You may have wondered if it was worth it to try to get heat out of a candle?
After all, what can one or two candles actually do in terms of getting enough warmth off of them to make a difference?
But you may be surprised to learn that there are some very unique ways that people have come up with to concentrate the heat off of only a couple of candles to generate enough heat to warm your hands on.
How do you get more heat from a candle?
Getting more heat from a candle comes down to supplying more oxygen to the candle.
When you generally let a candle and set it on a table, the oxygen burns and floats up to the ceiling. Creating a situation where the oxygen is lost very quickly.
So to increase the oxygen, it only makes sense that you would somehow trap the already supplied oxygen in around the candle.
That is the premise around these uniquely designed do-it-yourself candle fueled heaters.
Let’s take a look at a few.
The first one is called a “coffee can heater”
You can find a whole variety of coffee can candle heaters on ol interweb.
A lot of very creative ideas.
But the simplest ideal for a coffee can candle heater is to combine a metal coffee can with two or three tea lights burning in the bottom of the can.
Tea lights are the elixir of this easy design.
Because they already have a metal cup that they sit in, they naturally get hotter on the outside than glass-based candles.
Simply burning a few tea light candles in a clean metal coffee can that has been stripped of any kind of paper on the outside, is enough to create enough heat to get you by in an emergency situation.
Just remember the bottom of the can is going to get very hot, so don’t sit it on anything that may burn.
And though you probably are the cautious type, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t leave a coffee can candle heater alone.
Another type of interesting candle heater that is easy to make and can help you get quite a bit more heat off of a candle or two, then you would be just lighting it is the flower pot heater.
This design takes a clay flower pot with the plate base that usually comes with it when you purchase them.
The ideal is to use the plate to place a couple of lighted candles and to suspend the flower pot upside down over the candles.
Most people just use a couple of bricks to lift the flower pot above the flower pot plate. But you can also get creative and hang the flower pot above the plate using hooks and chains.
Again, it is a very simple design that works because the clay flower pot gets very warm when it is heated.
Placing the flower pot upside down over the candles traps the heat under the clay, supplying more oxygen to the candles, so that they burn hotter, and trapping the heat inside of the flower pot.
After seeing these ideals for an emergency candle heater, I plan on buying my coffee in a metal coffee can next time I’m shopping for coffee.
And the ideal with the clay pots connected with hooks and chain really looks like a cool do-it-yourself project.
