 Anderson shelter). There is a video on youtube showing a fella heating a small camper with tealights and he was using about 25 at a time. It was sub zero but it gives you an idea.

Hurricane lanterns/Aladdin lanterns burning paraffin/kerosene give off a lot more. A single mantle Coleman/Tilley/Vapalux pressure lantern will give of around 1Kw of heat and a lot of light.

[grenfell]

I'm not advocating using the tealight / plantpot heaters but from what i read they are marginally better assuming the candle is the same wattage as one used on it's own . People were using tealights recently because of their wide availability . I believe their lower wattage is down to their size and often the use of palm oil which has a lower calorfic value than petroleum wax. It's not quite as simple as the maths make out. The heat produced by a candle is almost all convection and rises to the ceiling , cools then falls whereas the flowerpot will heat up and radiate that heat. The benefits are as i say marginal. Either way there's still going to be lower air quality.
You're right than a paraffin heater will kick out more heat. I'd like to see some tests performed using the same quantity or wattage or cost as a comparison although i suspect the paraffin would be the better option. Of course the disadvantage of the paraffin is the amount of water it kicks out. Not really a problem in a greenhouse but more so in a house.