A few days ago I saw a video on making candle heaters and thought this would be a great idea for a small room off the workshop area approximately 60-70 sqft. Plus not a bad idea to have around for an emergence winter power outage. After doing a search and looking at various designs people have made I started looking around the workshop for things I could use to make one. I am one of those people that have coffee cans full of old hardware. LOL Plus I don't throw away anything that I might use for something at some point. LOL My day use to say "keep it five years, if you don't use it then sell it or throw it away." Trouble is I never remember when I got something so nothing gets thrown away! LOL
I have a bunch of flower pots sitting around so that part was easy. I use four pots graduated in size outward to a 6" pot. To connect the pots and make the hanging ring I used an old electric lamp finial, a long bolt with threads that matched the female threads on the lamp finial, a large washer between each pot and a porch swing style hook for hanging the assembled pots, The pots can be adjusted up and down 3/4" by simply screwing the hanging hook in or out.
My candle heater stands 15" tall and the pine base measures 8"X14"X1". The "yard arm" support for the hanging is made from 1 1/2"X2X1/2" recycled oak from an old shipping pallet. The two "yard arm" pieces are assembled with wood glue and three 2 1/2" countersunk wood screws. It is attached to the base with wood glue and three countersunk 1 1/2" wood screws. It's a real simple design but sturdy design that can be assembled in an hour if you have all the parts. One possible addition I may make to my candle heater is a heat reflector between the flower pot and the "yard arm" vertical support.
For the tea candle holder I used a 6" clay pot drip dish that I have epoxy'ed to a cheap candle stand. It is not permanently mounted to the stand so that you can safely and easily move it in and out when hot to replace burned out candles. To test the heater I used five cheap "dollar store" tea lights. They did fine except that the burn time was only about 90 minutes. I will be ordering some better quality 4 hour tea lights I have found online for the heater. After allowing the candle heater to warm up for an hour or so I checked the exterior temperature with a HVAC probe thermometer by holding it against the top at the mounting ring and bottom on the side 2" above the rim at the candles. At the top the temperature registered 105F and bottom 125F. First really cold day I will give it a real time test in the workshop room but I do believe this might just work there.
I am also thinking about one more addition to my candle heater with a metal reflector between the hanging pots and the yardarm vertical support. I have some 12" wide bright aluminum flashing in the workshop that will work just fine.
This is definitely a real easy project that anybody could do and probably with stuff already around the house. I can remember last winter loosing power for several hours on a cold winter day and had to fire up the Coleman Propane Lantern for heat. We have a small bedroom that this will probably heat just fine based on what I have seen in videos where people are using them. Definitely handy for emergencies.
Plus it's a lot of fun to make!
Happy and Warm Kazooing to All
Doc
