Bitcoin home heater idea

[EuroTrash]

Ok, so the idea comes from the fact that I have electric heating at home, ad I can't change that.

I do have some 1.4 GHashes of GPUs that I bought last November. They are currently sitting there not doing much. Because they produce 750W of heat and I haven't used them in summer. Now the winter is coming. I need heat. 

I know that BTC mining with GPU is not much economically convenient in most countries due to high power costs. In my case I'm close to breaking even. Yet if I'm paying for electric heating, which is basically a direct conversion of electrical power into heat, I might as well mine bitcoins instead, and at least get some of my electric supply costs back.

My server/heater is liquid-cooled with a big radiator and PWM fans on it that are normally quiet but become very noisy when hashing. The noise can be disturbing when listening to music or watching TV, in which case I would switch to a conventional heater.

Sometimes I have friends visiting/staying over - and I enjoy their company a lot but they are not the kind I would want to teach how to launch commands on my server. 

So far what I have come up with is:
1. an automated task to fire up the miner software at certain times of the day;
2. a physical "kill switch" that will turn off the heater for a couple of hours. So my guest can just push the button and enjoy noise-free TV when needed.

I just ordered one of these: http://www.play.com/Gadgets/Gadgets/4-/6705118/-/Product.html
The button comes with a led, and it can be programmed with a driver available here: http://dreamcheekyusb.codeplex.com/

What I'll do is writing three simple AutoIt programs:
1. MinerOn.exe = checks if miner task is already launched; if not, it launches it & turns the button led ON
2. MinerOff.exe = checks if miner task is already launched; if yes, it kills it & turns the button led OFF
3. MinerSnooze.exe = like MinerOff.exe but also schedules MinerOn.exe in two hours.

(I know, I'm nuts)

Any comments/ideas? 

[warbdan]

Cool idea.

[RaTTuS]

Cool idea.

no! Hot Idea

[Fjordbit]

You don't have to worry about it now, but another thing you will need to consider after first halvings day and the asicpocalypse is the capital loss on the video cards from depreciation.

[EuroTrash]

You don't have to worry about it now, but another thing you will need to consider after first halvings day and the asicpocalypse is the capital loss on the video cards from depreciation.

That is a very valid point if I had kept the receipts and the original heatsinks.
(I know, I know, I know. One day I had a "too-much-mess-in-this-place" moment).
Liquid-cooled as the GPUs are, they are not much of a value right now. Maybe the server in its entirety is, as it's a quite powerful machine.

Also selling stuff on eBay has a time cost to consider.
E.g. say that, in total, I spend 1.5 hours time to take a decent picture of an item, write down a description, set up an auction, follow up on it, prepare the package and send it to the auction winner.
Those 1.5 hours I rate against the hourly net income I have in my current full time job. If the resulting amount is higher/close to the price of the item I'm selling, in my view by selling the item on eBay I'm actually wasting time.

[Gabi]

It's a great idea. A bitcoin mining server coupled with underfloor heating wich allow you to have water at a temperature not high like normal heating, so it's perfect for cooling hardware.

As for GPU, soon ASIC will comes out, and then GPU mining will be totally unprofitable.

[SgtSpike]

For a personal project?  Yes, I think it's great!  I've thought about the same thing...

For a product to construct and sell?  Not going to work... there's just not going to be enough profit in it vs the cost of the hardware inside.  Even with free electricity, it will soon take 5-10 years of mining to pay off graphics cards with mining income.  Extrapolate that down to months, and it'll only be a few $.  Add in the cost of replacing broken hardware, and you're going to be SOL down the line no matter how you look at it.

Since you consider the hardware a sunk cost and not worth reselling, I think it still makes a great personal project.  I always tried to find a way to make it work in the business world though, and concluded each time that it just wasn't worth it in any sense of the word.

[reyals]

Why not just move the server?  Either place it by the air intake for your house or use some cheap ducting to send the hot air where you want it....

[EuroTrash]

Why not just move the server?  Either place it by the air intake for your house or use some cheap ducting to send the hot air where you want it....

Thanks, hadn't thought about that. In theory, I like it - some ducting along one air intake and some more for sending the hot air to the living room.
Although... visible ducting along the house gives it a bit of a bunker feeling, which tends to repel those creatures who are sensible to beauty.

 

[TenDrawBTC]

sounds wicked.

[IntrepidMiner]

Nice idea! Unfortunately when the difficulty spike hits I'll have to stop GPU mining, because it's usually warm here, even in the winter.

[Fjordbit]

E.g. say that, in total, I spend 1.5 hours time to take a decent picture of an item, write down a description, set up an auction, follow up on it, prepare the package and send it to the auction winner.
Those 1.5 hours I rate against the hourly net income I have in my current full time job. If the resulting amount is higher/close to the price of the item I'm selling, in my view by selling the item on eBay I'm actually wasting time.

I understand this concept well, but do you really have a job that will let you clock 1.5 extra hours and get paid for them? If not this calculation is flawed. For people on a salary without easy opportunity to add additional dollars, any money gained over their salary has a higher utility value than the average dollar in that salary. That's because a large portion of their salary goes to fixed expenses.

[Gabi]

Guys, consider the same thing made with ASIC 

[SgtSpike]

Guys, consider the same thing made with ASIC 

Consider also it'll be a $30,000 heater. 

Though I expect, with major price drops in the future, it might make for a more practical venture.

[Gabi]

Oh, just buy it when you buy your house  Bitcoin will be the heating system of the future!

Not good in hot climates 

[SgtSpike]

Someone needs to come up with a heat-pump hasher then!

[MaximousDarwin]

Success always comes from the craziest ideas!

[EuroTrash]

E.g. say that, in total, I spend 1.5 hours time to take a decent picture of an item, write down a description, set up an auction, follow up on it, prepare the package and send it to the auction winner.
Those 1.5 hours I rate against the hourly net income I have in my current full time job. If the resulting amount is higher/close to the price of the item I'm selling, in my view by selling the item on eBay I'm actually wasting time.

I understand this concept well, but do you really have a job that will let you clock 1.5 extra hours and get paid for them? If not this calculation is flawed. For people on a salary without easy opportunity to add additional dollars, any money gained over their salary has a higher utility value than the average dollar in that salary. That's because a large portion of their salary goes to fixed expenses.

That's a well valid point. Or I can also see it in a different way.
I value my free time, as with my current lifestyle it's a rare commodity to me.
And I can spend it in a million better ways (to me) than dealing with eBay auctions.
I think that's why I have so much stuff in my storage room 

If I see it that way, my free time is even more expensive than my work time.
But then, by following such line of reasoning, I should stop working at all, which I surely can't afford doing.

So maybe to be correct, my fictitious eBay hourly rate is somehow a function of:
* how much I value getting extra money on top of my current salary (which in turn depends on how much money I am already making)
* how much I like/hate spending time doing eBay auctions.

[philips]

Why not just move the server?  Either place it by the air intake for your house or use some cheap ducting to send the hot air where you want it....

Thanks, hadn't thought about that. In theory, I like it - some ducting along one air intake and some more for sending the hot air to the living room.
Although... visible ducting along the house gives it a bit of a bunker feeling, which tends to repel those creatures who are sensible to beauty.

 

And what creatures those might be?

[corvaxmuzzy]

Why not just move the server?  Either place it by the air intake for your house or use some cheap ducting to send the hot air where you want it....

Thanks, hadn't thought about that. In theory, I like it - some ducting along one air intake and some more for sending the hot air to the living room.
Although... visible ducting along the house gives it a bit of a bunker feeling, which tends to repel those creatures who are sensible to beauty.

 

And what creatures those might be?

Birds.