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I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

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Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#341

Post by tablespoon »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #49

I did this in an apartment I lived in years ago, and do it now in my house. My computer room in the house is the lowest point in the house, so naturally, it tends to be a couple degrees cooler than the upstairs. This means that if I set the thermostat so that the computer room is comfortable, the bedroom is too warm. If I run the house circulation fan constantly, it's not an issue, but that consumes a decent amount o…

> If I'm going to consume that much power, I might as well mine crypto and make a few dollars. Mining for NiceHash, a service that lets people rent hashing power from miners

What's the benefit of this vs. just participating in a mining pool?

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#342

Post by Cu3PO42 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #336
ericd wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric resistive heating is the worst form of heating, though - heat pumps are something like 3-4x the heat per kwh used. So not totally wasted, but a much worse way to get heat into your house, if that's your goal.

I'm stull struggling to understand this concept can someone explain further

Think of the way your fridge works, but your house is the outside of the fridge and the ground is the inside of the fridge. That is, the heat pump uses electrical energy to move heat from the ground (more specifically a deep hole that is drilled) into your house. It takes less than 1J of electric energy to move 1J of heat, therefore one can claim an efficiency >100%.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#343

Post by [deleted] »

ramraj07 wrote: post #336
ericd wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric resistive heating is the worst form of heating, though - heat pumps are something like 3-4x the heat per kwh used. So not totally wasted, but a much worse way to get heat into your house, if that's your goal.

I'm stull struggling to understand this concept can someone explain further

[deleted]

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#345

Post by throw0101a »

shoo_pl wrote: post #85
cgufus wrote: post #71

I'm not sure I understand the principle. A heat pump achieves a COP (coefficient of performance) of approx. 3-4 (e.g. by investing 1 kWh of electricity, a heat pump generates 3-4 kWh of heat by extracting from the surroundings, air or sole, 2-3 kWh). In this example, by pre-heating the air, you supply the heat pump with ~0.9 kWh of thermal energy (the miner will convert 900 watt directly to heat I would assume). So i…

On principle, yes. There are quirks - the COP is different for lower temperatures, and becomes 1:1 at around 5F (-15C). So preheating the air could improve the effectiveness at low temperatures, and I am guessing it might look like this: - before: 1kWh in, 1kWh out - after: 1.9kWh in, > 1.9kWh out However, if it was that simple, I suppose heat pump manufactures would include a pre-heating as built-in feature. It's ve…

> There are quirks - the COP is different for lower temperatures, and becomes 1:1 at around 5F (-15C).

It depends on the unit. Some (Mitsubishi FE12NA) have a COP of 1.75 even at -10F / -20C. See Table 6:

* https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/52175.pdf

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#346

Post by [deleted] »

b15h0p wrote: post #188
simias wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't heat pumps work like a fridge/AC but backwards? That is, compressing the air inside to generate heat, then decompressing it outside where it gets extremely cold and is warmed up by the relatively hotter outside air? If so I fail to see how cryptomining features in there.

Yes they do. They usually have classic resistive heating elements for when the outside temperatures drop too low for the heatpump to be efficient.

[deleted]

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#347

Post by prutschman »

ramraj07 wrote: post #336
ericd wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric resistive heating is the worst form of heating, though - heat pumps are something like 3-4x the heat per kwh used. So not totally wasted, but a much worse way to get heat into your house, if that's your goal.

I'm stull struggling to understand this concept can someone explain further

Think of an inside-out refrigerator.

A fridge moves a certain amount of heat energy from the inside to the outside, but that doesn't come for free. You have to put extra energy into the system to make that happen. The hot side of the fridge gets the "moved" heat plus the heat from the work you had to do to move the heat. The work heat is waste.

If what you're trying to do is make something hot, you're moving heat energy from the outside to where you want it to be hot. That makes it hotter, but it requires work. In this case, since you want to make things hot anyway, that work heat is extra bonus heat.

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#348

Post by emllnd »

ramraj07 wrote: post #336
ericd wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric resistive heating is the worst form of heating, though - heat pumps are something like 3-4x the heat per kwh used. So not totally wasted, but a much worse way to get heat into your house, if that's your goal.

I'm stull struggling to understand this concept can someone explain further

Say you have a 1kWh budget of energy to spend to heat a room and access to a variety of heating methods such as an air pump and an electric resistor (space heater or computer). Which one should you choose to maximize increase in warmth? While the electric resistor will convert the energy it uses to heat with a very high efficiency, the air pump will usually heat the room even more because it doesn’t just locally convert electricity to heat, it moves heat from outside the room to inside the room. Further info in [1] and [2].

EDIT: great explanation/details in sibling comment by ’prutschman’.

[1] https://www.homecomfortexpertsinc.com/why-are-heat-pumps-mor...

[2] https://www.quora.com/Why-are-heat-pumps-more-efficient-than...

Re: I heat my home by mining crypto currencies

#350

Post by lotsofpulp »

tialaramex wrote: post #331
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but my goal isn't to heat my whole house, just add a little bit to this one room. My whole house is heated with gas anyways, which AFAIK is more efficient than a heat pump, or at least, is more cost-effective.

Cost effective yes, efficient no.

The efficiency of a heat pump heating a home depends on the temperature outside of the home. I imagine a gas furnace is far more reliable and efficient during times when the outside temperatures are near or below freezing.
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