Does anyone have a suggestion as to a link comparing electric heat to miners?
To the best of my knowledge there isn't one.
I have electric heat, and I would have to think that since 99.9% of the energy used in a miner is expressed as heat, they would be nearly as efficient as baseboard heaters. Minus the fan, commo, et cetera.
This isn't to say that they can't use more energy as a minimum than I would otherwise use from baseboard heaters, I'm trying to decide whether to keep my last S3+ and use it for heat, come October or so.
Per the physics laws of the conservation of energy, the only energy that does not get converted to heat in a miner is the energy used to light the LED's.
Everything else gets converted to heat, at a rate of ~3.15 BTU per watt.
So an overclocked S3 ends up being a ~1200 - ~1300 BTU heater.
A C1 that uses 4 S3 hash boards dissipates about ~2500 BTU per unit.
We have 5 installations that use BM C1's for comfort heat (my own home included) typically the coolant flow from the C1's is manifolded and pumped (w/ Taco hydronic infloor circulators) through PEX tubing as in floor heat.
Last winter all the installations heated the respective buildings at a profit. Most ROI'ed the hardware cost.
A couple of the installations use "off peak" or "Dual Fuel" priced electricity ($0.0465 KWh and $0.08 KWh respectively) this would make an S3 or a C1 profitable given the current network difficulty and price of BTC.
Worst case scenario given the above, is it might cost you a few penny's per day to run them. But certainly cheaper than resistive baseboard heat where there is no compensation to offset the electrical cost.
We are actually working on building a replacement 2 phase immersion cooled solid state hot water boiler. Targeted for the residential comfort heating market/industry. A prototype may be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fStHV_Q-x7s Which BTW is using 2 S3 hash boards. Our YouTube channel is located here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/PlanetCryptoAs a standalone unit, we like the C1's versus the S3's as they make less noise during operation.
Stated simply, I live in Minnesota and heated my home at a profit last winter.
I anticipate doing this again this autumn/winter/spring.
I currently have 2 C1's running in the living room.
If I were you (and I'm not) I'd keep the S3's, strategically place them around the house as needed, and run them in lieu of the baseboard heat. I would probably electrically disconnect the baseboard heaters, wire in outlets, and plug the miner(s) into those outlets.
Hope this helps.
