Updated post 09 April 2016... Hot pots 2, the final solution... follow link for latest discoveries including the Pyrex dome heater and cooker.
http://synchronicitywins.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/hot-pots-2.html
Original Hot pots post -
This blog post charts the history of my experiments with flower pot heater designs over a six month period from the time in September that I first saw the Tea light candle heater in the video that was later posted by Sheerien Carter.
It mentions the pitfalls associated with the use of Tea lights as fuel (the wax can ignite in a very smoky way if the pots get too hot and there is always a candle smell)
The solution to that is to use Rapeseed oil as your fuel, it also burns for far longer and allows your pots to get much hotter than is safe with Tea lights, the oil never goes on fire.
Use plain household COTTON string for your wicks and clothes peg springs as wick holders (see photos)
The oil powered heaters require far less attention and are easy to top up, no smell either.
You may find all the ideas interesting or you may want to skip it and cut to my final designs in the last part of the post (scroll down to Updated March 17 2014 May 15 2014 and Nov 4 2014.
Note added Jan 4 2015 -
The solution to the problem of the oil residue build up on the peg springs is to feed your wick end through a tealight wick holder and then pop it into the spring so that the wick holder sits on top of the spring and the bottom end of the wick hangs inside the spring.
Make the wick short enough to just reach the bottom of the spring with no extra tail.
This also makes it exceptionally easy to replace a spent wick, just remove the used one leaving the spring where it is and put a new one in. The tealight wick holders can be used repeatedly and the springs stay clean.
It really does take nearly all the work out of it.
Here's another really good idea that I am using now that does not require the use of peg springs and allows tou to replace all your wicks at once before relighting a heater that has been allowed to go out, you can also replace wicks quickly and easily while the heater is in use -
Take a 330 ml soft drink can (empty) turn it upside down and punch eight or ten holes in the sloping shoulder of the can and make a hole in the center of the domed bottom large enough to allow the bolt in the flower pot saucer ((if you are using the split rod design) to pass through it then cut the can all the way round about a quarter to a half inch below the shoulder level and throw away the rest of the can. This gives you a burner ring.
Place the ring so that it sits down on the fuel saucer. and put in as many wicks as you need in the same way that I just explained for the peg springs (using tea light wick holders.
These wicks can be replaced whenever you like very easily.
In the morning if you have let your heater go out you can simply either replace the entire ring loaded with wicks or replace the wicks in the same ring in a very short time with no mess.
It only takes a few minutes to make the burner ring and they can be reused over and over again.
November 2013.
A few weeks ago I watched this video and have been going potty ever since, this thread on a post by Sheerien Carter may help others to do it well.
Photos -
Pics 1 and 2 -Pots on threaded rod.
Pic 3 and 4 -Small stainless core pots.
Pic 5 -Very good warmer, small pot on top and stainless core inside big pot sitting on 2 Tuna tins with 2 of the three wicks alight in each tin close to the middle of the pot., good bedroom warmer but less light to see.
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After starting on this potty quest I looked at the Ana code, the usual subject of my blog posts and found that it says -CLAY POT HEATERS I LINK STAND IN BEDROOMS. This link will take you to an explanation and demonstration of what the Ana code is, it's important! Please take a look after reading this Hot Pots page. http://synchronicitywins.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/what-is-ana-code.html   I LINK CLAY POT HEATERS TINS AND BEDROOMS. |
My kitchen table. This one shows a glass jar with stainless steel wool in it as both a light and a small but effective heater -
Click to enlarge.
A Tuna tin candle, add the wax from 3 more Tealights to fill the gap between the first three.
A note about string wicks and Tealight wax for flower pot heaters. -
The cheaper Chinese string from B&M makes a big but smokey flame, I'm glad the first ball we tried was the Tesco string from India because it is superb.
Another safety point that should be stressed -
If you make your candle in a tallish jar and your pots get so hot that the wax might otherwise go on fire, it won't.
This is the best way to do it at night.
The first bit of smoke in the jar puts out the flame.
A small Douwe Egberts coffee jar is the perfect jar for use in the cutlery drainer pots.
If you do ever get a situation where your wax does ignite when doing it other ways don't panic, just get a damp cloth like a tea towel and hold it around your pot so that the flame is deprived of oxygen and goes out.
A note about string wicks and Tealight wax for flower pot heaters. -
The cheaper Chinese string from B&M makes a big but smokey flame, I'm glad the first ball we tried was the Tesco string from India because it is superb.
Another safety point that should be stressed -
If you make your candle in a tallish jar and your pots get so hot that the wax might otherwise go on fire, it won't.
This is the best way to do it at night.
The first bit of smoke in the jar puts out the flame.
A small Douwe Egberts coffee jar is the perfect jar for use in the cutlery drainer pots.
If you do ever get a situation where your wax does ignite when doing it other ways don't panic, just get a damp cloth like a tea towel and hold it around your pot so that the flame is deprived of oxygen and goes out.
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The little stack of saucers on top of the pot adds to the heat storage like a fire brick and adds to the radiated warmth.
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The candle flame reflects in the melted wax showing a perfect upside down flame that provides a lovely light to the heater.
Silky smooth very safe warmth that will last a long time before needing to be refilled.
A flower pot bowl design, the pot has been waxed while hot with Tealight wax painted on in liquid form. It gives the pot a burnished copper look and helps protect it from dirty finger marks.
The bowl pot is sitting on a connected smaller pot on top of two Tuna tin candles standing on an upturned fruit bowl as shown below.
An absolutely brilliant heater.
New idea - Instead of standing the bigger pots on two or three tuna tin candles use larger bowls like cereal bowl size and place your pots on them with a portion of the bowls sticking out the side.
This burns for longer because of the bigger candle you make in the bowls and allows you to add wax or a new wick without having to melt wax elsewhere, simply add Tealight bodies to the wax pool when it needs topped up.
You can replace a tired wick with a new one while your pots are still hot so there's no loss of accumulated heat in the pots and less work making refill candles.
Use a magnetic screwdriver to remove the old wick in it's little stand.
ASDA juice cartons cut in to thin strips make excellent tapers (spills) for reaching in to light the new wicks.
Both of these designs are superb room heaters.
The tall one consists of a 25cm half pot with a 20cm (I think) full pot on top and a 15cm pot on top of that, I have a long steel bolt connected to the top pot and just let it hang down through the holes on the tops of the other two pots without blocking them with washers or anything, this assists the heat transfer to the higher pots.
The whole thing sits on three bowls with one string wick in the centre of each one.
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This is one of the bowl ones.
There was a heavy frost this morning and the rooms that these two sit in were warm.
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This one shows another idea, drill a few holes in the flower pot to let tha candle burn inside it.
After a few weeks of intensive experimentation with this I came to this conclusion about the cleanest safest way to power these heaters -
Use Rapeseed oil instead of TL wax, it has no smell, burns very hot and does not pollute your space with Petrochemicals.
Floating wicks.
Try this -
Using a small screwdriver or a nail of the same thickness as a string wick punch a little hole in the centre of the bottom of a tea light case (from the outside) and insert your string. Crimp the foil to the wick using thumbnail pressure on the inside of the cup around the wick to ensure a tight fit so that it doesn't leak when you float it on the oil.
Allow the string to soak up oil before lighting.
I found that these little things can burn for over 36 hours with a little but very hot flame, you can add oil whenever you like and use as many of them in your heater as yo please.
This allows you to get round the problem of only being able to use shallow oil if you use a standing wick holder that is not floating, so you can fill a deep bowl and still use it.
The bottom picture shows an unlit wick with the string dangling in the oil and a lit wick.
You can pull through more wick with a pair of tweezers when the wick gets tired and carry on burning it and you can reuse the case with a new wick too.
Float as many of them as you like in your flower pot heater because unlike tea light wax the oil does not go on fire.
A couple of my floaters leaked a bit and sank over time but mostly they don't.
Because of that I was inspired with the idea of suspending the wicks from the ouside of a tea light case with no hole in it and tried a few experiments that were very promising using clips made from reshaped paperclips , they burned well for several hours but then went out.
I realised that I had to include a coil in the wick holder in order to hold the burn part of the wick above the oil level so that it would burn continuously and I set about attempting to add a coil to the wire of the paper clip wick holders but it's a very fiddly job ... then Elaine had what proved to be a great idea ---
CLOTHES PEG SPRINGS.
Simply clip one to the outside of the tealight case (no extra fastening needed) and put a wick in it.
We found that both string and washing up cloth material (the cheap yellow ones that are a bit like paper chamois leather) work but the dishcloth wick is better.
Just cut a length about a quarter of an inch wide, twist it into a wick and insert it in the spring.
You can support 3 wicks on one TL case and they work SUPERBLY.
The flame on the left is kitchen cloth and the one on the right is a single Tesco string.
You can add more oil whenever you like and they just happily float up on it and carry on burning like nothing happened.
Incandescent light bulbs work as well as candle flames!
Joseph Coda You can still get incandescent bulbs -- but you have to look for "rough-service" incandescents. They are designed for rugged applications (in delivery vehicles, outdoors, any place where there's a lot of vibration) -- they have mutiple filaments and don't burn out as quickly. They cost more but also last much longer (years, usually) than the old incandescents.
Ross Kelly I have a pot heater with a 100 watt incandescent bulb in it and it's fantastic, pots too hot to touch.
I also found that cotton string from B&Q, (much thicker than the Tesco string) works brilliantly with the oil.- .. and that the clothes peg springs also make excellent standing wick holders by simply opening out the two spring arms a little bit, they stand up really well, are very easy to pull or push the wick up and take about a second to make after removing the spring from the peg, i'll post some photos later if I can get in to my email where they are, am having trouble doing that so far today ... grrr!
- A threaded rod heater modified for use with oil, excellent with that B&Q string.
- The light bulb one is beyond my expectations, it is as hot as any of the naked flame pots.
All that remains to be tried now is a 40 watt heater bulb.
These are a couple of my new designs.
The one on the window sill is a bowl pot suspended on threaded rod bolted through two flower pot saucers on top of each other, the small one on the bottom being upside down and the big one is the oil reservoir.
I used a couple of shiny lids from take away trays to produce the mirror effect behind the flames, it looks brilliant, like a bloody UFO hovering over the fire in a beam of light that appears to be supporting it.
The one on the floor is a very tall pot with a smaller one on top and a couple of added fancy bits from an old lamp stand that I took apart.
Inside the tall pot there are two stainless steel cutlery drainers that act as a heat core bolted on a length of threaded rod, it has a 100 watt incandescent light bulb powering it.
It is also an excellent heater, the whole tall pot gets hot in a short time and stays that way until you switch it off.
A 100 watt bulb costs an average of about 1.5 pence an hour to run.
I have also converted a couple of my small cutlery drainer heaters to run on 60 watt bulbs and they get brilliantly hot for less than a penny an hour.
This one has a longer cutlery drainer that allows light to shine out from the 100 watt bulb inside it.
It looks tilted in the photo but it is just the camera angle.
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Fire in the sky.
Reflections in a flower pot heater.
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I have since improved the central rod design as I will explain, my latest model of that kind is made so that the whole top lifts off leaving an open oil dish for easy access to the wicks (which need adjustment from time to time or replacement when used up).
The base of the heater is made from two flower pot saucers, the one on the bottom is upside down , the one on top is the oil reservoir where the wicks are placed in clothes peg springs.
The two saucers are drilled in the centre to take a 6mm bolt that is inserted through the holes from the bottom.
A rubber seal the size of the washer made from bike inner tube is then pushed down the length of bolt that protrudes beyond the base of the top saucer followed by a washer and a nut.
This makes a leak proof oil pan.
The bolt protrudes vertically for a few inches. Do not over tighten the nut as it may crack the saucer. It should be firm but not mega tight.
Then thread another nut on the standing bolt with another small washer on top to be used as a height adjuster for your flower pots.
That's the whole bottom half.
For the top half use another 6mm bolt of the same size to connect your pots and fix them together with a washer and nut leaving a length of bolt protruding downwards.
Then get a length of 6 mm copper pipe a few inches longer than the bolt and use it as a sleeve over the bolt so that it's bottom end protrudes an inch or two beyond the length of the flower pots and beyond the length of the bolt.
If you gently squeeze the top of the copper pipe with some pliers when you first insert the bolt into it you can wind it up the bolt so that it stays firmly connected to it.
Wind it on until it reaches the nut inside the flower pots.
You then have your two halves complete.
You can now simply connect the top to the base by slotting the bottom of the copper pipe onto the upright bolt in the base and adjust the height of the pots by turning the nut and little washer on the base bolt to get the optimum distance above the wicks.
See screenshot below -
....and since that was posted in a FB group a few weeks ago it has now come to this -
They are also made to the split rod design.
This one gives you some idea about how pleasant the light in the pots is with the varnished interior of the saucer.
May 15 2014
I found that capping your pots with a half pot retains the heat in the pots and they get hotter, adding another pot or two in between is even better.
The increase in the density of the pots above your flames increases the heat storage in the pot 'fire brick'.
Helpful hint - Clothes peg springs come in different sizes, avoid using ones that are tight on the wick and you will find it quite easy to adjust the wick either up or down while the heater is burning by using a long bladed pair of scissors as tweezers.
To raise the wick grip it lightly above the spring, lift it slightly and give it a little shake. To lower a wick that is too long and producing a smokey flame lift the spring,not the string, and shake it or cut off the top of the string with the scissors. It takes a little practise but if the wick falls over and goes out you can pick it right out of the saucer, adjust it, replace it carefully and relight it with a long reach gas lighter.
I now use epoxy glue to seal the bolt hole in the saucer and water based woodstain to coat the outer surface of the pots to make them look finished and to prevent them from getting dirty.
- The tall pot has a diameter of 24 or 25 CM.
A 25 cm upturned hyacinth bowl pot with a couple of smaller pots bolted inside it like the ones in some of the other photos above is also very good and looks good too.
Even better with the Hyacinth bowl pots.
If you have any queries regarding that or other points you might like clarified this is my email address -
rosskelly52@yahoo.co.uk.
Please title your emails ...Hot Pots.
Important note on the usual subject of my blog posts -
The initial timing of this Hot Pot's post coincides with the news of the utter devastation in Tacloban in the Philippines.
I couldn't help noticing that the name of that city ends in OBAN, the name of the Scottish town that many of my blog posts are linked to in connection to global catastrophe so I looked again at the anagram code and this is what I found that it says -
DIRE TACLOBAN MYSERY ENDS A HOT POTS LINK.
ROSS LINKED A DIRE TACLOBAN TYPHOON TIME.
(One blank space O in that last line)
A TIMER, HOT CLAY POTS, ENDS DIRE OBAN LINK.
Readers who would like to know what the code thing is all about should first read this free online book about the 1996 events that led up to the code discovery.
http://littlebookbigsecret-part1.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/welcome-to-little-book-big-secret-part.html
Or you can watch this video and then if you want to read the book for more detail -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYNAPoUXsXw
6.12.14.
Tacloban is in the news again today as typhoon Ruby strikes it.
Code line - SEE WHY I PR 6.12.14 - TACLOBAN - TINTIN'S OLDER.
(Older PR but only just) My most recent blog post is connected to TINTIN.
http://synchronicitywins.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/tintin-war-horse.html
where do you buy Rapeseed oil? is it same as the one us for cooking (oil)?
ReplyDeleteYes, ASDA vegetable oil, it says on the bottle in smaller print that it is Rapeseed, another name for it is Canola.
DeleteNice looking work. Not simply functional.
ReplyDeleteQuestion - would a dutch oven with legs work as a heat catchment? I know it wouldn't look as nice.
Cast iron would probably be very good for this yes, I would try it with your oven upside down raised up on a few egg cups or something that allows the air to get to your wicks in a flat bottomed bowl.
DeleteI am interested to see how you get on with it Mary.
I tried a new one last night and it's really good, we had to open our bedroom window because it got so hot.
DeleteIt's the very tall pot that you see in the photos (the one with the 100 watt bulb) but instead of the bulb I stood the pot on an upside down chrome wire fruit bowl that Elaine found in a second hand shop. Inside the fruit bowl standing on a ceramic tile there is a flat bottomed breakfast bowl as the oil and wick holder. There are two of the stainless cutlery drainers bolted inside the tall pot but these may not be necessary.
So if you can pick up the right sized fruit bowl there is no drilling necessary, no bolts would be required.
The pot sits on the fruit bowl leaving plenty of access for air, topping up (using a little spouted tea pot)and wick tending without having to remove the hot pot.
Ha ha ha, the pot cannot create any more heat then the fire. What a fun project but a waist of time. Burn the (candle) fire and you get the same heat without all the fuss. Allen.
DeleteYeah, thanks for that sound advice Allen, I'm going to use my gas boiler without any radiators from now on.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI started discussing with Clay (Frederick) about the Ana code in Oct of the same year as this blog post. I was admitted to hospital on the 8th of Oct.. and to my surprise there was another patient in there by the name of Clay which isn't a common name in Australia. When I was discharged on the 18th Clay (Frederick) and I became intimate over the phone and online for some months.. the same time this blog post was made was when the love between Clay and I was at its hottest. Ana makes me laugh and I'm always amazed at her brilliance.
ReplyDelete😊
Only just saw this Kellie, thanks for your help, I'm glad I know about you, sorry it all got a bit fucked up but Anna has her reasons for the way it all has to be.
DeleteXX.