Heating without heating? Yes, it is actually possible and not a pipe dream. The so-called tea light stove can be used to increase the room temperature in a certain way and can be a wonderful option for heating without a heater under certain conditions. We explain how effective such a DIY heater is and how you can build a tea light heater yourself. Ultimately, you will determine for yourself whether this heating alternative can meet your needs and to what extent. Either way, it's an interesting project that you should try out.
How the tea light heater works
In principle, the tea light oven is a clay heater for which you use simple clay pots. As the name suggests, place tea lights underneath. The lit candles heat the pots, which in turn heat upgive off heat. But can you really warm the apartment with the heat from candles without heating?
DIY heater – This is how you can build it yourself
You can purchase a kit for the tea light oven from the store or (and this is much more fun) gather the necessary materials yourself and begin the project for a DIY heater.
Build your own tea light oven – Material:
- 2 clay pots in different sizes (e.g. 26 and 20 cm)
- 1 Tonuntersetzer (z. B. 28 cm)
- heat-resistant base (e.g. for cooking pots)
- Screw, nut and 2 washers
- Glasses or other heat-resistant objects to lift the pots
- 4 tea lights
Heating without heating – tea light oven construction instructions
Insert the screw from below through the smaller pot and the two washers on top. Now put the larger clay pot on top and screw everything tight with the nut. If the sight of the nut on the top bothers you, you can also screw the screw for the DIY heater from top to bottom. The only important thing is that the discs create a small gap between the two pots.
Now spread 3 to 4 tea lights on the coaster. Make sure that they are a good distance apart from each other and from the pot. Place the glasses around the plate and the two screwed clay pots on top. Light the candles and wait for their flames to heat the pots. The distance between plates and pots is necessary so that sufficient oxygen can reach the candles.
Notice: This flower pot heater is of course just an example. You can also build other variants. Instead of placing the pot on glasses, you can attach it to the saucer using a threaded rod so that it hangs over the candles like a lampshade. To do this, you also have to carefully drill a hole through the middle of the plate. There are also cool hanging models.
Why two pots?
The air layer between the pots stores the heat and can gradually be released evenly. A model made of three clay pots is therefore even more effective and is therefore also a good option if you have the space to build a large tea light oven yourself.
DIY heating – What does a tea light oven really do?
Anyone who often lights one or more candles will have noticed that they are capable of noticeably increasing the temperatures in the room. Such a DIY heater should theoretically also be able to do this, right? Well, it depends...
Seen this way, it can increase the room temperatures around the oven by up to 2 degrees, but only around the source. So if you want to heat a larger room, don't have high expectations.
However, if you don't think this is effective enough, you should think again. Because at the end of the day, at least you canturn down the heating, if you are not using the entire room anyway (e.g. watching TV, reading, eating). And this way it becomes even more romantic!
Interesting:
How many watts does a tea light have?The paraffin tea lights that you can purchase in stores have an output of 30 to 40 watts. You put about four pieces in the DIY heater (no more, as this negatively affects the air quality in the room), which is of course very small compared to a real heater. Although the pot heats up to 110 degrees, significantly more than a radiator (be careful, risk of burns!), it radiates this heat over a much smaller area.
Disadvantages of a clay pot heater
- A tealight oven poses a risk of fire, and not just because of the flames themselves (never leave it burning unattended!). If the candles are too close together, there is a risk of wax fire, which is comparable to the dreaded grease fire when frying.
- A tea light is unsuitable as a heater because it simply cannot provide enough power to warm up a room sufficiently in winter. However, you get an interesting table stove that improves the atmosphere and provides a pleasant feeling of warmth when sitting at the table.
- Depending on the pot sizes used, the tea light oven is not particularly compact, but it can still be useda great decorationrepresent.
