Post
Topic
Board CPU/GPU Bitcoin mining hardware
Re: Heat from computer vs electric furnace
by
Phil21
on 26/12/2011, 00:11:23 UTC
I think everyone answered the theoretical part of this question sufficiently Smiley  The heat generated by a computer is going to be identical to a coil-based electric heater.

However.. What has not been touched on is perceived warmth.  You may be a bachelor, so this might not matter much to you... But those with wives and girlfriends will know how this works!  Assuming you have an identical power draw on both your furnace and mining rigs, I would still say you are very likely going to have to augment with the heater.

A furnace designed to create heat and move air (in theory in an efficient manner) is likely going to "feel" a lot warmer than an mining rig of the same wattage.  This is simply due to air movement and distribution throughout the house.

One thing I did was stuff my mining rigs in the furnace room, and open the cold-air return duct so they blow warm air into it.  I then set the furnace to just run the fan 24x7, even if the burner (gas here) isn't running.  End result was an extremely hot laundry room, and a slightly reduced heating bill.  I run around 6kw worth of gear, but honestly have no clue how many BTU my furnace is rated at.  I did ponder stuffing mining rigs into the cold air ducting itself (right before the burner intake) - but then realized the fire risk probably wasn't worth it!  Note to anyone contemplating this (or running wire through a heating duct) - smoke is the most hazardous part of a household fire, and putting things that burn toxic fumes into your air vent system to ensure all the fumes get quickly distributed throughout the house is an extremely poor idea.

Now, had I designed the house ground-up to be "mining rig heated" then this would be a different story!  It's very easy to neglect air distribution and simply focus on the raw math though, and modern HVAC systems are in general very efficient at taking created heat and distributing it to where it's needed.  Mining rigs not so much.

-Phil