I have used similar method to heat hunting cabin. I'd suggest 1/2- 3/4 inch of sand in a six inch cake pan (steel not aluminum). Pour cup or so of alcohol into the sand. It will spread through the sand and slow the flame and distribute the heat evenly across the width of the pan. Most cans are lined with plastic and will emit noxious fumes. Also placing a pan of water on top would produce steam putting more oxygen into the air. This will help to dissipate carbon monoxide. Hope you find this helpful.
All good info except > adding oxygen to the air... water vapor does not increase oxygen. Oxygen in water stays bonded to its hydrogen, if it separated.. the free hydrogen would explode.
After the flames go out, you can take the bricks and wrap them in a blanket and put them under your blankets at the bottom of your bed or sleeping bag, to stay warm all night. My parents used to do this during the Great Depression when all they had was a coal burning fireplace.
Yes my mom used to tell me that when they went to the nearest town which was 65 Mi away and their car only went 25 miles an hour back during the Depression that my grandmother used to warm rocks and wrap them up in blankets so they would have a nice warm trip to town. Although that worked good for the way in but not the way back.
The brick mountain of heat is a great Idea. I'm an old design engineer and wish to offer a couple of suggestions for better performance. As I tell my friends the advice is free and that is what it is worth. It might give you some content ideas too. - It would work best to set the whole thing down on the floor so you get the most out of the rising heat from your flame. Most of your mountain of heat is for fire safety which is great. It puts most of its heat out at the top so the lower you get that top the more time the heat has to warm the room air before it hits the ceiling. - If you leave a small 1/4" - 1/2" space between the bricks at the level of your flame it will allow vertical air flow and increase combustion of the alcohol and give less smoke. Kinda like a hurricane lantern. - On the top set of bricks, if you stand them up on the long edge and leave an inch wide gap between three bricks the heat from the flames would go past more surface area to give more heat back afterwards. Maybe even a second set of three top bricks on edge across the first set before a pair of cap bricks like you had. Anything you can add for thermal mass that gets heated on top and can transfer heat to the room will help. An aluminum pan of water instead of the cap bricks might be the best option. - The idea you had shared with Kim Bakker will help. Changing the heat source to something like a Crisco candle with a few wicks, a penny can stove, or Sterno can with a damper would increase the longevity of the heat.
Thank you Mark & Riverside for this info. Question: I think I read a review of fuels used in alcohol burners and denatured alcohol seemed to work best - producing very little to no soot or smoke and very little to no carbon monoxide. I think I remember reading that it broke down to carbon dioxide (not dangerous) and water vapor. Is this correct - and if so, would that make it a safe fuel to use indoors for emergency heat and not need to worry about ventilation as much?
@@ellencooper7031 Hi Ellen, Carbon monoxide (CO) has a well-earned reputation of being a toxic gas. Its cousin carbon dioxide (CO2) doesn't have the same reputation but it is no less deadly if CO2 is all there is to breath because it has no free oxygen for us to extract. CO is considered more dangerous because it is just about as buoyant as air and therefore readily mixes with air. So without a monitor the CO concentration kind of sneaks up on you and before you realize it you are sick or poisoned. CO2 is heavier than air and sinks to the ground. So most older structures will lose most of the CO2 created through the door openings and building air leaks found low which means for the most part it is not a worry. However, if you run these alcohol burners for any length of time in very small confined spaces or any spaces that are tightly sealed, you still need to have some fresh air ventilation. In my old house, CO2 from an alcohol flame would not be an issue. There are enough air leaks in my rickety old house where CO2 would never accumulate, but in tightly confined spaces or newer construction with spray foam insulation or house wrap IMHO would require some fresh air if you ran something like these alcohol heaters for a long time.
Hi Nick,I really appreciated the additional help,but I am no do it yourself type.i kinda got lost on the brick lay out you suggested.can you make it simpler for someone like me with the addition of the crisco candle?
I'd highly recommend mentioning that only fireplace bricks or something like soapstone be used. Regular building bricks can break or explode when the inside moisture boils from high heat. i DO like this design. i'll be adding fireplace bricks/soapstone to my shopping list.
no they just crack, unless you get kiln like temperatures. Rocks can explode. But bricks very unlikely, small enough that they heat up separately, and can expand and contract. Regular bricks may crack, but explosion is implausible at these temps.
Additional suggestions that I'd like to offer are the following. I concur with Mark in placing the whole structure on the floor to allow the heat to lift as it's burning. I would suggest perhaps purchasing the same firebricks used in wood burning stoves and fireplaces to decrease the burning effect and smoke that you experienced. I would also suggest purchasing a stove fan to place on the top row of bricks, these fans are powered by a heating element in the device and doesn't require batteries or electricity, and would propel the hot air from the mass forward instead of upward, this should quicken the heating effect in the room as a whole.
Thank you for your comment… I had a woodstove fan on the woodstove behind me lol didn’t think about using it until after… Thank you for watching we will have many more tips to come
I was wondering if you should use fire bricks that are used to build fireplaces, fire pits etc. I could be wrong but I've read that using just regular brick/cinder blocks could cause the brick to explode and the same with rocks. They have crevices that get water/ice in them and will explode. Could be wrong. Everyone can do their own research.
The carbon left on the bricks and the orange flames means that the fire is starved for air. The flames hitting the top bricks suggest the thing is too short. Slight gaps on the 2nd layer of bricks can solve the lack of air issue. An extra layer can get the burning to be better contained within the heater.
I'm in a house in Ohio with no utilities or heat. It's freezing cold. I'm a senior and disabled so I'm unable to do this. But thank you for telling others. Bless you and all who gave their ideas.
hopefully there would be some county, state or federal aid to either heatiing solutions, someone on the county level to direct federal housing money to insulate your house (those programs exist) or even local resources; even your local food bank may have the crisco/shelf stable shortening to try to put together emergency 'candle' option(s).. I hope some sort of backup is in place. at "worst", try to source an sub-zero degree sleeping bag to conserve your own body heat if energy is cut off for any reason. (got mine on eBay or other online sources for liquidation/closeout, and yes: saved up for it, or : put a request in at a local food distribution center 'wish list') those helped when we had polar vortex & house heater basically couldn't keep up. /hope that's helpful.
You are amazing to watch. I have learned so much from your videos. I can actually say. I’m more prepped now than ever. 62 years old live alone. I’m almost ready! Thank you! God Bless you and your family… 🙏🏻🙏🏻
First of all I would recommend using a cleaner burning fuel, the room raised up to 5° and held up to 5° above what it was dropping to which was 46 and 2 1/2 hours later after the flames went out the room was still at 50° at that point you would wait another hour or two and relight another series of burning to reheat up the bricks so it would continue to maintain the heat rather than the room continually dropping in temperature to match the outside temperature, the Crisco candle heater may do a better job for long-term maintenance for extended periods of time as it maintains that lower temperature for longer… Look forward to my next video using the crisco candles
Exactly ! I stopped at 6 minutes in to read comments. Aiming that temperature thing on the bricks and or fire doesn't tell you squat! This isn't the first video I've seen do that. What is the room temperature? That's what us important. Now, I'll probably watch the rest. At the end, 2 hrs later what is the outdoor temp and room temp ?
@@oldblackstock2499 No, it's not. Radiant heat like this will also (and mostly) work as just that - radiant. So you are going to get a LOT of benefit from it heating up the *THINGS* in the room, no the air temperature in the room. You will feel warmer far quicker than the air temperature rises with radiant heat sources like IR and such. Something to keep in mind.
OK thanks for the info. As someone who has lived in a compromised state, it does seem important to state one should not wait until an emergency to gather the ingredients. Fear, cold,and potentially a lack of light add a lot to the outcome. ❤
@@jaymethodus3421 I live in a house now. 1897 built and no insulation, but miles from the 1956 trailer that I used to live in. Grateful for my situation, but it could be improved in the future. 🔥
A safety precaution you may want to add would be that of filling the cans with toilet paper, absorbent cloth or even dry sand or salt. This will keep the alcohol from being spilled if it's jostled. Otherwise, someone bumps the table, the liquid alcohol will spash fire all over that wooden table. I used a modified version of this to heat my van last winter so have a lot of real world, daily experience with this. I had no issues with smoke. One thing is once the bricks are burned in, they shouldn't smoke, because a pure alcohol flame produces no smoke. At least it didn't in my van all winter long. A downside was, the shutdown happened then and isopropyl alcohol became very hard to find. I made good money all winter by selling it online after finding sources it. I would probably use a regular or small sized coffee can and cover it with a metal utensil holder ( tall, round SS cylinder full of holes, cheap @ Walmart) either inverted or right side up. Then put it in your bricks. And the floor would be a safer and more effective place to put your heater.
Very good tips! Love the real life experience tips!! That’s the best part of these videos is people sharing in my mind! Yes you are correct on the spillage and better to keep it more spill safe! Thanks so much for taking time to add in the tips- we will have many more videos to come and look forward to your 2 cents !!! 🙌🏽
The other thing I'd add to this is keep an ov glove or something nearby. In the event of splashover or any reason you need to access your cans of fuel quickly those bricks will be hot. Granted the odds of needing quick brick removal is slim, but better to be prepared.
I learned a time ago that if you get a clean one pint paint can and take a roll of toilet paper, remove the cardboard roll and remove a few layers of paper from the outside of the roll you can make it fit into the pint can, then fill the can with isopropyl alcohol making a large sterno. It will stay lit for a long time with a nice blue flame that burns clean and doesn’t give off a light for everyone else to see and it gives off some nice heat. You can also get a clean one gallon paint can and store the pint can inside that with extra alcohol.
I LOVE THIS IDEA ~ for keeping the basement pipes from freezing here in the northeast, where winter temps can drop to 'way-below' Zero ~ and ~ there's only ELEC.. [expensive emergency heat! ] in our basement ! [Our living space has two wood stoves / one basically a cookstove,] So... if the elec. goes out = there's a good chance the pipes will freeze! [ The 'long range' plan is to put a tiny wood stove AND (exhaust) chimney to use for a serious frigid emergency! ] YOU just solved the 'immediate' problem & it seems like it's a pretty easy solve ! =] Might just ' Not Bother' with another wood stove! THANK YOU !
@@carolmartin2503 I know this was 2 years ago but just saw a Canadian Prepper vid of a tiny wood stove- he's tested lots of portable ones for bugging out in a hurry. Here? I get more "realistic for me" tips! I bet this guy drives his wife crazy. LOL
I would like to also add that in a pinch you can use a cast iron skillet for a base and then use a stainless steel animal food bowl with a brick across the top ! Just here to help !
I think some folks so far are missing the key word here: "Emergency." You may be in the situation where minor details are not really going to matter. They thing that will matter most is keeping the room/air above freezing so you and your family don't die of hypothermia in case of a blackout in winter. Its just good to have options and be prepared.
As always, another EXCELLENT TIP ! FYI, when I first saw this system demonstrated, they left a gap on the bottom tear, wide enough to allow the fuel cans to be drawn out by using a bent clothes hanger, and then maintaining the heat level using only one can full of alcohol, and a 1gt. paint can lid to control the flame throttling the flame back to conserve the amount of Alcohol being consumed. You can use the second tuna can as your next backup, pulling the first one out, and pushing the second one in, and ready to go again ! When controlling the rate of burn, you can run roughly three, to three and a half hours on one full tuna can of alcohol it takes a little practice to know how to adjust the rate of burn, but once you have your room up to temperature, you should be able to go through the night, but, with ANY open flame, make sure someone is able to monitor it at ALL TIMES ! Don't just go to sleep, assuming all is well and safe ! Sleep in shifts if needed, but at least you won't be at risk of freezing to death ! But PLEASE, make absolutely sure you have adequate fresh air able to get in the room from time to time, but without losing all of the heat in the process of course !
The information you give so freely is INVALUABLE!!! The time when SHTF is imminent, I believe, so what you are doing for those if us who aren't naturally resourceful (me, for example)is a good thing,.thank you very much!
you could always stock up on those emergency blankets that look like foil, as well. Very cheap and they are supposed to keep you warm by reflecting your body temp and trapping it
If and when the shtf in the USA (however unlikely), heating will be the least of your worries. I'd worry about gun toting gangs of para-military survivalists roaming round attacking everyone and stealing everything they want. But it won't happen. Of course, in the USA the paranoia levels are so high, you're far more likely to have a heart attack brought on by stress, or be shot by an agitated neighbour. 😁
Anything that makes black smoke you should be careful with. Open a window or some kind of ventilation with in 20 feet of the flame. Red flame and black smoke are the 2 things to look out for. The yellow bottle of "heet" is pretty safe, but the cleanest burning fuel for this situation is grain alcohol. Like you get at the liquor store. That's the only safe way to go without ventilation. Blue flame is safe. 👍🧡✝️🇺🇸🧡👍
In the old days some people used bed curtains around their beds in the winter to hold in body heat around the bed. Also, in in extreme emergency you could set up a tent in a living area and just heat the tent inside. This would not save your pipes but it would keep you alive.
I think in Victorian times four poster beds (ceiling/roof on top and curtains all around) was common place, at least for the wealthy; it all makes sense now. Oh' sleeping with their pets (dogs) for extra heat also makes sense.
You can take some simple metal wire mesh and vertically mold it around the can starting about 1/3 from top of can and extend it up long enough to fit under your top brick, ...Then you'd have a tubular mesh mantle to help out with your flame. I'm sure you know that. I actually appreciate that you are showing us the basic's first and not overwhelming us with the custom designs and stuff! It's now months later since you made this video and people need this information now more than ever! Btw, I am building a custom heater/stovetop for myself. Thought I'd give it a try. I'm making mine so it cooks and heats at the same time with a lid and handles. Super lightweight diameter base using 9 1/2" (cake pans) for top and bottom and some thin aluminum sheeting as the walls. Very inexpensive too. Although I had planned to put a circular garden brick inside the bottom, it never occurred to me we should all keep a few regular bricks around the house just for the purpose of emergencies! I'm still going to finish building mine, ...but you just proved what can be accomplished in less than 1 minute! 🔥
I'm a old------er disabled man now.but being raised up poor in the country we learned to take nothing and nothing and make things that worked. Afor night fishing I would take old metal paint cans full of dirt or sand,then once in a while filling with kerosene, come back hours later do it again 3-5 times then when I went night fishing light it . enough light to bait hooks and warm your hands.some times i would use a coke or pepsi glass bottle with a rag twisted to go to bottom for a quick that you could adjust upor down. papa enjoying your videos
GREAT GREAT VIDEO!!! I would suggest do not take temp measurements on the FLAME-SIDE, for your BIG readings you are actually reading the flame temp more than the brick temp. SO turn 90degrees and take the brick temps from the NON-FLAME SIDE to get the TRUE BRICK READING. But you have the right idea. A very useful idea. Keep up the GREAT VIDEOS!!! GOD Bless.
Thank you David, honestly this is not my favorite method but it is a method and can be used as an emergency, also note that the yellow can of heat would work better, and be sure you have a CO detector because the air could get bad over a long period of time, I’m currently working on ideas for a video to build an indoor brick woodstove on a whim for emergencies, I have a feeling I’m really gonna like this method I hope you will too should come out this winter sometime, thank you for watching
Alcohol puts out alot of soot. Those walls will be black thru extended use. Line a corner of a room with tin foil then you can just peel and replace as needed.
Not understanding what showing the temp of the bricks demonstrates. What is important I think is how warm the air in the room is. From 47° in the room, how warm does it get after an hour or two or three? That's what really matters.
It shows the bricks stay cool near the table but farther up releases the heat. Heat always rises. It depends how often fuel is needed in order to maintain sufficient to heat.
heating objects has always been better. most people always think of heating air, as this at what is your typical furnace does. heats air, like a hair dryer, just moving hot air. Just look how often your furnace runs to maintain warm environments. heating air is actually the least productive of all methods, just happens to be the simplest form, most common, easy to maintain and understand. Actual fire move through heat exchanger. The fire and resulting dangerous combustion gasses do not mix into your breathable air, but rather out thru a chimey or flue pipe. This magic is via a heat changer. Most modern furnaces operate very efficiently, so fuel costs have improved from even 20 years ago. this method obviously has no chimney, potentially adding c.o. into your breathing space when/if flame burns dirty, low oxygen. example, a candle flame is very sooty, it burns orange because it is poorly burning, (low oxygen) but it's not c.o. It's not burning pure, same as a match stick, burning the stick is very dirty. look at fuel burn coming off a cigarette lighter, it's blue and bright, clean. heating objects is what a boiler does. your heating water, then moving it about, heating even more objects. This video, he is heating solid materials. The bricks continue giving off heat after fire is out. If just burning the fuel, you heat the air. no fire, no heat. technically your heat is on the ceiling. very temporary heat to the air of the room. its not going to give you a 70 deg. 800 square foot house, but could keep you from freezing. In this experiment, the heated bricks will stay warm, and thus continue to loose heat into the environment. As they cool, enough to handle, repeat the fuel process. I would even heat authentic rock. very dense compared to porous concrete, man made construction blocks. or even pans of water. comes down to use what is available. This is just for temporary use you, wouldn't want to try to do this for a month on end. the cost would be huge. Some mentioned grain alcohol. if you had that much grain alcohol, just drink till you don't feel anything.
This is my first time on your channel. You are my new best friend! Single handedly you have heated my house in a power outage! I'm so impressed with this technique. I'm going to buy bricks and pavers.
I forgot to thank you for sharing, I appreciate you for sharing your experience and your thoughts on the matter. There will most likely be no perfect solution to staying warm if it’s in a crisis but it is great to have a plan in advance for situation situations where there is no available services and little communications. As far as reducing the risk of a CO2 CI have used hanging blankets or sheets to keep the heat confined to a small area. If the barrier is hung with a small space left between both the ceiling and the floor it can help draw in fresh air and push out the CO2.
Oh my gosh, this is amazing! Being, originally, from South TX, where it rarely gets very cold....and having moved to West TX where we have gotten snow every year I've lived here...this is really going to come in handy when our electricity goes out, as it has done many times. So with this and the brick stove for outdoors, I'm looking at buying about 35 fire bricks (probably 40, just in case). I'm learning so much! Thanks again!
Reminds me of the sand batteries they are developing in Finland. You could even use wood outside to heat the brick/sand/concrete or what every and then take them inside to heat in an emergency. Or, if you run out of propane, use the alcohol in your stove in a pinch. You really got me thinking. 50 years ago I was camping in Alaska where I put rocks into our campfire pit and then covered it with dirt. We then put the tent over it. Warm all night.
It sure eill will I keep a two gallon stock pot on all the time snd it heats my tiny house gor a long time once it’s starts to boil I turn the stove off and put the lid on the pot lots of heat
I made a few of the Cristco candles and they are awesome, no smell, no smoke. Also with Cristco you can preserve meat without refrigerator. Pack Cristco at bottom of jar, pack meat in middle, pack Cristco on top. If you have a machine to take out the air or do the lighting of match method that works also.
I have an idea. How about about making a makeshift tent in the room with least amount of drafts. Body heat means no CO poisoning. This is crazy dangerous
It is crazy dangerous for one who thinks it’s crazy dangerous. And that person should certainly pick a different option that feels safer to them Safety first
Looking forward to candle and cooking video. I do have major concerns with burning alcohol in an apartment and the carbon dioxide/smoke levels. However, I don't want to experience another Texas winter black out for 4.5 days of 45° indoor daytime temps. 🥶 My next place will definitely have a fire place!!! lol My daughter has a fire place in her townhome and was able cordon off living room with blankets staple gunned to the ceiling to close off entry areas and stay warm. I plan to do something similar with kitchen, bath, hallway with blankets and large shipping boxes if necessary to have a smaller area to heat and still be somewhat more functional.
Great Elle - yup stay tuned - it will be published this weekend 🙌🏽 🤜🏽🔔 Thanks for watching Great - yes gotta be ready - with different options hopefully Texas doesn’t get hammered again this winter - but we are expecting a worse winter 🥶 soooo…. 👎🏿
@@RiversideHomesteadLife I appreciate your concern and efforts to inform us of options to prepare. 💯 The weather may be worse this winter, but at least the CEO of Ercot was fired!!! He refused to winterize after many recommendations to do so. The last report I heard we lost 150 people during that black out! Preparedness is essential these days.
The old fireplace at my grandma's was on an inside wall. Next to a bedroom. The brick wall would heat up and radiate the heat into that room. That's where the babies and toddlers slept. Kept them toasty warm. No oxygen issues.
Thanks, I live in an area in NW Georgia and my power goes off all the time due to the trees along the power lines. Went off 2 nights ago in the 30's, so this is just what I need for those times. Super appreciate the upload!
I think this is a great heater but it would seem to use quite a bit of fuel and with windows open, it would seem to be fighting an uphill battle to keep the warmth contained. Just my 2 cents
I agree with you Jeff- I will perform cooking / candle test today and think I would personally use it for that purpose only and have other better options for indoor heat… Thanks for watching More to come
@@RiversideHomesteadLife I think if you have to cook, capturing the residual heat in the bricks is an excellent idea. That is a very efficient use of the fuel. I love the design and ideas. Keeps me thinking and improving as well. Keep up the great content!!
That's why someone in the comments said to use grain alcohol from the liquor store and someone else said use Denatured alcohol i learn by listening to everyone and then decide and reading damn there everything
So I got into tons of stuff like this at the beginning of the pandemic. So that large brick on the very bottom I have those they absorb a TREMENDOUS amount of heat so that’s why there’s no danger EVER it burning the table. So power went out earlier this year and I 2 Arizona tea cans and made a burner using tiki oil without bricks it burned or hours and hours and I have screws for stands so i could heat up water because I wanted coffee. I could’ve cooked a meal on this thing if I wanted to and it barely covered 5 sq inches of space lol. Point being these things work for all the purposes he tells you. Adding a tiny home in back of you home for a prepper home is just brilliantly realistic and plausible in an emergency because every will run home first and if you can’t leave home with there you go you’re still good. I will be taking this idea and sharing it sir
If all you can get is 70% isopropyl, simply add salt to it. The salt will bind with the water, pulling it out of solution. You will be left with nearly 100% alcohol. The volume of salt varies, but I just add salt until it stops dissolving. After 15 minutes or so, you will see the water/salt layer under the alcohol layer, and the alcohol can be poured off. Dry the salt to use it again.
In olden times and bigger houses they have a fireplace just for that. Even after the fire has died down, the adjoining bricks stay warm for quite a long time.
That's a very sooty fire with a yellow flame (Not a complete clean burn). You don't want to be in the same room as it for long because of fumes. Denatured ethanol / alcohol would likely work a lot better, but I wouldn't like to say that you can be in the same room as it without any sort of ventilation. Having the fire down low just below a window might be a better option, and having an intake gap at the bottom of the bricks to have a nice draught low similar to a rocket stove.
If you use a better burner, you won't get so much soot and smoke. The yellow flames are the problem. The penny stoves (pepsi can ...) work well with methanol, but a little tuning could get isopropyl to work pretty well. A simpler build is a vienna sausage can with 2 rows of small holes around the top third of the can. Then you pour in alcohol and light it. When it gets hot, put a cover on the can and the flames come out the holes. Tinker with the hole sizes until they come out mostly blue and you won't have so much soot. I'm thinking smaller holes with isopropyl alcohol to get the pressure up a little. Blue flames will have less or no carbon monoxide, which is the real motive for improvement. I will try this with a bigger can, such as a soup can - 1 cup of alcohol and still room for holes in the top 1.5 inches. The cover could be a metal lid or perhaps a small brick or tile piece. For camp cooking, you use your pot for the cover.
Thank you for your comment! Your tuning tips make sense - I like using the iso propal for demonstrations be cause I know many people have it at home for emergencies … so ya I will tinker with it- I like idea of soup can vs penny can / more sturdy .. Thanks Martin
Great video. One thing I noted, however, is that the really high temperature readings you were getting were when you held the thermometer directly in front of the opening in a brick. I wonder if you were getting a reading off the flames and not the bricks. I'd like to see this again with the instant thermometer only held on the outer side of the brick, completely away from the flames or openings. I wonder what the temperature would be there.
Thats a good idea for an outdoor heater when your having an outdoor meal and it's cold too . Like those big fancy expensive heaters you can buy near patio furniture . This could make outdoors picnics a thing again in the fall or winter time . As long as the area is clear of things that could catch fire or blow up of course . Setting on my patio bricks I already have in place . I bevel it could work .
I tried cooking with alcohol heaters and bricks yesterday. There was too much smoke even with a fresh air source. I ended up cooking on my grill. Today, I will have to air out my home.
You never show room temp. Accept at the beginning. I've been researching heating ideas. I currently don't have a working furnace so this was very helpful.
If that's in a tiny house, I'm guessing your bed is in a loft. That should make a really nice place to sleep, if whatever smoke there is doesn't get up there. I slept in an old camper one year when the temp got down to the low single digit range. Tarped off half of it and slept in the upper bunk. I've never gotten better sleep than that. Nice and warm up there.
i've watched a couple of your vids and they seem informational. 1 thing i would do, if you have the wherewithal to do it is invest in a thermo-electric stove top fan. can use it on top of the bricks to move the warm air about the room thus warming the room quicker and more reliably than just radiant heating. ( i dont think i've seen this suggested before in the comments. you can get them as low as about 40 bucks if you shop around.)
This is nuts ! However I am not entirely surprised as I have experimented with various brick stoves. However I have never done indoors or used iso-propyl alcohol. This looks like a big game changer. Respect 👍
Thank you, totally clueless to all this info, so thank you again. I'm a widow living in mountains in the south but it still gets cold here, not like you guys but cold enough. Jacquelyn
Jacquelyn, I would think you'd have a wood stove living in the area you are? Nothing beats wood stove heat imho atleast. Hopefully you have it covered, being alone in the mountains isn't ideal due to so much can happen in our ole lives. 2.5 yrs ago I fell 4' from my bed onto hard tile flooring n crushed my t11 n t12 vertebraes. I've been shot n boots put to me n fallen from fast roping 60' n have a fusion with hardware n a Artificial Disc above that. The pain from crushed vertebraes was enormous n I suffered for 9 days in hospital until a surgeon was able to glue me back together. I hope n pray you stay safe cus living alone increasingly becomes more important as we age. Just a ole paradog advice is all. MaybGod Bless your life Jacquelyn. Ty
Kind the same principal as when we used to be winter camping and after sitting up and chatting and cooking our on an open campfire, we took a large hot rock and put it our tent on top of a very thick 3 inch cutting block. Closed up the tent and were toasty all night.
Many years back we had a buddy that tried the large rock idea. This rock was huge. He left it in big fire for several hours and buried it under his tent. Before he had a chance to get in the tent, the tent completely melted. One of best laughs we ever had! Thanks Billy!
Denatured alcohol is the way to go with pretty much any alcohol stove, nearly pure and made for cooking stoves in tight spots. One other thing is to put a shallow pan/cookie sheet on top of the bricks to reflect and radiate the heat even more. Nice work.
That's what I bought for this project. Now my question is, what would be the best container to burn that in? Could I use the sand in a glass pyrex dish or does it have to be metal?
This is good for an emergency. Now, the rest of the house might freeze and burst your water pipes. I set a fat candle, in a wide ceramic dish in the tub, just under or very near the faucet. A fat candle will burn all night , multiple nights with just enough heat to keep your pipes from freezing. Open the cupboard doors under your sinks, allow warmer room air to warm those pipes. Always be careful with fire.
I’d be concerned about the alcohol tuna can seams not holding together and the lit alcohol escaping everywhere creating a house fire.The issue of heating really comes down to insulation. These heaters give out serious heat so adequate care should be taken with when adding fuel or candies that give off too much heat. Any fuel that can be spilled needs to be well guarded in a appropriate metal deep sided container.
Liquid fire will burn your house down in a very short time. This whole thing is a very stupid idea. If you must, heat the bricks or stones outside and bring them in.
@@MAGAMAN Yes absolutely spot on ! I'm really concerned that this totally unsafe practise is being propogated on youtube and there are few,if any,that mention health and safety considerations and also how dangerous methanol is if it is ingested.There was a fire safety feature on the BBC news this morning about the increased usage of portable electric heaters and fires that resulted from inappropriate/unsafe use.Worrying.
Adding more bricks to the top and/or a pan of water might be a good way to capture more heat to radiate longer. Water has a very high heat capacity (meaning it heats up slower and retains heat longer) and the added benefit of some water vapor in the air for human comfort.
If really cold you can use the bricks in your bed after they’ve cooled. I’ve done that snow camping and the warmth lasts long after you’ve warmed up in the sleeping bag.
I suggest arranging the bricks like a rocket stove. Not only will you get the radiant heat, but you'll also get that forced hot air up through the hole.
Have you made a sawdust burner before? I'd love to see how they would compare to your fire bricks, sawdust burner and a toilet roll paintcan alcohol stove. All three could be used as emergency heaters
A good "convenient" addition... but a simple hand held fan or battery powered personal fan would work just as well.. or a fireplace bellows.. anything to create a stream of air to blow across the face of the bricks
@@RiversideHomesteadLife in this day and age we threatened now with nuclear annihilation yet again and here in uk a winter of electric blackouts , i mean wtf? Why do people work if our governments can't guarantee us stability ????
if you stacked the 3rd level brick on it's end, not flat , making a fin as it were you might get more heat to air transfer. it might be nice to play with the arrangement to find the best stacking. or use the thin brick used in wood stoves.
I would do as one comment suggested & place it on the floor since the bottom brick doesn't seem to get too warm. Thanks for the idea! You never know.......✝️📖🕊️❤️💡
The problem with the Penny stove is it’s not gonna last very long, I am working on an indoor safe mini woodstove video hopefully when I can get my lungs back outside I can finish it up it should be a pretty cool idea
I would only use with a carbon monoxide detector in room. Using denatured alcohol or yellow bottle of Heet burns cleaner. I think I would prefer to use small propane heater. Thank you for the video and effort you put into it.
Oh yes propane heater much more ideal! But when your propane runs out or you feel the need to conserve.. good to have back up plans Thanks for watching 😊
@@RiversideHomesteadLife A family member is without electricity due to the tornado so I was trying to get ideas. I have multiple backup plans and equipment but he doesn’t. Agree you should have options. Edit: I like the surface to cook on.
You have to watch oxygen, gases with propane, too. And Butane. One reason Old Timers kept a kettle of water on the stove, too. The steam gives back oxygen.
I use my camping stove on very low for extra heat when my oil lamps aren't enough for these abnormal, single digit,NJ winter. the propane heaters eat propane like crazy and aren't very stable,especially if you have kids or animals.
I've been doing something similar with 8-hour tea lights and some spare paving as we resist the temptation to turn on our wood pellet burner (with current prices, it would cost over 20 dollars a day to heat our house up plus the electrical cost of running the burner) - you can buy 200 tea lights for that price.
Pellets went up almost 50% in my area over last year. It became so expensive I installed a minisplit heatpump instead of the pellet stove. It will cost us 2.5x less to heat vs Pellets. Lucky for us electricity is cheap in our area.
If you're going to use tee light candles for heat you should look up how many btus of heat is in 1lb of tealight candle wax. Compare that to 1lb of Pellets which has about 8000btus. You also have to remember that pellet stoves are only about 70% efficient so you're only getting about 5600btu out of that lb of Pellets and the other 30% is going out your flue.
This is a good design for a smaller area , however a bit inefficient to make any real temperature difference in the room that one would consider "comfortable" . Unless you upscale the entire size using paint cans with a tightly wound and packed heavy cotton material as a wick..You could also use a larger format brick stove with a few large CRISCO wick heaters inside and maintain a constant heat source for up to 30 hours...That version would take longer to get the bricks radiating but once they reach a good temperature they would maintain it longer.
*SOMETHING tells me that THIS GUY is a man of God, AND KNOWS what's getting ready to take place in this world.* You should edit this video and RECOMMEND that everyone use this IN COMBINATION WITH a carbon monoxide detector, JUST IN CASE someone kills over a d then files a lawsuit over your video, but that's just my suggestion.
Man of God yes! .. check out my latest video- recommendations exact- I will try to edit video.. and add clear note on detector- always try to stress safety…. Thank you for watching- I will keep great tips coming - 🔔
I have used similar method to heat hunting cabin. I'd suggest 1/2- 3/4 inch of sand in a six inch cake pan (steel not aluminum). Pour cup or so of alcohol into the sand. It will spread through the sand and slow the flame and distribute the heat evenly across the width of the pan. Most cans are lined with plastic and will emit noxious fumes. Also placing a pan of water on top would produce steam putting more oxygen into the air. This will help to dissipate carbon monoxide. Hope you find this helpful.
The steam actually causes air to heat up quicker & hold that heat for longer also.
I found this helpful!
All good info except > adding oxygen to the air... water vapor does not increase oxygen.
Oxygen in water stays bonded to its hydrogen, if it separated.. the free hydrogen would explode.
Nice tip! In my hunting blind I will use a mr buddy with just pilot light on… works great.
Many more tips to come!
@@OfftoShambala to
After the flames go out, you can take the bricks and wrap them in a blanket and put them under your blankets at the bottom of your bed or sleeping bag, to stay warm all night. My parents used to do this during the Great Depression when all they had was a coal burning fireplace.
how delicious a warm bed
Used to be common place, even before the depression, to put a warming brick (wrapped in flannel) in the beds at night.
Yes my mom used to tell me that when they went to the nearest town which was 65 Mi away and their car only went 25 miles an hour back during the Depression that my grandmother used to warm rocks and wrap them up in blankets so they would have a nice warm trip to town. Although that worked good for the way in but not the way back.
There are iron or aluminum bottles where you can put 200f hot water en put it in bed ?😅
❗☝️Doesn't work with all polyester and other synthetics in homes nowadays! ❗☝️ It will melt or start to burn ❗☝️
The brick mountain of heat is a great Idea. I'm an old design engineer and wish to offer a couple of suggestions for better performance. As I tell my friends the advice is free and that is what it is worth. It might give you some content ideas too.
- It would work best to set the whole thing down on the floor so you get the most out of the rising heat from your flame. Most of your mountain of heat is for fire safety which is great. It puts most of its heat out at the top so the lower you get that top the more time the heat has to warm the room air before it hits the ceiling.
- If you leave a small 1/4" - 1/2" space between the bricks at the level of your flame it will allow vertical air flow and increase combustion of the alcohol and give less smoke. Kinda like a hurricane lantern.
- On the top set of bricks, if you stand them up on the long edge and leave an inch wide gap between three bricks the heat from the flames would go past more surface area to give more heat back afterwards. Maybe even a second set of three top bricks on edge across the first set before a pair of cap bricks like you had. Anything you can add for thermal mass that gets heated on top and can transfer heat to the room will help. An aluminum pan of water instead of the cap bricks might be the best option.
- The idea you had shared with Kim Bakker will help. Changing the heat source to something like a Crisco candle with a few wicks, a penny can stove, or Sterno can with a damper would increase the longevity of the heat.
Thanks a lot Mark - glad to have you in the community! Every bit helps! And that’s what we are here for to help. 😊🙌🏽
Thank you Mark & Riverside for this info. Question: I think I read a review of fuels used in alcohol burners and denatured alcohol seemed to work best - producing very little to no soot or smoke and very little to no carbon monoxide. I think I remember reading that it broke down to carbon dioxide (not dangerous) and water vapor. Is this correct - and if so, would that make it a safe fuel to use indoors for emergency heat and not need to worry about ventilation as much?
@@ellencooper7031 Hi Ellen, Carbon monoxide (CO) has a well-earned reputation of being a toxic gas. Its cousin carbon dioxide (CO2) doesn't have the same reputation but it is no less deadly if CO2 is all there is to breath because it has no free oxygen for us to extract. CO is considered more dangerous because it is just about as buoyant as air and therefore readily mixes with air. So without a monitor the CO concentration kind of sneaks up on you and before you realize it you are sick or poisoned. CO2 is heavier than air and sinks to the ground. So most older structures will lose most of the CO2 created through the door openings and building air leaks found low which means for the most part it is not a worry.
However, if you run these alcohol burners for any length of time in very small confined spaces or any spaces that are tightly sealed, you still need to have some fresh air ventilation. In my old house, CO2 from an alcohol flame would not be an issue. There are enough air leaks in my rickety old house where CO2 would never accumulate, but in tightly confined spaces or newer construction with spray foam insulation or house wrap IMHO would require some fresh air if you ran something like these alcohol heaters for a long time.
I would add in a pinch a ghee lamp
Hi Nick,I really appreciated the additional help,but I am no do it yourself type.i kinda got lost on the brick lay out you suggested.can you make it simpler for someone like me with the addition of the crisco candle?
I'd highly recommend mentioning that only fireplace bricks or something like soapstone be used. Regular building bricks can break or explode when the inside moisture boils from high heat. i DO like this design. i'll be adding fireplace bricks/soapstone to my shopping list.
i'd use sterno or the chafing dish fuels for this. They don't smoke and last a long time.
@@Tsiri09 Gee, yah know what Sterno is, or what's in the chafing dish heaters?
Isopropyl alcohol.
@@Tsiri09 oh, and pure alcohol doesn't smoke.
no they just crack, unless you get kiln like temperatures. Rocks can explode. But bricks very unlikely, small enough that they heat up separately, and can expand and contract. Regular bricks may crack, but explosion is implausible at these temps.
I think I would keep the bricks in the garage away from rain and sprinklers ..
Additional suggestions that I'd like to offer are the following. I concur with Mark in placing the whole structure on the floor to allow the heat to lift as it's burning. I would suggest perhaps purchasing the same firebricks used in wood burning stoves and fireplaces to decrease the burning effect and smoke that you experienced. I would also suggest purchasing a stove fan to place on the top row of bricks, these fans are powered by a heating element in the device and doesn't require batteries or electricity, and would propel the hot air from the mass forward instead of upward, this should quicken the heating effect in the room as a whole.
Thank you for your comment… I had a woodstove fan on the woodstove behind me lol didn’t think about using it until after… Thank you for watching we will have many more tips to come
I was wondering if you should use fire bricks that are used to build fireplaces, fire pits etc. I could be wrong but I've read that using just regular brick/cinder blocks could cause the brick to explode and the same with rocks. They have crevices that get water/ice in them and will explode. Could be wrong. Everyone can do their own research.
Yes.
Fire brick.
Ordinary brick is not adequate for this kind of heat.
God forbid someone uses crick.
@@gmwwc is this where the term cricker comes from!?
What if you left a small gaps at the bottom bricks for air intake? Also could you sub in denatured alcohol?
The carbon left on the bricks and the orange flames means that the fire is starved for air. The flames hitting the top bricks suggest the thing is too short. Slight gaps on the 2nd layer of bricks can solve the lack of air issue. An extra layer can get the burning to be better contained within the heater.
I'm in a house in Ohio with no utilities or heat. It's freezing cold. I'm a senior and disabled so I'm unable to do this. But thank you for telling others. Bless you and all who gave their ideas.
hopefully there would be some county, state or federal aid to either heatiing solutions, someone on the county level to direct federal housing money to insulate your house (those programs exist) or even local resources; even your local food bank may have the crisco/shelf stable shortening to try to put together emergency 'candle' option(s)..
I hope some sort of backup is in place.
at "worst", try to source an sub-zero degree sleeping bag to conserve your own body heat if energy is cut off for any reason. (got mine on eBay or other online sources for liquidation/closeout, and yes: saved up for it, or : put a request in at a local food distribution center 'wish list') those helped when we had polar vortex & house heater basically couldn't keep up. /hope that's helpful.
Is there anyone from a local church who would help you set this up? Godbless you ❤
I'll volunteer were the real men
You are amazing to watch. I have learned so much from your videos. I can actually say. I’m more prepped now than ever. 62 years old live alone. I’m almost ready! Thank you! God Bless you and your family… 🙏🏻🙏🏻
I am actually more interested in knowing what the room temperature is and how long you can maintain this.
First of all I would recommend using a cleaner burning fuel, the room raised up to 5° and held up to 5° above what it was dropping to which was 46 and 2 1/2 hours later after the flames went out the room was still at 50° at that point you would wait another hour or two and relight another series of burning to reheat up the bricks so it would continue to maintain the heat rather than the room continually dropping in temperature to match the outside temperature, the Crisco candle heater may do a better job for long-term maintenance for extended periods of time as it maintains that lower temperature for longer… Look forward to my next video using the crisco candles
When I say cleaner burning fuel I mean grain alcohol or heet the yellow container automotive the more blue the flame the better…
@@RiversideHomesteadLife pure white lighting 😁
Exactly ! I stopped at 6 minutes in to read comments. Aiming that temperature thing on the bricks and or fire doesn't tell you squat! This isn't the first video I've seen do that. What is the room temperature? That's what us important. Now, I'll probably watch the rest. At the end, 2 hrs later what is the outdoor temp and room temp ?
@@oldblackstock2499 No, it's not. Radiant heat like this will also (and mostly) work as just that - radiant. So you are going to get a LOT of benefit from it heating up the *THINGS* in the room, no the air temperature in the room. You will feel warmer far quicker than the air temperature rises with radiant heat sources like IR and such. Something to keep in mind.
OK thanks for the info. As someone who has lived in a compromised state, it does seem important to state one should not wait until an emergency to gather the ingredients. Fear, cold,and potentially a lack of light add a lot to the outcome. ❤
Well said! Always good to be prepared ahead of time
Hope you're living in a better situation now. Merry late Christmas from a fellow weary traveler 🙏
@@jaymethodus3421 I live in a house now. 1897 built and no insulation, but miles from the 1956 trailer that I used to live in. Grateful for my situation, but it could be improved in the future. 🔥
A safety precaution you may want to add would be that of filling the cans with toilet paper, absorbent cloth or even dry sand or salt. This will keep the alcohol from being spilled if it's jostled. Otherwise, someone bumps the table, the liquid alcohol will spash fire all over that wooden table.
I used a modified version of this to heat my van last winter so have a lot of real world, daily experience with this.
I had no issues with smoke. One thing is once the bricks are burned in, they shouldn't smoke, because a pure alcohol flame produces no smoke. At least it didn't in my van all winter long.
A downside was, the shutdown happened then and isopropyl alcohol became very hard to find.
I made good money all winter by selling it online after finding sources it.
I would probably use a regular or small sized coffee can and cover it with a metal utensil holder ( tall, round SS cylinder full of holes, cheap @ Walmart) either inverted or right side up. Then put it in your bricks.
And the floor would be a safer and more effective place to put your heater.
Very good tips! Love the real life experience tips!! That’s the best part of these videos is people sharing in my mind! Yes you are correct on the spillage and better to keep it more spill safe! Thanks so much for taking time to add in the tips- we will have many more videos to come and look forward to your 2 cents !!! 🙌🏽
What is a metal utensil holder? Like a mesh or woven wire cup?
@@OfftoShambala Yes, it's a metal cylinder about 10 in high and 6 in diameter with many holes in it.
The other thing I'd add to this is keep an ov glove or something nearby. In the event of splashover or any reason you need to access your cans of fuel quickly those bricks will be hot. Granted the odds of needing quick brick removal is slim, but better to be prepared.
Use denatured alcohol it's actually made for what you're using it for.
Gallon cans in the paint department.
Sunnyside brand .
I learned a time ago that if you get a clean one pint paint can and take a roll of toilet paper, remove the cardboard roll and remove a few layers of paper from the outside of the roll you can make it fit into the pint can, then fill the can with isopropyl alcohol making a large sterno. It will stay lit for a long time with a nice blue flame that burns clean and doesn’t give off a light for everyone else to see and it gives off some nice heat. You can also get a clean one gallon paint can and store the pint can inside that with extra alcohol.
I LOVE THIS IDEA ~ for keeping the basement pipes from freezing here in the northeast, where winter
temps can drop to 'way-below' Zero ~ and ~ there's only ELEC.. [expensive emergency heat! ] in our basement ! [Our living space has two wood stoves / one basically a cookstove,] So... if the elec. goes
out = there's a good chance the pipes will freeze! [ The 'long range' plan is to put a tiny wood stove AND
(exhaust) chimney to use for a serious frigid emergency! ] YOU just solved the 'immediate' problem &
it seems like it's a pretty easy solve ! =] Might just ' Not Bother' with another wood stove! THANK YOU !
@@carolmartin2503 y
You’re welcome
@@carolmartin2503 I know this was 2 years ago but just saw a Canadian Prepper vid of a tiny wood stove- he's tested lots of portable ones for bugging out in a hurry. Here? I get more "realistic for me" tips!
I bet this guy drives his wife crazy. LOL
I would like to also add that in a pinch you can use a cast iron skillet for a base and then use a stainless steel animal food bowl with a brick across the top ! Just here to help !
Great ideas
I think some folks so far are missing the key word here: "Emergency." You may be in the situation where minor details are not really going to matter. They thing that will matter most is keeping the room/air above freezing so you and your family don't die of hypothermia in case of a blackout in winter. Its just good to have options and be prepared.
Well said! yes always good to be prepared, never know when an emergency might happen
If the emergency lasts for a month or more those details will matter.
If you don't have wool blankets, you aren't prepared.
I bet people during that texas freeze would have loved to have this emergency knowledge. So yea, you're right.
@@johnoneal1234 🤣😆👍🔥
As always, another EXCELLENT TIP !
FYI, when I first saw this system demonstrated, they left a gap on the bottom tear, wide enough to allow the fuel cans to be drawn out by using a bent clothes hanger, and then maintaining the heat level using only one can full of alcohol, and a 1gt. paint can lid to control the flame throttling the flame back to conserve the amount of Alcohol being consumed.
You can use the second tuna can as your next backup, pulling the first one out, and pushing the second one in, and ready to go again !
When controlling the rate of burn, you can run roughly three, to three and a half hours on one full tuna can of alcohol it takes a little practice to know how to adjust the rate of burn, but once you have your room up to temperature, you should be able to go through the night,
but, with ANY open flame, make sure someone is able to monitor it at ALL TIMES !
Don't just go to sleep, assuming all is well and safe !
Sleep in shifts if needed, but at least you won't be at risk of freezing to death !
But PLEASE, make absolutely sure you have adequate fresh air able to get in the room from time to time, but without losing all of the heat in the process of course !
Great info Thank you!
Also 70% burns slower but cooler.
The information you give so freely is INVALUABLE!!! The time when SHTF is imminent, I believe, so what you are doing for those if us who aren't naturally resourceful (me, for example)is a good thing,.thank you very much!
Thanks Sharon - lots of great tips and many more to come🙌🏽
you could always stock up on those emergency blankets that look like foil,
as well. Very cheap and they are supposed to keep you warm by reflecting your body temp and trapping it
If and when the shtf in the USA (however unlikely), heating will be the least of your worries. I'd worry about gun toting gangs of para-military survivalists roaming round attacking everyone and stealing everything they want. But it won't happen. Of course, in the USA the paranoia levels are so high, you're far more likely to have a heart attack brought on by stress, or be shot by an agitated neighbour. 😁
@@another3997 Agitated neighbor😆🤣👍
Anything that makes black smoke you should be careful with. Open a window or some kind of ventilation with in 20 feet of the flame. Red flame and black smoke are the 2 things to look out for. The yellow bottle of "heet" is pretty safe, but the cleanest burning fuel for this situation is grain alcohol. Like you get at the liquor store. That's the only safe way to go without ventilation. Blue flame is safe.
👍🧡✝️🇺🇸🧡👍
Excellent!! Thanks water NOTED !
Good to know
Wait til you have to scrub all the soot off your walls and everything else. Nuff said. Been there done that.
Like 130 proof moonshine
Heating up stainless stock pots with hot water it will put off lots of heat lots longer thsn your alcohol heater
In the old days some people used bed curtains around their beds in the winter to hold in body heat around the bed. Also, in in extreme emergency you could set up a tent in a living area and just heat the tent inside. This would not save your pipes but it would keep you alive.
Thanks for the tips Willie 😊🙌🏽
They would also wrap a piece of flannel around a brick heated in the fireplace. Then warm the bed with it or sleep with it.
I think in Victorian times four poster beds (ceiling/roof on top and curtains all around) was common place, at least for the wealthy; it all makes sense now.
Oh' sleeping with their pets (dogs) for extra heat also makes sense.
@@pa_maj.MARTINI-van-MAN Maybe brought the horses in as well🤣
@@truthmatters7805 🤣😂🤣
What a great service you are providing in effort to help save some of your viewers. God bless you and thank you to the family as well.
⚠️ This kind of alcohol is dangerous as it burns,even in small doses. The risk of carbon dioxide is high,especially indoors.
@@elonah.9615 yes, this looks SUPER dangerous. I would NOT try this! Not inside a house.
You can take some simple metal wire mesh and vertically mold it around the can starting about 1/3 from top of can and extend it up long enough to fit under your top brick, ...Then you'd have a tubular mesh mantle to help out with your flame. I'm sure you know that. I actually appreciate that you are showing us the basic's first and not overwhelming us with the custom designs and stuff! It's now months later since you made this video and people need this information now more than ever! Btw, I am building a custom heater/stovetop for myself. Thought I'd give it a try. I'm making mine so it cooks and heats at the same time with a lid and handles. Super lightweight diameter base using 9 1/2" (cake pans) for top and bottom and some thin aluminum sheeting as the walls. Very inexpensive too. Although I had planned to put a circular garden brick inside the bottom, it never occurred to me we should all keep a few regular bricks around the house just for the purpose of emergencies! I'm still going to finish building mine, ...but you just proved what can be accomplished in less than 1 minute! 🔥
I'm a old------er disabled man now.but being raised up poor in the country we learned to take nothing and nothing and make things that worked. Afor night fishing I would take old metal paint cans full of dirt or sand,then once in a while filling with kerosene, come back hours later do it again 3-5 times then when I went night fishing light it . enough light to bait hooks and warm your hands.some times i would use a coke or pepsi glass bottle with a rag twisted to go to bottom for a quick that you could adjust upor down. papa enjoying your videos
Thank you- that’s a good ol trick!
I warm up a pot of water as a 30min handwarmer but love my beer can diy stove works great too... sand battery
GREAT GREAT VIDEO!!! I would suggest do not take temp measurements on the FLAME-SIDE, for your BIG readings you are actually reading the flame temp more than the brick temp. SO turn 90degrees and take the brick temps from the NON-FLAME SIDE to get the TRUE BRICK READING. But you have the right idea. A very useful idea. Keep up the GREAT VIDEOS!!! GOD Bless.
Thank you David, honestly this is not my favorite method but it is a method and can be used as an emergency, also note that the yellow can of heat would work better, and be sure you have a CO detector because the air could get bad over a long period of time, I’m currently working on ideas for a video to build an indoor brick woodstove on a whim for emergencies, I have a feeling I’m really gonna like this method I hope you will too should come out this winter sometime, thank you for watching
Alcohol puts out alot of soot. Those walls will be black thru extended use. Line a corner of a room with tin foil then you can just peel and replace as needed.
Nice tip
Yes, and that would be a safety problem after long time use, I woukd think like a fireplace...creosote fire!
Not understanding what showing the temp of the bricks demonstrates. What is important I think is how warm the air in the room is. From 47° in the room, how warm does it get after an hour or two or three? That's what really matters.
It shows the bricks stay cool near the table but farther up releases the heat. Heat always rises. It depends how often fuel is needed in order to maintain sufficient to heat.
@@sixpackbinky
Got it. That makes sense.
They think it's cool to show temps in the hundreds of degrees.
Only radiant heat... As he shows the room temp_ it's still too cold
heating objects has always been better. most people always think of heating air, as this at what is your typical furnace does. heats air, like a hair dryer, just moving hot air. Just look how often your furnace runs to maintain warm environments. heating air is actually the least productive of all methods, just happens to be the simplest form, most common, easy to maintain and understand. Actual fire move through heat exchanger. The fire and resulting dangerous combustion gasses do not mix into your breathable air, but rather out thru a chimey or flue pipe. This magic is via a heat changer. Most modern furnaces operate very efficiently, so fuel costs have improved from even 20 years ago.
this method obviously has no chimney, potentially adding c.o. into your breathing space when/if flame burns dirty, low oxygen. example, a candle flame is very sooty, it burns orange because it is poorly burning, (low oxygen) but it's not c.o. It's not burning pure, same as a match stick, burning the stick is very dirty. look at fuel burn coming off a cigarette lighter, it's blue and bright, clean.
heating objects is what a boiler does. your heating water, then moving it about, heating even more objects. This video, he is heating solid materials. The bricks continue giving off heat after fire is out. If just burning the fuel, you heat the air. no fire, no heat. technically your heat is on the ceiling. very temporary heat to the air of the room. its not going to give you a 70 deg. 800 square foot house, but could keep you from freezing. In this experiment, the heated bricks will stay warm, and thus continue to loose heat into the environment. As they cool, enough to handle, repeat the fuel process. I would even heat authentic rock. very dense compared to porous concrete, man made construction blocks. or even pans of water. comes down to use what is available. This is just for temporary use you, wouldn't want to try to do this for a month on end. the cost would be huge. Some mentioned grain alcohol. if you had that much grain alcohol, just drink till you don't feel anything.
Hope you are the man!!!!! God bless you and your family 🙏💕
This is my first time on your channel. You are my new best friend! Single handedly you have heated my house in a power outage! I'm so impressed with this technique. I'm going to buy bricks and pavers.
Great ? Were can I get bricks 🧱🧱 of this nature from ?
I forgot to thank you for sharing, I appreciate you for sharing your experience and your thoughts on the matter. There will most likely be no perfect solution to staying warm if it’s in a crisis but it is great to have a plan in advance for situation situations where there is no available services and little communications. As far as reducing the risk of a CO2 CI have used hanging blankets or sheets to keep the heat confined to a small area. If the barrier is hung with a small space left between both the ceiling and the floor it can help draw in fresh air and push out the CO2.
Oh my gosh, this is amazing! Being, originally, from South TX, where it rarely gets very cold....and having moved to West TX where we have gotten snow every year I've lived here...this is really going to come in handy when our electricity goes out, as it has done many times. So with this and the brick stove for outdoors, I'm looking at buying about 35 fire bricks (probably 40, just in case). I'm learning so much! Thanks again!
Get some Harbor Freight 100 watt panels, look up solar setups and set up something to generate and store solar power, and get a small heater.
Reminds me of the sand batteries they are developing in Finland. You could even use wood outside to heat the brick/sand/concrete or what every and then take them inside to heat in an emergency. Or, if you run out of propane, use the alcohol in your stove in a pinch. You really got me thinking. 50 years ago I was camping in Alaska where I put rocks into our campfire pit and then covered it with dirt. We then put the tent over it. Warm all night.
Adding a pan of water to the top bricks will speed the introduction of heat to the room.
Thanks for the tip!
It sure eill will I keep a two gallon stock pot on all the time snd it heats my tiny house gor a long time once it’s starts to boil I turn the stove off and put the lid on the pot lots of heat
I made a few of the Cristco candles and they are awesome, no smell, no smoke.
Also with Cristco you can preserve meat without refrigerator. Pack Cristco at bottom of jar, pack meat in middle, pack Cristco on top. If you have a machine to take out the air or do the lighting of match method that works also.
🙌🏽
Hi, please post a link to a video that demonstrates it or maybe a detailed explanation if no video exists. Thanks for sharing!
I have an idea. How about about making a makeshift tent in the room with least amount of drafts. Body heat means no CO poisoning. This is crazy dangerous
It is crazy dangerous for one who thinks it’s crazy dangerous. And that person should certainly pick a different option that feels safer to them
Safety first
@@RiversideHomesteadLife Being ignorant of facts does not make those fact irrelevant.
That's a awesome thing to know I have a wood burner it's good when I'm home and when I am up but I need a backup source for those times.
Looking forward to candle and cooking video. I do have major concerns with burning alcohol in an apartment and the carbon dioxide/smoke levels. However, I don't want to experience another Texas winter black out for 4.5 days of 45° indoor daytime temps. 🥶 My next place will definitely have a fire place!!! lol
My daughter has a fire place in her townhome and was able cordon off living room with blankets staple gunned to the ceiling to close off entry areas and stay warm. I plan to do something similar with kitchen, bath, hallway with blankets and large shipping boxes if necessary to have a smaller area to heat and still be somewhat more functional.
Great Elle - yup stay tuned - it will be published this weekend 🙌🏽 🤜🏽🔔
Thanks for watching
Great - yes gotta be ready - with different options hopefully Texas doesn’t get hammered again this winter - but we are expecting a worse winter 🥶 soooo…. 👎🏿
@@RiversideHomesteadLife I appreciate your concern and efforts to inform us of options to prepare. 💯
The weather may be worse this winter, but at least the CEO of Ercot was fired!!! He refused to winterize after many recommendations to do so. The last report I heard we lost 150 people during that black out! Preparedness is essential these days.
Word to the wise Think Masonry Heater not just fireplace. Gorgeous to look at and many uses.
The old fireplace at my grandma's was on an inside wall. Next to a bedroom.
The brick wall would heat up and radiate the heat into that room.
That's where the babies and toddlers slept. Kept them toasty warm. No oxygen issues.
@@debrobertson-positivedirec5898 That's fortunate that the fireplace was on an inside wall. Every fireplace I have ever had was on an exterior wall. 🙄
Thanks, I live in an area in NW Georgia and my power goes off all the time due to the trees along the power lines. Went off 2 nights ago in the 30's, so this is just what I need for those times. Super appreciate the upload!
I think this is a great heater but it would seem to use quite a bit of fuel and with windows open, it would seem to be fighting an uphill battle to keep the warmth contained. Just my 2 cents
I agree with you Jeff- I will perform cooking / candle test today and think I would personally use it for that purpose only and have other better options for indoor heat…
Thanks for watching
More to come
@@RiversideHomesteadLife I think if you have to cook, capturing the residual heat in the bricks is an excellent idea. That is a very efficient use of the fuel. I love the design and ideas. Keeps me thinking and improving as well. Keep up the great content!!
@@jeffceriotti I was thinking the same thing. Would love to see this thing paired with a can cooker :D
That's why someone in the comments said to use grain alcohol from the liquor store and someone else said use Denatured alcohol i learn by listening to everyone and then decide and reading damn there everything
@@ZAKAR777 ispropyl alcohol works fine, doesn't smoke, and is much more affordable. I heated my van that way all last winter.
You have very helpful videos I’m 76 & I thank you
You are so welcome! Thank you Sandra!
This video Aged like fine wine 🍷
Super helpful prepping ideas for this upcoming winter ❄
So I got into tons of stuff like this at the beginning of the pandemic. So that large brick on the very bottom I have those they absorb a TREMENDOUS amount of heat so that’s why there’s no danger EVER it burning the table. So power went out earlier this year and I 2 Arizona tea cans and made a burner using tiki oil without bricks it burned or hours and hours and I have screws for stands so i could heat up water because I wanted coffee. I could’ve cooked a meal on this thing if I wanted to and it barely covered 5 sq inches of space lol. Point being these things work for all the purposes he tells you. Adding a tiny home in back of you home for a prepper home is just brilliantly realistic and plausible in an emergency because every will run home first and if you can’t leave home with there you go you’re still good. I will be taking this idea and sharing it sir
If all you can get is 70% isopropyl, simply add salt to it. The salt will bind with the water, pulling it out of solution. You will be left with nearly 100% alcohol.
The volume of salt varies, but I just add salt until it stops dissolving. After 15 minutes or so, you will see the water/salt layer under the alcohol layer, and the alcohol can be poured off. Dry the salt to use it again.
Now that's interesting
I really think this would be a life saver for the homeless in colder climates.
In olden times and bigger houses they have a fireplace just for that. Even after the fire has died down, the adjoining bricks stay warm for quite a long time.
Yes the brick stay warm for quite a while
That's a very sooty fire with a yellow flame (Not a complete clean burn). You don't want to be in the same room as it for long because of fumes. Denatured ethanol / alcohol would likely work a lot better, but I wouldn't like to say that you can be in the same room as it without any sort of ventilation. Having the fire down low just below a window might be a better option, and having an intake gap at the bottom of the bricks to have a nice draught low similar to a rocket stove.
If you use a better burner, you won't get so much soot and smoke. The yellow flames are the problem. The penny stoves (pepsi can ...) work well with methanol, but a little tuning could get isopropyl to work pretty well. A simpler build is a vienna sausage can with 2 rows of small holes around the top third of the can. Then you pour in alcohol and light it. When it gets hot, put a cover on the can and the flames come out the holes. Tinker with the hole sizes until they come out mostly blue and you won't have so much soot. I'm thinking smaller holes with isopropyl alcohol to get the pressure up a little.
Blue flames will have less or no carbon monoxide, which is the real motive for improvement.
I will try this with a bigger can, such as a soup can - 1 cup of alcohol and still room for holes in the top 1.5 inches. The cover could be a metal lid or perhaps a small brick or tile piece. For camp cooking, you use your pot for the cover.
Thank you for your comment! Your tuning tips make sense - I like using the iso propal for demonstrations be cause I know many people have it at home for emergencies … so ya I will tinker with it- I like idea of soup can vs penny can / more sturdy ..
Thanks Martin
Very appreciated during this wicked weather. Glad I seen this older video.
Glad you enjoyed it, thank you Sherry!
Great video. One thing I noted, however, is that the really high temperature readings you were getting were when you held the thermometer directly in front of the opening in a brick. I wonder if you were getting a reading off the flames and not the bricks. I'd like to see this again with the instant thermometer only held on the outer side of the brick, completely away from the flames or openings. I wonder what the temperature would be there.
Thats a good idea for an outdoor heater when your having an outdoor meal and it's cold too . Like those big fancy expensive heaters you can buy near patio furniture . This could make outdoors picnics a thing again in the fall or winter time . As long as the area is clear of things that could catch fire or blow up of course . Setting on my patio bricks I already have in place . I bevel it could work .
I tried cooking with alcohol heaters and bricks yesterday. There was too much smoke even with a fresh air source. I ended up cooking on my grill. Today, I will have to air out my home.
Thank you! I live in Colorado so preparing to save electric in the winter. Some day I will be living off grid!
This technique is older than my great-grandmother, she put a brick on top of our Uruguayan "Primus".
You never show room temp. Accept at the beginning. I've been researching heating ideas. I currently don't have a working furnace so this was very helpful.
If that's in a tiny house, I'm guessing your bed is in a loft. That should make a really nice place to sleep, if whatever smoke there is doesn't get up there. I slept in an old camper one year when the temp got down to the low single digit range. Tarped off half of it and slept in the upper bunk. I've never gotten better sleep than that. Nice and warm up there.
That is true and yes windows in the sleeper bunks
You're right about the Blaze and so is the house boom
i've watched a couple of your vids and they seem informational. 1 thing i would do, if you have the wherewithal to do it is invest in a thermo-electric stove top fan. can use it on top of the bricks to move the warm air about the room thus warming the room quicker and more reliably than just radiant heating. ( i dont think i've seen this suggested before in the comments. you can get them as low as about 40 bucks if you shop around.)
I have one on the wood stove… I totally thought about it after - I will try using in next heat vid
Thank you 🙏🏽
Ahhh how did you know I’ve been searching ways to warm up the home. Oh this is phenomenal!!!
This is nuts ! However I am not entirely surprised as I have experimented with various brick stoves. However I have never done indoors or used iso-propyl alcohol. This looks like a big game changer. Respect 👍
Thanks for your comment Joe!
Cans are lined with material (plastic) to keep freshness, and not advised for cooking the food in
@@f_USAF-Lt.G This wasn't a cooking video🤣
Thank you, totally clueless to all this info, so thank you again. I'm a widow living in mountains in the south but it still gets cold here, not like you guys but cold enough.
Jacquelyn
Jacquelyn, I would think you'd have a wood stove living in the area you are? Nothing beats wood stove heat imho atleast. Hopefully you have it covered, being alone in the mountains isn't ideal due to so much can happen in our ole lives. 2.5 yrs ago I fell 4' from my bed onto hard tile flooring n crushed my t11 n t12 vertebraes. I've been shot n boots put to me n fallen from fast roping 60' n have a fusion with hardware n a Artificial Disc above that. The pain from crushed vertebraes was enormous n I suffered for 9 days in hospital until a surgeon was able to glue me back together.
I hope n pray you stay safe cus living alone increasingly becomes more important as we age. Just a ole paradog advice is all. MaybGod Bless your life Jacquelyn. Ty
Thanks for your helpful tips/DIY and research!
Thank you Norma 🙌🏽😊
It would be nice to know the room temp. That’s what matters.
Kind the same principal as when we used to be winter camping and after sitting up and chatting and cooking our on an open campfire, we took a large hot rock and put it our tent on top of a very thick 3 inch cutting block. Closed up the tent and were toasty all night.
Thanks for your comment Jenny!
Many years back we had a buddy that tried the large rock idea. This rock was huge. He left it in big fire for several hours and buried it under his tent. Before he had a chance to get in the tent, the tent completely melted. One of best laughs we ever had!
Thanks Billy!
@@coppersworld2054 You need a canvas tent for this trick. Sorry for your friends tent.
Really good info. Thank you for sharing. I'm sure this will come in handy in the next upcoming Snovid event here in Texas.
Denatured alcohol is the way to go with pretty much any alcohol stove, nearly pure and made for cooking stoves in tight spots. One other thing is to put a shallow pan/cookie sheet on top of the bricks to reflect and radiate the heat even more. Nice work.
Great tips! Thank you Claythargic
That's what I bought for this project. Now my question is, what would be the best container to burn that in? Could I use the sand in a glass pyrex dish or does it have to be metal?
Reflecting the heat is useless when it's burning it in your house. 100% of that heat is staying in the house either way.
@@randybobandy9828 unless you live on the ceiling heat reflection makes a big difference. You can warm the floor around heater like this
This is good for an emergency. Now, the rest of the house might freeze and burst your water pipes. I set a fat candle, in a wide ceramic dish in the tub, just under or very near the faucet. A fat candle will burn all night , multiple nights with just enough heat to keep your pipes from freezing. Open the cupboard doors under your sinks, allow warmer room air to warm those pipes. Always be careful with fire.
I’d be concerned about the alcohol tuna can seams not holding together and the lit alcohol escaping everywhere creating a house fire.The issue of heating really comes down to insulation. These heaters give out serious heat so adequate care should be taken with when adding fuel or candies that give off too much heat. Any fuel that can be spilled needs to be well guarded in a appropriate metal deep sided container.
Liquid fire will burn your house down in a very short time. This whole thing is a very stupid idea. If you must, heat the bricks or stones outside and bring them in.
@@MAGAMAN Yes absolutely spot on ! I'm really concerned that this totally unsafe practise is being propogated on youtube and there are few,if any,that mention health and safety considerations and also how dangerous methanol is if it is ingested.There was a fire safety feature on the BBC news this morning about the increased usage of portable electric heaters and fires that resulted from inappropriate/unsafe use.Worrying.
@@MAGAMAN hes talking about an emergency situation where your life depends on it braniac, not a regular practice.
@@juanzamarripa3778 🤣
Thank you for your Time, great idea. Enjoy life and keep being a blessing, from Bridgeport Connecticut
Adding more bricks to the top and/or a pan of water might be a good way to capture more heat to radiate longer. Water has a very high heat capacity (meaning it heats up slower and retains heat longer) and the added benefit of some water vapor in the air for human comfort.
If really cold you can use the bricks in your bed after they’ve cooled. I’ve done that snow camping and the warmth lasts long after you’ve warmed up in the sleeping bag.
I suggest arranging the bricks like a rocket stove. Not only will you get the radiant heat, but you'll also get that forced hot air up through the hole.
God bless you sir always great videos and great ideas thank you!!!!!
Have you made a sawdust burner before? I'd love to see how they would compare to your fire bricks, sawdust burner and a toilet roll paintcan alcohol stove. All three could be used as emergency heaters
Oh yes - I will try to get through new and improved videos this winter. And I’m trying to creat. New one too… that will be fun!
I will keep em coming
You’re awesome, hope they are watching this in Europe 🙏
Love how the simple things can be so valuable ~skills are valuable ~ Thanks for sharing 😁
It’s always good to have the knowledge for a back up plan
Com certeza irei experimental aqui em casa...Boa ideia para nos aqui na Europa.
What is the ambient room temp after 39 minutes? Hot bricks are one thing, a warm room is another.
Stacking rocks instead of bricks? Useful simple thank you SO MUCH for this video.
might try one of the heat powered fans like they use on a wood stove to circulate warm air off the top bricks
Totally thought of that after the fact! And it was sitting on wood stove behind me entire time! 🙃
Yeah I was thinking about same thing
A good "convenient" addition... but a simple hand held fan or battery powered personal fan would work just as well.. or a fireplace bellows.. anything to create a stream of air to blow across the face of the bricks
Love to see with more bricks! To heat a bigger surface.
Thanks so much!
Just thinking if electric goes out what would I do....and yey here we are ..this man may well save our lives.
Thank you very much!
This man for President, with the people for the people, how it is suppose to be.
@@RiversideHomesteadLife in this day and age we threatened now with nuclear annihilation yet again and here in uk a winter of electric blackouts , i mean wtf? Why do people work if our governments can't guarantee us stability ????
@@gooddeals1082 we have prime minister here and she is a nutter..she worse than Ur degenerate old touchy touch man...lol
@@gooddeals1082 creepy biden whispering in the kids ears whilst getting a feel in...dirty weird old ........
❤😊 Thank You! You open my a awareness on options to heat a home..deeply appreciated. Christy Washington state..
Great idea for CO and smoke inhalation...
you're always thinking!! thank you!!
🙌🏽another good one tmro
if you stacked the 3rd level brick on it's end, not flat , making a fin as it were you might get more heat to air transfer. it might be nice to play with the arrangement to find the best stacking. or use the thin brick used in wood stoves.
Keep the bricks 🧱 indoors. You spend a ton of heat and time heating those bricks 🧱 back up to room temperature. Thanks for the video
Thanks for the tips!
That would make a good cooking stove with tem's like that on the top bricks.
I would do as one comment suggested & place it on the floor since the bottom brick doesn't seem to get too warm. Thanks for the idea! You never know.......✝️📖🕊️❤️💡
It would be interesting to see a penny stove would do in this situation. A pair would be good for a comparison to this video
The problem with the Penny stove is it’s not gonna last very long, I am working on an indoor safe mini woodstove video hopefully when I can get my lungs back outside I can finish it up it should be a pretty cool idea
Hey, thank you for ideas. Your experience will be really helpful for upcoming winter in Ukraine. I`ll try to prepare somehow.
I appreciate these videos for those of us who cannot afford those great machines . I wanted to get one living in Wi , but barely able to prep as is.
Thank, you a lot I might have to build one of these out here in the rural
I would only use with a carbon monoxide detector in room. Using denatured alcohol or yellow bottle of Heet burns cleaner. I think I would prefer to use small propane heater. Thank you for the video and effort you put into it.
Oh yes propane heater much more ideal! But when your propane runs out or you feel the need to conserve.. good to have back up plans
Thanks for watching 😊
@@RiversideHomesteadLife A family member is without electricity due to the tornado so I was trying to get ideas. I have multiple backup plans and equipment but he doesn’t. Agree you should have options. Edit: I like the surface to cook on.
You have to watch oxygen, gases with propane, too. And Butane. One reason Old Timers kept a kettle of water on the stove, too. The steam gives back oxygen.
I use my camping stove on very low for extra heat when my oil lamps aren't enough for these abnormal, single digit,NJ winter. the propane heaters eat propane like crazy and aren't very stable,especially if you have kids or animals.
You need a heat stove fan to put on top of that. You can also cook on it.
Yeah I was thinking throwing a cast iron skill on top would make eggs easy. And pot of water to warm air but also tea/coffee
I've been doing something similar with 8-hour tea lights and some spare paving as we resist the temptation to turn on our wood pellet burner (with current prices, it would cost over 20 dollars a day to heat our house up plus the electrical cost of running the burner) - you can buy 200 tea lights for that price.
Pellets went up almost 50% in my area over last year. It became so expensive I installed a minisplit heatpump instead of the pellet stove. It will cost us 2.5x less to heat vs Pellets. Lucky for us electricity is cheap in our area.
If you're going to use tee light candles for heat you should look up how many btus of heat is in 1lb of tealight candle wax. Compare that to 1lb of Pellets which has about 8000btus. You also have to remember that pellet stoves are only about 70% efficient so you're only getting about 5600btu out of that lb of Pellets and the other 30% is going out your flue.
This is a great video seeing as the times are about to get hard for a lot of people this winter
🙌🏽
Another tool to keep warm .... thanks! 🔥
Knowledge 🙌🏽😊
Ty Riverside. My natural gas heater is temp out of service so i found this to be very helpful! Keep doin what ur doin!😄
It’s not the most powerful option but help if things get serious- crisco candles video is a better safer option to start with 🙌🏽
Have you ever thought about adding a thermally driven stove fan to the top to move the heat around the room
Funny you say that- had one on the wood stove the whole time behind me - did not think about it till after. Idea lol
I was thinking the same thing!
This is a good design for a smaller area , however a bit inefficient to make any real temperature difference in the room that one would consider "comfortable" . Unless you upscale the entire size using paint cans with a tightly wound and packed heavy cotton material as a wick..You could also use a larger format brick stove with a few large CRISCO wick heaters inside and maintain a constant heat source for up to 30 hours...That version would take longer to get the bricks radiating but once they reach a good temperature they would maintain it longer.
*SOMETHING tells me that THIS GUY is a man of God, AND KNOWS what's getting ready to take place in this world.*
You should edit this video and RECOMMEND that everyone use this IN COMBINATION WITH a carbon monoxide detector, JUST IN CASE someone kills over a d then files a lawsuit over your video, but that's just my suggestion.
Man of God yes! .. check out my latest video- recommendations exact- I will try to edit video.. and add clear note on detector- always try to stress safety….
Thank you for watching- I will keep great tips coming - 🔔
Brother Lost! That Video, however, Got a Video Clip Thanks Sooo Much!
God bless you and Family 💕
👍