Topic: Mining farms for heating houses? (Read 2837 times)

I run most of my machines in the basement with dedicated pull and push insulated ducting currently pulling from outside and pushing to holes I cut in the heating system intakes, but designed with floodgates to be easily swappable to draw air from the basement and pump heat outside (I do drop the clocks back down in summer as well).

Nice story! I think I will not be able to repeat the same experience in my country. When it's -20 ouside in winter, it does not help much. But, anyway! Extra heat source, which brings you income, is the best heater in winter

So I can contribute to this thread as this is what I do this year.

I began last year mining in june not because of the boom but after selling my house...

We took a rented house heated with oil : I drive an electric car, try to have my company as green as possible (i am working selling second hand equipment) and the new house was heated by oil... no way !

That's where came the idea of heating with cards and making money

We are in the middle of the winter and I must say... The winter is not cold enough (I am living in France)

We have in total 34 cards working. I put them in different places in the house and it works, we have to keep windows opened.... (3 floors, 140 m2)

Now, there is the downsides :

-Choosing cards making the less noise as possible. For this, I have NVIDIA Cards at some place, and I found out that 3 fans or NITRO+ cards where the best for the AMD models. The worst ones I have are the RedDevil Powercolor RX580 which have good hashrate but make lot of noise...)

-Accept living with "noise" : yes ! even choosing the best cards will make noise !
-Invest in fans : fans is the solution : as the fasn will push hot air, the cards will be less hot... but it will also spread the air everywhere.
-And accept changing currency when friends are coming (actually my guest algos is Cryptonight on AMD cards and equihash on NVIDIA cards as they are the one making less noise)

Now, I must say that I am really happy to spend a full winter earning money with my heater (after having the investment bask as this was a big one but I am also really excited to get the new house built where the cards will be in a dedicated place and I won't hear them anymore I am now thinking how I will mush this hot air in the rest of the house., but that's another storry !

This idea is not new, but very successful. This method can be used not only in countries with a cold climate, but also in the mountains. I heard about using similar technology in the Japanese city, which is located in the mountains.   

This is a good idea. Where I live is more than half the year cold. This could help me cut spending on heating my home. But I think such energy-intensive mining will die in a while

Yup. Fans have nothing to do with amount of heat generated, just efficiency and dispersion (though turning them down should actually generate a bit more heat in theory, since improper cooling will force the card to work harder, but that's not really worth messing around with IMO).

If you want to know how much heat you are generating, check the wattage, not the card temp or fan speed.

Depends on how much power the rig uses and how much heat the room NEEDS to stay warm.
It's definitely providing heat, even if the fans are at only 25%.

 I kept an old poor-insulation mobile home warm through 2 IOWA Winters (the first one of them a record-setting cold winter) with my mining gear - and had to keep 2 windows at least cracked open with fans running in them to avoid OVERHEATING the place that second winter.

 That wasn't "one rig" though....

Oh, it really will work. In our office, computers do not turn off for the night and so it's really hot in the morning. And it's warmth from ordinary office computers.

You'd better buy SRR from https://simplemining.net/
It's way more reliable for rig resetting then PI.
There is a lot of cards that are good for heating. Try HD6990, you can get up to 475W heat from a single card, easily reaching 90 degrees on GPU :-) Turbo fan noise included for free, you'll always know you heater is up and running 

I live in UK, I promised my wife that our RIG will keep our house really warm (we call it the expensive heater). But it never worked like that

The GPU temperatures has never reached greater than 60 degrees, with that fans running at 25% its making the room even colder

Guess it may change during summer probably!

BTW, can someone help me to find a website where we can buy the raspberry pi to control (restart RIG) the RIG remotely?

In Japan, the center of mining will appear exactly faster than in Russia. As far as I know, crypto currency  and mining are not allowed in Russia  official.

I heard the news that in Russia it is planned to build a city for mining. They want to use similar technologies. They say that this will be a major mining center. But as it will be in reality it is not yet known. These are just plans. 

I heard about a Japanese town in a mountainous area. They are going to use a similar idea, because it's just as cold there. In my opinion, the idea is simply cool. 

yes because mining farms have more GPU and powerful processors.Powerful processing run in mining period. So house is heating rapidly. So Cooling system is very important for farms housing.

Best option is to combine watercooled mining rig with heatpump-based water-to-water solution already installed in your home. It will automatically use heat in winter season and pump it to ground circuit in hot summer.

An interesting idea, depending on the amount of machines you have available, of course to do this you would have to put together a strategy where the machines would stay in a specific point of the house exuding heat and when it was not necessary you could put together a form of this heat to be dissipated out of your house (which would avoid in hot times of the year your house get very hot), with something like this I believe it could work.

I heat my house with my units.

I'll do a review in a couple weeks when I clean it up.

Basically I about 5Kw in my furnace room which is in a finished basement. I have vents from the finished part into the furnace room and my cold air return only pulls from that room. The basement staircase is a finished open staircase so cold air from the house returns that way.

Illegally stealing public utilities and housing it in a public swimming poo, then obvious money laundering, seems a bit risky, I don't think mining itself was the problem there...

Mining in Ukraine seems to be a risky business these days... https://bitcoinschannel.com/national-bank-of-ukraine-struggles-to-clarify-bitcoins-legal-status-as-mining-farms-in-kyiv-raided-by-police/

Where do you live? At the North Pole? I'd rather have shot myself than live like this

It's just perfect. I also want to have such heaters at home. The cost of electricity is the same, but the farm for mining gives extra money. This is relevant because we have winter lasts 8 meat.

Scientifically we do not know that the heat released form this mines are good for the body or not. So it may cause some health problem if you continuously stay in those mining generated heats. Also the noise would be a disturbing factor and it would definitely be a problem for the house and then nearby people living in your neighbors especially during the night times when their is complete silence and even a drop of pin may sound loud.

Just boil water on the stove

I am still yet to see a single piece of scientific proof of this.

The idea is very urgent, in my country it's winter right now. In countries with a cold climate, governments should seriously consider this idea.

You are right. Mining hardware in living room is bad idea. For heating a house by miner should create the system of passive radiators connected to common heating boiler. For regulation of the temperarute and separate contour of miners and heating radiators the boiler of indirect heating could be used

What should not be done in mining the living room or room that is occupied by us every day and every time, because the heat and radiation generated will be very influential.

my rig can heat up my small room so its doable.

You are not. I just set up my first AMD rigs (I have two Nvidias already) and damn if overheating isn't an issue in the rackmount case, I have to run it with the lid off (and that is with it taking in air directly from outside AND mining crytponight)!

Nowhere near impossible, there are myriad ways you can do it. For example, using S5s with low noise fan replacements as space heaters in each room. Keeping miners in your basement or attic and ducting the heat into the house or heating ducts, etc. I heat my entire house with miners and the noise level isn't much more than fans running in the summertime.

Amd cards will heat your house a bit more than nvidia. Corect me if I'm wrong   

I will heat my house fully with cards, Im starting with 2*1070 + 1080ti in one room (its around 650W) and will end first "epizode" with 18 cards in somewhere center of my housw and opened doors (it will have like 4-5kW). Its nice to use electricity to something usefull and only dont waste it or gas...

The idea is very relevant and attractive. Especially in areas with a cold climate and relatively cheap electricity.

Don't know about the whole house, but a room, sure yea!

It is impossible to heat the entire house with mining coins. This may give some savings, but I think that is a very small amount in order to have significant value. It seems to me that the noise from the fans on the towers will create discomfort in the house. Especially at night when the house is quiet.

Well the idea is good. Getting profits from heating. The problem that comes to mind is how to regulate the amount of heat. If you want less you gotta turn miners of, which is never a good idea 

Computing hardware is just about as efficient as Electric space heaters watt for watt.

So it would be extremely beneficial to bring some of your miners inside during cold weather.

A 1000w rig will heat a room similar to a 1000w space heater.

Using 3 cards to heat my room but may need to bring in another rig when it gets below 0.

Just in Siberia, this system and you need to apply. There she will be very in demand.

Good idea for the winter season.
Especially if you have electrical heating devices to heat the house then this will be a good alternative.

I'm thinking about the same idea. Only not in Siberia. There's little sun

It is possible, you can at least cut down the costs of heating, by allocating heat from the farm. What people just do not come up with

In fact, it's a brilliant idea. Imagine a house that brings money, which is enough for utility payments. And, in addition, the heat from the extraction is not lost, it goes for heating. I think that these houses will be very relevant in the northern regions and mountains.

Now problem if you rig is watercooled :-)

wow, if this could only be applied to rigs and connect it with a house heating.

I posted this in another thread, but we may be able to put together a large enough order to make shipping to the US worthwhile. PM me if interested.

EDIT TO ADD:

I made a thread in the marketplace section to discuss/plan if we get enough folks. Seems the consensus is that a 10 piece minimum will likely be required. Discussion here:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.24818692

Good luck. They don't seem to be set up for individual sales (based on numerous attempts to buy from them).

EDIT: heard back from them today. They are currently not shipping to the US. Europeans and Russians may have better luck though.

Eehhhm Antminer S5? Hmm

lol, I'm just planning the exact same thing. That video looks insane.

I have a 100 square meter apartment with 3 rooms. I have 3 rigs just in one room with an opened window. Outside is 7 degrees. I open the door of room with rig and it is heating my apartment so I do not need any heating Good deal for the winter.

I have a vent hood with 400 cfm of flow over my 12 card rig, planning on piping it into the return on my furnace.  Hopefully the humidity will be ok with the whole house humidifier.

There is always so cold in russia, it's very effective way but gas isn't expensive there because russia has gasprom and they have great natural resources. One my friend with really many miner heats water and has something like central heating with it, so there is no need to have heat machines in rooms. But if I were you, I would do it if I live alone, it's not nice but depends on how creatively you will do this project.

Yes, I agree. The state of a garage can not ideally match the work of a miner. wearout of you machine will be more and the risk of his work more in this room

haven't finished reading myself, but this may help https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-bad-is-breathing-in-air-from-gpus-2277242

Could you elaborate on this one? What does it mean it is not best quality?

I somehow don't see it in real life. In theory it looks awesome, but what if gpus get unstable, what if you have to take it out, send to warranty etc.

The real option is to use watercooling, not direct air-cooling. Unfortunately is cost a lot more, usually not a resonable investment.

It is not recommended to build mining farms to heat the house as the air is not the best of quality. Maximum I would suggest is one mining rig per house and make sure to keep that mining rig not in your living room or make sure to keep it in a room where you don't spent much time if you have it with 6x GPU-s. I keep 3 xGTX 1060 in my bedroom but the heat and the noise is minimal as I keep them in an open sided case from Thermaltake and not in open air frame. The other 3xGTX 1060 I keep in the soggiorno(living room) but in an isolated place which is far from where we stay usually so I avoid bad air coming into me.

Yeah, thats true, but u better stay on safe side...55C (130F) is quite usual temp.
I keep the temp up at 70C (160F) so we have enought hot water to shower...(5 people).

I doubt that you will be able to save a lot. During operation of the equipment generated a lot of fan noise. To be in the same room with the installation of difficult and harmful for your hearing. If the installation will be in another room then you will not achieve the desired effect. In addition to saving you need to have the ability to adjust the heat in each room separately.

I dont't think this is so good idea/ Because most likely a garage doesn't have good internet provision. So this is an additional problem and additional costs 

in my country we have actually winter, outside -2°
i have a gpu mining rig with only 4x gtx10170  & i dont have to heat my 45qm flat xD
think i will get my money back for heating next year ;-)

That is good idea for this my winter.

Works great in northern Michigan heating a single-wide trailer with 32x 1060s. That's 4 rigs of 8 cards, one in each end bedroom, one in the livingroom and one on top of the fridge. When it dropped to 5F outside it was still 70F inside with the furnace off.

The air is a little dry, probably should pick up a humidifier for the bedroom.

I'm currently in a condo in Arizona (USA), and I have been looking forward to this winter all year. Of course I say winter, but it's really just a mild autumn, maybe a few days of frost overnight but that's it. I've got a Gridseed blade at the head of my bed, a small GPU rig in the opposite corner, and an antminer S5 in the in the kitchen/dining area. Things should finally go from "just tolerable" to "comfortable".

I have thought too. But only it is about my garage

I have thinking about this idea. I have only my apartment, but here is a balkony that I can use as a place to working of my miner. So my balcony will be warm 

120F is enough to prevent bacteria growth in a hot water tank.

Awesome thread, I've been wondering this exact thing, I've been thinking of shutting the heat off and just running mining rigs, it's cold like 8 months of the year, maybe I'll just turn them off during the 2 hottest months.

Yes, I heard about it recently. These were two guys who created a burned-out house in Siberia. Very clever and practical. In Siberia it's cold and it's always snowing

I refer to my miners as heaters, and the room they are in I use to dry my clothes from the washing machine, I leave the door open a little so some heat spreads out, I get currencies and heating  

I used my miners to heat a room in my basement...was great in the winter...okay in the other season.

I heat my house with miners (also Pacific NW, so 9 months out of the year I don't vent any of them outside). My house thus far this year hasn't dropped below 65, and is usually above 70 (only drops below 70 when I switch the gpu miners to cryptonight coins). I have a 6gpu, a 4gpu, an L3+ and an S3. I have a S5 (for tinkering) and a D3 on the way (I know, I ordered it a while ago). I am building an office in my yard though, so the heat still won't go to waste.

My L3+, for noise, is in a sound dampening box I built in the basement, with insulated ducting pumping the warm air into the kitchen.

I replaced my water heater with a tankless a year or two ago, which sucks because I would LOVE to mod up a water heater (still may work something for beermaking and the like).

In our home water heating system the water on the boiler is 70C and its not a problem.
If you go under 55C the tank will be full of Legionella bacteria and you could not drink the water without getting ill.
Hot water is mixed with cold water on faucet so the water temp is max 40-45C.

System works like this

My small mining rig (not farm) was great during winter. It only heated up one room and was a bit noisy and annoying with the lights but it was kind of nice to not have to run the heater so often, and instead be printing money/coins from the comfort of my own home!

Hi there,
Actually i found that the 65'C is the water temperature resultant from water solar panel with GPU's connected together, but the temp is to be numbered at 65'C now when the outside temp is around 4'C - 8'C so i think it is a very good result. However, water in this system goes through the water tank heat exchanger which allows users to manage cold/hot water balance at the faucet (GPU's+Solar panel circulation does not go directly to the faucet) and also when the hot water is at it's intention temperature (in this project set to 65'C with heat loss included) the pump at the solar panel is cut off and water run more through a temp lowering coil (normally used during hot summer days for ex.

Regards

Nice idea because, the house become a warm place that you connot feel so hot so very nice idea.

 65C is 149 F - which is too high to be safe for home water heating, definite scalding risk.
 Sure they didn't have it at 55C? 131F would be a little on the high side but in the "normal" range for hot water temperature the outlet of a water heater.

 Also, what did he do when he DIDN'T need the hot water running?
 Or was it setup as a "recirculation" system through the GPUs and the solar heating array?

That claim is false.
Gpus radiate alot of frequencies like other electrical appliances.

Haha, nice idea, I could do it too with my 2 rigs, but no luck... they are in my attic above my head

Nice idea, i saw one project that was made of 7 AMD GPU's connected with the sunlight water collectors system - guy managed to heat water in 300L water tank to near of 65C' then transfered the water to usage water in his house what caused lowering cost of heating the water ex. for bath - 65 C' is actually very comfortable temp for home usage.

Regards

Even the last couple years I was in Iowa, which has actual COLD winters (PNW has very mild winters), I had to keep at least 2 windows open partway with fans running in the intake window to avoid OVERHEATING my home.

My rig is keeping my apartment nicely warm (5x R9 290)

Yes, friend, I have heard about this innovation either. However, if my memory does not deceive me, the square of the heated territory is just around 14 meters. Maybe if electricity is not so expensive, many can support this idea.

There is more radiation from the smartphone in your pocket than from the mining rigs in your next room.

Well.. I am heating my room with this kind of shit   It's true, that the air is dry, but i have windows opened 24/7, so the "wet" air is comming back in

this bullshit idea for heating with miners.
The air in the room where works mining farm is dry and unpleasant. also from many many miners outgoing radiation

I have 3 mining rigs and my apartment doesn't need heating.

I plan to take miner as warm air condition here in this coming winter. 

I am doing this as we speak.  I had the house well insulated and so now instead of using 3 bitcoin miners to keep the uninsulated house warm, I now only use one.  The lowest I think was about 46 F but even though I hate spending money on the electricity bill.  It has not been too cold here but it makes me feel better that the energy being used is not being completely wasted.

There is a backup heater on standby just in case the temperature drops too low.  I guess I could set up a thermostat to turn additional miners on and off as needed but I do not think the mining pools would be too happy with that.

By the way, I am not earning too much since my miner is just an old S1 180 Gh/s unit but something is something.

My country is not so cold like 1 year before because Global warming.I never build farm.

I'm running 14 CPU units here in the Pacific North West - And our winter's can get somewhat cold.  Thus far - temps in the low 30's Fahrenheit,  heats a well insulated part of the home - 450 square feet - just adequate - without any supplemental heat needed.  Less wood for splitting this winter -

I heat my office with 3 old silent computer with smarthouse logic
Simple blogpost of the system https://kjetiliot.blogspot.no/2017/10/a-money-making-smart-heater.html

or run waterblocks in your attached garage


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-K1Sokgy3-4CdV_uZF8ubw?view_as=subscriber

Hot water preparation and heating miners are produced in Ukraine.


http://en.hotmine.io/

I have recently found some curious news saying that 2 Russian guys have created a unique system for heating houses — their devices operate on the basis of mining farms. This stuff can also mine BTC.
Curious if the other countries will follow their unique experience?