DIY Copper And Sand Heater | No Electricity Needed For Greenhouse Heat

hey guys today I'm talking about building a sand heater and the only thing you're going to need is a container like this some type of bucket or maybe a food container made out of metal you're going to need some sand and a strip of copper and in my case I'm using a homemade candle made previously from a video that I talked about making another type of greenhouse heater and I'll link that up above but that's called a terracotta heater but this type of heater is quite different it uses a little bit different principles but it's still using a flame but it's using copper to help Heat this sand material and I'll show exactly how to put it together it's super simple it'll only take you about 10 to 15 minutes to do this but it will work for many many hours so guys this is a basic setup of how it's going to look once it's completed after you add the sand the Sand's going to come close to the top you're going to have your candle heater right in the center but the way this works is copper is an excellent conductor of heat and it will encircle this sand area inside and also heat the sides of your container so it's good it's a very important thing to remember you want your copper touching the sides and also you want the sand coming up to the top of where your vegetable shortening candle is and like I said that's an easy one to make it's super simple and it will burn a lot longer and it's a lot less expensive than some of the high-priced multi-hour burn candle so you can make that yourself but this is basically the setup it only requires about four parts to make it work and it will put out an enormous amount of heat okay guys the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to transfer my sand to a bucket I'm going to allow to dry a little bit more for a few hours and then we'll try to transfer it it's probably going to still be damp but the action of the heating will dry the sand even more just going to try to carefully transfer this to our bucket and like I said this sand is damp but once we start using our sand heater it's going to dry the sand really quickly now I want to show you exactly how I have this set up in the bucket this is a complete circle of about 2 in wide of pure copper it's like 99.98% copper it was about $16 on Amazon I can link that to down below and you can order this pretty easily but you want pure copper or aluminum something that will transfer heat very very well you want something like this because it is the perfect conductor of heat I'm going to put a little bit of sand in the bottom I'm going to seal the top on our candle to make sure no sand gets in it then fill it the rest of the way to the edge of the candle and that's pretty simple to do okay the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add some sand and we're going to put it this is going to be the base of our candle so we can bring it up just a little bit higher just going to carefully put that in there and I'll smooth it out so we'll have a nice base for the candle we don't want the candle too low in the bucket we want the candle flame as close to this copper and still allowing some oxygen in there so just remember you want to raise the level of your candle up you'll need to test it a couple times I'm going to put the lid on my candle to make sure no sand gets in here and we're going to spread our sand out and be really careful with the Copper's Edge because it can have a sharp edge and let's take a look at that so we're still I don't think we're high enough we want it to be a little bit closer we won't allow oxygen to get in here but at the same time we want it as close to the Copper as possible to heat it up just going to add a couple more maybe one or two more scoops of sand and recently there was a video from Finland where they had used solar energy to heat sand in inside of a large cylinder that actually heated a swimming pool so it was really amazing to see the sand would get to incredibly hot temperatures and so the sand would continue to hold that heat for a long period of time and slowly release it and they were actually to heat able to heat a very large very very large larger than it looked like an Olympic from what I could tell it l like a larger than an olympic size pool so it was huge but they were using the sand and the sun this energy from the Sun to heat that sand through photo electric power and the sand would hold that temperature for long amounts of time and huge amounts of heat okay I'm going to fill the sides almost to the top of the candle not completely covering the candle but just close to the edges and it doesn't have to be that neat it's going to be a little bit hard to get it in here but I'm just going to put it in carefully I'm just going to try to clean this up a little bit and get the sand away from the top of the candle because I don't want sand falling into our candle we want the candle to burn cleanly without any kind of debris in it and so there's a couple precautions I'm going to show you to take when you're doing this as far as where you have the candle or where you have the bucket sitting because the candle can heat up the sides and bottom of this bucket quite a bit okay so I've allowed a little bit of time to pass for this to dry out just a little bit but we're still seeing a little bit of damp sand but as the candle burns the sand will lose its moisture and get really hot and so it'll dry out pretty quickly so if you get sand and it's not perfectly dry you don't have to worry it doesn't have to be perfectly dry the action of this heating system will dry the sand over time I've got the copper fairly close maybe within half an inch of the top of the candle now as the candle burns down obviously the flam's going to get further down in the candle but the heat will still be hitting the top right here on the copper which will disperse that heat throughout the heater and also the sides of the container and I'm going to show you a couple of precautions you need to take if you're having this sitting on something that might be flamable like wood or plastic I'm going to light our candle these matches are a little damp they've been outside okay there we go we're going to light our candle and allow that to burn it's a little bit hard to get in there and the flame is just really touching if you can see that very easy but it's touching the copper and that's going to really circulate the Heat and it's going to dry off the sand pretty quickly I'm going to show you what precaution to take on where you have this sitting because you don't want it sitting on something like a lolium floor like this or a wood floor because the bottom of this container can get really hot hey guys I'm going to try to hold it still here I'm bouncing around here but I've seen it hit over 500° a couple times and so the edges of this copper whenever I put my hand around the edges I cannot touch it it's just too hot so it's transferring that heat and it's going to go all the way around and I'm feeling warmth on the side of the container as well so it's starting to heat up the entire container and the sand but here's what I was going to say earlier I'm going to show you exactly how to place this safely on a floor area so so guys what I've done is I've taken a piece of tile that was unused I just had laying around the shop but this is a piece of tile and I've taken three terracotta feet probably safer if you do four but these terracotta feet are basically designed for Planters to allow plants to drain out but they're also a good dissipator of heat so as the can heats up as my pale heats up I don't have to worry about anything underneath the pant catching on fire so that just kind of is a little added safety mechanism that you want to elevate your pan if it's on something flammable like a vinyl floor like this or a wood floor so you just want to make sure that you're being very safe with this and make sure that no pets or animals can't knock it over because you definitely don't want to have a catastrophic accident with this type of heater so guys I can put my hands on the side of the bucket I can actually feel it starting to heat up and so over time this candle has been tested by some other people that have made it and it lasted up to 48 to 60 hours depending on the size so it's just an amazing way and it's a really cheap way to make a c a longterm burn candle that will put out heat and that will consistently heat up that copper heat up the sand heat up the bucket and generate Heat this week I've been talking about different ways of heating your Greenhouse or in an Emergen situation even your home thermal Mass heating I've talked about that I'll put a link up above basically this is a cat litter container and I'll show you how to make this it's really easy the other type I've talked about is a terracotta heater using the same vegetable shortening candle and that is also a great way to heat your Greenhouse or in an emergency maybe an area inside your home as long as you have the right type of smoke alarms carbon monoxide detectors just to make sure there's no danger to any gases that might be building up so that's one of those things that I love creating alternate ways to heat the greenhouse where I don't have to pay for electricity to do it and it can also be a supplemental way to heat your Greenhouse if you have electricity and You' want to cut down on the usage you can use something like this to help supplement that heating system so guys I'm going to give you a demonstration of exactly how hot this copper is getting so it boiled away the water in a matter of second so it is very hot when when I put my hands on the sides of this pale I can feel the heat there also the sand is heating up as well and that is the secret to this whole system is sand will hold heat better than almost anything so the copper heats the sand and the sand will continue to heat it will r at the heat out through the sides of this pot and the top over a period of time so guys another important thing to note is the size of the candle I have in here I actually have an undersized candle I should have used my entire Crisco vegetable shortening can where I have four wicks in there and fortunately it burned itself out recently we had a little bit of cold weather I allowed my terracotta heater to burn that candle down over a period of days and it lasted for quite a while but when you make a Crisco vegetable shortening whatever brand you use you can put four of these wicks in there it can put out quite a bit more heat and you'll see a huge difference in the heat that it makes on this type of sand heater so guys the reflective nature of the copper and of the pale that I have is making it very difficult for me to get an accurate reading so that's why I wanted to show you a drop of water being bowed off of the copper super quick in a matter of just a couple of seconds so it is heating up and I do feel a lot of heat on the sides it's not so hot that I can't touch it but it's definitely warm it's warm to the touch so guys I hope you'll try this type of heater I'll link everything you need to purchase it down below and you need to remember you need to use a Pure copper pure aluminum you don't one that has other stuff in there that might put off gases or something like that so I'll link that again down below and also if you would if you found something interesting in the video I hope you'll like And subscribe if I've left anything out or if you have a new way to do it I would love to do I'm doing a lot of research on heating my greenhouse and Alternative forms of heating I don't think I'll ever fully get away from my electric heat but if I can supplement that where it's not cutting on and off so much it'll save me some money in the long run so I hope you found something interesting and thanks so much for watching

Channel: Zen Garden Oasis

Views: 978,086

Keywords: sand battery, sand battery technology, sand battery technology finland, thermal energy storage, sand battery for home, free energy, sand batteries, thermal energy storage explained, sand battery explained, sand battery how it works, battery, renewable energy

Id: xp66vawuYQc

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 13 2023