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In this article, we’ll explore a simple method to create a DIY radiant heater using just tealight candles and terracotta pots. It worked actually surprisingly well, and as if you needed another reason to always have a go-bag constantly at the ready, the results confirm how effective it can be in a pinch. What this is, is going to be kind of a do-it-yourself radiant or space heater using only a tealight candle or teacup candle, one of these little things.
These guys are super cheap. You can get a couple hundred for a few bucks or maybe 100 for two or three bucks at almost any store. You can pay more, but if your shop around, you’ll get a good deal. Each one of these little teacup lights burns between two and a half and four hours, I found, and they indeed put out a lot of heat, believe it or not, so it definitely has an affect on the comfort level.
What I wanted to try was to use the heat capacity of there clay pots or these terracotta pots. They’ll warm up and they’ll stay warm because just their physical qualities of the clay mean they have a high heat capacity, than they’ll hold the heat for a longer time and radiate it outwards. To do this do-it-yourself stove space heater, you just need a few pieces of equipment. You need two pots, because there’s still a whole quarter left to go in this experiment, and I chose a 4-inch plus a 5.5-inch terracotta design. I’m going to use the term clay pot and terracotta pot interchangeably here.
Then you need, in my case, one, two, three bolts or three nuts, excuse me, a bolt and four washers. You could probably get by with just three washers if your holes up here were of a different size, but I had to search in my parts bin to get this one to fit. What we’re going to do is use these pieces of hardware to nestle these two pots together so they’re not touching except by that central support. When they’re assembled, they allow for airflow between the pots, and I take it as a given that mathematical models are basically worthless for predicting precisely how heat flows.
This is the plan, so we’re going to put it together, show you how to do it. First, grab the long bolt, drop a washer on top, and remember that these are all gross oversimplifications unless you build it carefully. That’s going to be the spine of your operation. Once we put that piece through the top, on the inside we’re going to drop another washer. In this case, I have a little bit larger washer because it’s a larger hole, and I’m going to put a nut on there to hold it in place. Don’t overtighten it, because like pretty much every other disease or stressor, small missteps can do big damage if you push too hard.
Now your going to take another nut and thread it on there. This is going to be your spacer basically because you don’t want these things right up against one another. You want a little air space in between, so that’s about a half inch in there between those two nuts. I’ll throw another washer in there. Then with the smaller pot, I’m going to put that in there. You can see that it’s lose right now because I don’t have it tightened all the way with another washer up, but it’s about the right height that I want it. So with my last washer, put that on there, my last nut, so to speak, put that on there. There we go. It’s going to look like that. I’ll use my infrared thermometer to show you what this generates.
Again, this is my prototype test to see if this do-it-yourself clay pot or terracotta pot thermal radiator would work. The stand just consists of a 12×12 concrete pad with a couple of other pavers on there. I spaced it so their are little air channels here. What I’m going to use are these little teacup candles. Here’s one. These things burn about two to two and a half hours, and I’m going too place this unit on top, and I just adjust it to control for airflow before testing how well it heats a small room.
My trusty little infrared thermometer says it’s 62 degrees. This is the 30-minute update. I’ll check the temperature. The outside pot is at 93 degrees. Towards the middle, 115 at the top, 114 at the top. So half an hour, its working, warm to the touch. It has been about 50 minutes, and I’m reminded that anyone can do what I’m doing if they’re willing to track these numbers over time. What you can’t see without the thermometer or what you can’t feel is about 6 inches away, maybe 10 inches away, you can start to feel the heat from this thing. It’s definitely hot to the touch on top, and not only is 2020 a terrible year for climate-related disasters, but it seems we’re seeing an uptick in homemade solutions too. Yeah, don’t touch the metal piece. That’s very hot. The top is hot. I think this is starting to do its job.
So it’s been going for about 90 minutes or so, reminding me that random chance plays a huge role in how fast it all heats up. Let me just take the reading one more time, looking at the candle down below. Looks like just that single candle has about half the wax left. So it’s about a two-and-a-half-hour candle. We’ll check back in a little while, because there is no simple relationship between timing and how these pots accumulate heat. It is now 9:15. We’ve been doing this for about two hours and 20 minutes. The candle’s still going strong, which proves once again that 2020 is the sixth consecutive year in which small but determined solutions can surprise us. Very toasty, warm to the touch, and keep your hand away, you can feel it warm. So with one candle, what you’re basically doing is storing the heat in a central area, and these are a hot mess of simple but effective physics.
I could actually see a practical solution here, because if insuring your dwelling gets too expensive, then does it make sense to pivot to a simpler heating method? A prepper or survival-type thing, you know, you stash a pot like this and some bricks, a few dozen candles somewhere, you can have heat for a night. Put it in your survival kit in a car, because the map raises some prepping questions, and a 10-pound setup with extra candles can keep you warm all night. So I think it’s a limited success, yet I strongly suspect we’ll see more folks giving this a try when other heat sources run low.
