DIY INFRARED HEATER | No Electricity Needed For Greenhouse Heat

Safety Note:Rubbing alcohol gives of noxious fumes. You'll want to use Denatured alcohol or camp fuel for interior applications! In case of emergency; R.A.can be used... ensure adequate ventilation! Also, from experience: place a coin/ stone etc over the fill hole to reduce flare up and fuel consumption.

Nifty! Some thoughts: 1. As you are using sand as your mass, you don't need to go to the expense of a cast iron pot. You could use a stainless steel stock pot for the bottom. 2. For the top, you could pick up a second, smaller stainless steel stock pot that fits inside the sleeve and also fill that with sand. (You want a stock pot for top, as they are fairly tall, and it can reach down to the top of the mesh. 3. You don't need to cut the mesh to size. You can just fold and crimp the two ends together over and over until it fits. That will make for a very strong seam and the whole thing will still be very cylindrical. 4. The fill hole needs to be (mostly) sealed while in use. A ball bearing or marble just slightly larger than the hole would be perfect, though a can lid would also work. 5. The extra carbon felt can be packed inside the inner can so that, if the whole thing tips over, fuel won't spill out so easily. 6. The edges of the shell should be folded back on themselves repeatedly to make it stiffer--and thus safer--and to open it up so more heat can be radiated. 7. The top and bottom pots need to be rigidly connected together so the whole thing can't fall apart and create a fire hazard, as bumping the shell hard enough could easily make it buckle. A couple of pieces of steel pipe that are notched on the ends would work as spacers, and you could drill a hole at each end perpendicular to the notch for a u-bolts to go through to hold the handle to the pipe. That would make it pretty solid, I would think. Cheers!

I want to make this on a smaller scale. The green house I built myself in the 3rd season now. Needs a small heat source for cold nights... This has given me so many ideas thank you..

Check at a restaurant supply store for a larger pot. It might be less expensive than you think. That was good. You put several heater concepts together into a nice build.

Thank you for your project and taking the time to explain everything

On my second build, I used a steel dog bowl as the lid and filled it with sand. The sand was almost molten in no time compared to the first build where I had the sand in the bottom. It becomes warm at the bottom but nothing compared to sand at the top for obvious reasons. Also bigger mantle, more infrared heat. A few drops of Olbas Oil or Menthol in the bottom with water for your bad chest and sinuses 👍

The first thing I tried when I heard about sand batteries was heating a pot full of it from underneath with, I think 8 candles. The temperature in my shed was about 6 centigrade, a couple of hours later I blew the candles out. After 15 minutes the sand was almost cold. Sand batteries can work really well but they need to be heated to a very high temperature in a well insulated container and the release of the heat needs to be regulated.

I would use one of those heavy gauge round galvanized steel water troughs used for livestock as a base for the sand battery. They come in many sizes from 23 gal and up. Might be a bit cheaper than cast iron. Thanks for this vid, it gave me some ideas for heating. 👍

In place of the cast iron pot, could you look at semi-truck or trailer brake drums from a salvage yard? It would be a super heavy-duty alternative. I have used them for wood stoves and fire pits. Salute !!! I love your incredible heater.

Thanks.Still learning something every day.

Amazing i will definitely look into this for my small workshop. Appreciate your time and effort.

It’s not very clear does the stainless steel screen fit into the inside of the top can and the can sits on it also does a stainless steel screen go inside the bottom large can or it just sit on it or does it wrap around it could you maybe film a sequel, showing how you assemble it that whole part is very muddy

Large chimney brick and a larger kerosene lantern from Lehman supply company in kindred Ohio. My grandmother would fill the lantern and put it on the lowest level and place it inside the chimney brick. And that was enough to heat the entire greenhouse during the winter. The place was toasty the lantern would need to be filled like ever 20 hrs but worth every penny. She also did it in the chicken coop as well. With a block on top and holes drilled into the sides of the block. And bird spikes on the block to keep them from roosting on the very warm top.

Great idea. The only problem I see is safety. The whole tower is resting in sand with nothing fastened to anything. I would recommend attaching a spoke style rebar base as well as fastening the internal components together. Greenhouses can get a lot of traffic, and to me, currently, this looks unsafe.

Thanks this was very helpful.

Nice combination of ideas, great build

really cool. i dont know how much room you have in your hot house but you could get some of those blue plastic storage 55 gal drums paint them black and fill them 3/4 the way with water the thermal mass of the heat collected in the day would radiate though the night. i still really like your design.

I saw the basic workings of this on the Robert Murray-Smith videos but really like the sand addition you wisely installed. He has one of the accents we Texans find amusing but you are easier to follow and give a good explanation of it all. He recently did a video on 2173 Making Carbon Cloth.

Very nice, unique setup. I like it! I would steer away from rubbing alcohol, especially at the ratio you are burning (looks like 70%??). It contains glycerin and water. What happens is the alcohol burns off and leaves you with a glycerin/water mixture in the can. Eventually, your wick will be saturated with water and burn very inefficiently. Best to use straight alcohols (methanol, ethanol, higher grade isopropyl). Methanol only has one carbon atom per molecule and will be much safer to burn, too. Less chance to create carbon monoxide and soot. Ethanol has two and isopropyl has three.

Awesome and epic video thank you so much for making it ❤️👍