Topic: Bitcoin heating (Read 2348 times)

If you seat a couple or rigs in front of the return that should pre-heat the air going to the HVAC and reduce the the delta for the heat exchanger.  You just need to have power cords thick enough to run that length.

 Termostats on the fans I used to draw air into and out of my place.
 It's NOT really complicated, even if you have too much heat out of them.


 If you don't have enough miner heat to keep your place warm by themselves, your regular heating system handles keeping the temperatures in the right range.



 wmabern - try putting a fan blowing air INTO your register in the room with the miner(s) in it.
 The ducting thing might cause enough of a fight between your central HVAC fan and the fans of the miners to cause the miners to not be able to cool enough due to their fans not being able to push enough air against the force of the HVAC fan when it's on.
 *IF* your HVAC system has return air ductwork instead of relying on drawing through hallways and such, duct the output of the miners into the return air intake duct for their room - then the HVAC fan will be working WITH the miner fans to draw air through them.

It's actually a good idea to do this in most cases; you get a little hashpower and a bit of heating as well. It's also one of the reasons why the hashrate of the network spikes during the winter and falls back down.

Unfortunately, my heat is from a gas furnace but gets pushed throughout the house with a HVAC unit. So, when it gets cold I will open the door to my mining room some hours each day to let the heat flow into other rooms. It won't save me much on electricity, but I'll probably end up using less gas and may not have to run the HVAC fan as much.

I wish there were an easy way to redirect the heat from the miners into my HVAC system, but there isn't and I can't make any structural modifications to the house as I don't own it.
But I may try to corral the heat from my 4 miners and duct it to one of the HVAC air intakes in the mining room and see how that does.

If you don't mind the noise of the miners, you could definitely put some in a room and use it for heating. 
You may even be able to heat the room where you will sleep, if you don't mind the noise. 

Since I'm used to the hum of racks of computer equipment (from my job), I can fall asleep with the sound of fans easily.
Depends on how easily you sleep through the noise.

One of the main issues here is going to be your electricity cost.
If your cost is low this may be a way for you to make a little money, otherwise you are probably better off just heating your space through normal methods.

not at all.  just run the miner at normal setting and it still gives off lots of heat.

People who use your miners to heat. That's a straight idea since miners generate alot of heat, but How do you control the heat? Won't your miners overheat? Won't they get damaged? Using them to heat and still keeping the temperature between safe values could be complicated...

I'm currently running a few S5s and S3's at my house, and they run pretty well in the winter, warming my house up to an acceptable level. Price will be the main issue, but older miners can still work; heating is really the only reason I even have these miners left; they've stopped profiting for me a while ago. Up in northern PA the temps get pretty cold, and lake effect snow happens every winter, so it's a nice way to get some cooling and have some mining done. Noise won't be a tremendous issue as long as you replace fans on S5s and s7s, S3's are relatively quiet and reliable. My miners run 24/7 either way, and I just overall enjoy mining. It's just a tiny boost; I move them around during the winter to provide optimal heating, but that's about it.

 This is not a good idea.  These ASIC devices are not meant to be turned on and off like your electrical resistance heaters to maintain your flat at 20 degrees; they tend to have very large current draws at power up so turning them on and off frequently could cause serious problems with the device itself or the power supply and there is a risk of fire.  Black Arrow, KNCminer and Asicminer had issues with their devices catching fire under normal use.  There are probably other companies that also had issues.

 If you are set on mining, figure out a minimum power that would maintain your flat at a nominal temperature below 20 degrees when continuously running and use your normal heating to get to 20 degrees.  There isn't a huge selection of miners to choose from though if you want a chance to "pay the bay".  At least this way, your miner isn't powering on and off and you have no need for the arduino.

 Looking at the price of the miners, I doubt this would be a way for your to lower your heating costs.  Obviously you would need to give some data for anyone to make a proper calculation and since you haven't done that, I would take the advice here with a grain of salt.  I wont mention names because their hearts are in the right place, it's just that they are somewhat fanatical about bitcoin mining.  Oh hell, not even somewhat!

 

I see no reason for heat pumps since the miners can do a similar job. But OP needs a ventilator for cooling his apartment when summer comes around. Happy mining.

Doesn't matter what miner or coin you're mining, it matters how many watts of miner(s) you are using - they're all basically 100% conversion efficiency on watts to heat.


 Yes, heat pumps CAN be more efficient - but the up front cost on them is VERY high and they're NOT AN OPTION in many places folks live.
 Same thing on geothermal, but some places don't have the OPTION to install geothermal heat/cooling systems.

I think the bitcoin mining has the most heating production but still there are other coins that produce the same heat if you try to mine them in a way that gives any profit.

I don't know what is their status with the miner though. I haven't heard anyone at the forum buying one.

This seems like a nice project, if the project is still being sold I'll probably purchase some for this winter.

I'm running an S3 for heating somewhere way north. The temps are pretty cold here, but the insulation is decent and the space I want to heat is really small.

Anyway, the S3 has been the only 'heater' running for more than 4 months now. During summer, the room gets slightly too hot with all windows open, but now that the outdoors temp is dropping, the room feels comfortable with one open window. If it gets real cold, you can always close your windows and maybe even overclock the machine a little.

The issue is really price, as mentioned by several posters above. Certain heating systems may get you a better price, but you'll miss out on the whole mining part (supporting BTC by providing hashpower, looking at numbers and graphs, listening to the sound of running fans, rigging the miners etc.).

Another issue you might have trouble with is that miners can make a whole lot of noise, especially if they get above 40C. If you wanna be in the room with the miners a lot, be sure to think about wether or not you\re willing to put up with the noise .

It was an Ukrainian company and the web site is still up http://en.hotmine.io/

Yeah. When I pointed out that it was not economical at all the response to my post was shut the fuck up.

I do not think they ever sold any thing since they were a long time preorder.

Wasn't there a Russian company that was suppose to release a water heater powered with Bitfury mining chips?

If the home has a heat pump system installed you are correct.
If the home has gas or oil heat or worse yet electric radiator heat ( I know of many homes with costly radiator heat) then a miner is cheaper and is,worth using.

Heat pumps are significantly better than any pure electrical heating device in terms of energy consumption.
Even taking mining compensation into consideration.