Using tealights (candles) for heating

[Defying Gravity]

Sharing this video which has popped up on facebook in case it's useful to anyone. It is an example of using cheap tealight candles to heat a room. It goes without saying that anyone using candles should be careful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brHqBcZqNzE&feature=share

[NeuralgicNeurotic]

Looks like it might be a useful measure in a power cut.  The only note of caution I'd raise, aside from the obvious fire hazard, is that when you have flames in a confined space, you need to be careful about carbon monoxide. 

[devine63]

I can't imagine how even such "cheap" candles could possibly be effective enough to be economically viable.  I know heating bills feel expensive, but surely not that bad?    Even when I have been living solely on benefits (or when I was worse off - juggling 5 part time jobs!) I have always managed to pay for a reasonable level of heating in my home....
regards, Deb

[Fiz]

A young person living on job seekers allowance would receive £56.80 and would now be expected to pay for 8.5% of their council tax bill out of that which in my area for a band A property would leave them £55.15 a week to pay their transport to JCP to sign on, and all their bills, clothing and food. When choosing between eating and heating which many people do, most people would choose to eat.

I have to say though that I can't see tea lights as giving off enough heat to be effective and with the risks involved I wouldn't encourage it.

[Defying Gravity]

Actually I've found candles - without the flowerpots - to be quite a good way of slightly raising the temperature of a room. The carbon monoxide, I don't know. It wasn't exactly an air tight system!

[Yvette]

He stands the candles in a plastic tray!        

[seegee]

At a second look I thought it was a loaf tin, Yvette - I do hope it was (and standing on a heatproof surface of course)!

[Dic Penderyn]

The old incandescent bulbs used to convert less than 5% of power to light the rest given out as heat so a 60 watt bulb would give you over 50 watts of heat in a room, How many tealights would that take, the new energy saving bulbs are cold.

[Yvette]

Halogen bulbs throw out a lot of heat.

[Defying Gravity]

He does say it's a metal tin! But I don't know if it had subtitles, sorry, should have checked that.

[KizzyKazaer]

I have to say though that I can't see tea lights as giving off enough heat to be effective and with the risks involved I wouldn't encourage it.

This ^^  - you'd need so many to make a difference, that would be a lot of naked flames!

[devine63]

Yes Fiz, I understand that a young person on JSA now will be worse off than I would ever have been - even as a 17 year old single parent in 1981 - but such a youngster would be very unlikely to be renting a whole place by themself with all the attendant bills (and if they were I think would be entitled to claim Housing Benefit and other things as well as the JSA) so most would be living in a room in someone else's house or some arrangement like that and so probably not needing to pay fuel bills in a direct form.
regards, Deb

[starsmurf]

My mum lights 15 tealights every night, not including replacing the burnt out ones.  It does eventually raise the temperature slightly but it would cost a lot more than simply turning on a halogen heater.  Candles simply don't give out enough energy to raise the temperture of a room significantly.

As well as the danger of carbon monoxide, there is a longer-term danger with tealights.  If you use them at the level my mum does, there are risks of developing the same diseases smokers can get, probably including lung cancer.  It's because of the nasty chemicals produced by the wax.

If you use candles at the level of a normal person (ie not burning 15 of them all evening) then your risks are low.  If you are like my mum, then beeswax candles are much safer.

My mum actually uses more tealights than my Catholic church, she's not religious, she just likes tealights