Miner as heater (Special case! Please help! Experiment)

in #mining7 years ago (edited)

I know, I’m not the first coming with the idea to use a cryptocurrency miner as heater, since it produces a large portion of heat and winter’s coming. Now I believe I’m in a special situation.

Usually when the come up with that idea, they calculate if it really makes sense because gas is cheaper to heat, yes, but: In my house, there is no gas or oil heater possible. So currently I have to heat with old electric night-storage heaters and a electric infrared heater, both are consuming huge amounts of electricity. Ok, I also have one wood stove in the living room, and wood is cheap, but 1st I’m not always at home to use it (and it cools down fast once the fire is extinct!) and 2nd it’s only in one room, but I’ve more rooms.

So when I have to use electric heating IN ANY WAY: Why not use miner(s) to find me some bitcoins and have a better temperature in my room?

That’s where I need help from anyone who actually know more about mining. I’m not new to the cryptocurrency world, but I just used the currency - I’ve never done mining before.

I don’t want to have a rig or super-computer in my room. I don’t want to have hardware that needs far more than 1kWh. Both has it’s reasons. I live in Germany, so electricity is very expensive (mainly because taxes). I think Bitcoin mining would not be profitable - if you only look at energy price, hardware price and what you get in bitcoin or other cryptocurrency.

BUT: The old electric heaters I’ve in the house, they need a lot of energy too. In fact they are so old, I have no idea how many watts they consume (they are not plugged into a socket, I guess they are using “high voltage” or so, it’s a big cable). The infrared heater in my living room (to support the wood stove or if I’m not at home) is plugged into a socket and consumes 800 watts per hours and it’s really only enough to keep the room from freezing, it does not make warm enough to feel very comfortable, but if it does not freeze while I’m at home, that’s ok lol - you can keep a temperature of maybe 17 degree with it, if you never turn it off, that’s ok.

Now you see, for me it COULD be worth buying mining gear and run it, even when I make a loss on it, because it brings me heat and I can turn of my other heaters. Maybe.

Maybe I should experiment that with just one room in the house. If a rented house, so not my own, by the way. Now I need suggestions from you:

What do you think, how can I calculate it?
What cryptocurrency makes most sense?
What gear? I thought about a bitcoin or X11 miner because those are devices you buy for 2000 USD or so, just one unit, and don’t have to build your own computer, no GPUs. I don’t want to build my own computer and use GPUs like you would do it for mine ETH.
Dash miners for example have lower energy consume, that would be nice, but at the same time, they should still generate enough heat to increase the room temperature.

P.S. I can get a Baikal Mini Miner for 450 euros to start mining Dash, but the device consumes only 40W and I think it can't really use as heater, but anyway I've the chance to buy it until today. Nor sure if I should go for it.

Please share your opinions
Thank you

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