Tour THIS Greenhouse HERE: • The Story of Building ...
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NOTE: EMERGENCY HEAT FOR GREENHOUSES, NOT PEOPLE HOUSES!
Here is a link to some of the items in this video:
Candle wicks: amzn.to/3vKOwWB
The terra cotta feet (spacers): amzn.to/3k3FeCh
Infrared thermometer gun: amzn.to/3dh8T89
48 oz vegetable shortening: amzn.to/3gJaPYe
This is the third in a series about ways I keep my G.A.H.T. greenhouse warm.
In this video, we'll show you the best way to make a Terra Cotta Heater. This heater is perfect for warming up your greenhouse or workspace in cold weather!
This heater is a great way to heat up your space inexpensively and quickly. It's also great for heating up small spaces, like a closet or small greenhouse! So if you're looking for a cheap and easy way to heat up your space, be sure to check out this Terra Cotta Heater!
As the weather starts cooling down those of us with greenhouses start thinking about ways of keeping the greenhouse warm sometimes we do that by means of an actual wood stove or an electric or gas heater another thing that a lot of people use is something called a terracotta heater basically what that is is vegetable shortening with a candle stuck in it and a flower pot upside down over the top the candle heats up the the clay pot and the pot radiates heat that's the basic idea well I think I have a better way in the sense that I don't just use one terra cotta pot and I don't use a candle let me show you [Music] the fuel source in a terracotta heater is usually vegetable shortening in this instance I'm using Crisco but it's any brand it can be generic whatever the size of the particular tub of of vegetable shortening will depend on the size of the pots that you're using for me I have found that this 48 ounce tub works well um and then what I would do in the past is I would jam say three candles down into the center of that make sure that they're trimmed off so that they're the right height and that would be the fuel source and the heater source for my terracotta heater I have changed this particular design over the years because what would happen is you would jam the candles down in and as you did you would need to use like a painter's putty knife to scrape out all the excess that gets forced out of the tub as you force the candles down in and that's less than optimal and so now this is what I do when I make a new heater for the Terracotta heater so what I do is I try to make out a little space right here in the center of the tub I use some piping that I have from I have a lot of this irrigation piping from when I set up the irrigation on the property and then what I do instead of using candles is I use Wicks from candles you can get these at heart at craft stores or on Amazon I'll leave a link in the description and then what you need to do is I have an old curtain rod and what I do is I place the wicks into this piece of pipe
Next I do is I Jam it down into the bottom
now I have a candle uh that has the amount of Wicks right down into the middle of it and then I just need to use something to kind of poke the the Crisco down around the edges to make sure that it doesn't burn down too quickly
and now you are ready to go to put this into your terracotta heater so here's everything that you need to assemble the Terracotta heater I showed you how to make the candle itself which has got candle wicks inside the tub of vegetable shortening and then you need a terracotta tray with three terra cotta feet that are used to hold Planters up off of the ground these are easily available at hardware stores you can get them online and then you need a large terracotta pot that will fit around that's approximately the same size or slightly smaller than the Terracotta tray and so what I do is I place the candle in the middle and I light it
then the large terracotta pot is placed over this it's important that there's a gap there for the flame to have enough oxygen and then I stack up smaller terracotta pots everything has to be terracotta every last one of these because these get hot and anything else will melt and then there you have it that I have found is the best way of capturing the hot air out of the candle in each of these little Chambers and then you can get a Terra Cotta heater that will last a long time [Music] so there you go that's how I make a terracotta heater now that's not the only way that I heat my Greenhouse I have actually quite a few different ways and I made a separate video about 15 ways or methods that I use to keep my Greenhouse warm in the winter so go ahead and check that out thank you for watching this video and if you have any questions or comments go ahead and leave them in the comment section below and if you like this video you might like these.