The winter mining setup

[Steamtyme]

Winter is here time to make miners profitable again. Now this only works if you realize 2 things.

1) The heat your miner puts into your home is heat you no longer need to supply.
2) The cost of electricity for your miner, is now neutral (Assuming you use electrical heating) or nearly neutral depending on your utility costs.

This opens up a world of possibilities especially with mining rewards/coin prices being stagnant and on the lower side. Any old piece of gear you have kicking around is now instantly profitable for a few months out of the year, I myself am looking at at least 5 months.

Now there are considerations to make such as noise and dissipating the heat. I'm again lucky in that regard, I'm using 4 Avalon 741's and they are workhorses as far as I'm concerned. They are in my basement which is a fairly open space with a footprint of about 500 sqft with stone foundation walls - Talk about clashing times. The basement isn't used for much more than laundry storage and the utilities. So my main concern was the sound at first, especially when the miners first fired up and ramped the fans to 100%.

My story ended easily, I have the controller set to -2 on the voltage offset. The miner temps are 29/86 and 56% fan speed, so far about 24 hours in. I haven't measured the sound but it's quieter than my dryer or furnace when they are running and is more of a gentle hum. Mind you I have an extremely old home with very poor insulation so I could hear my garage set up more clearly as it vented in the direction of my home windows.

Here are some Photos, the insulation was bought for a similar build I never got around to and suited this set up well. I had this rack sitting around and was able to separate it into 2. The "walls" are 2 fold, I wanted to try and damper some sound turns out that is not necessary, but I have a kitten who I'm positive would do something stupid with the irresistible amount of cables/connectors/lights.

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[Shad0wSmurf]

I normally vent my miners exhaust out my old gas furnace chimney, tonight though I ran the exhaust hose junction to the basement door and taped it down to vent into the house. Electric heat, so it cancels out nicely 😂 glad your set up worked out for you!

[HagssFIN]

I'm currently looking forward to get my hands on Canaan Mining Warmer.
(https://twitter.com/canaanio/status/1053122034278969344)

I'd be great to test it out, give it a thorough review, and I have a good friend who could use the heat it produces during the winter time.

[Steamtyme]

-snip- the exhaust hose junction to the basement door and taped it down to vent into the house. Electric heat, so it cancels out nicely

Good job. Yeah every bit of heat helps through the winter months.

How about a summer setup? -snip- Plus how do you maintain this kind of setups? Would you mind explaining?

I posted this as it's a shift from the norm for people in my situation. Maintaining this one for me is pretty straightforward. The miners put out enough heat to keel the basement in the high 20 degree C range. Which heats my main level floors up a bit, I leave the basement door ajar to help out a little as well.

Biggest concern was my pets hence the insulation and mesh screen on the I take and exhaust.

For the summer set up it's the opposite you I really need to get the best out of the space. Myself my miners exhaust tk withing 6 inches of the window in my garage. I have a thick wire mesh with good spacing for airflow that I use as a lower panel for my main garage door. A couple screws and locks and its secure for the summer.

I'm currently looking forward to get my hands on Canaan Mining Warmer.
and I have a good friend who could use the heat it produces during the winter time.

Those are going to be a neat idea. Ideally they will be quiet so they can be placed directly in living spaces.

I do have a few cold spots in the house still due to poor ducting designs/renovations over the last 100 years, so I have been looking for options.

What can i say though it is nice making unprofitable  (or nearly so) gear useful and profitable again.

[MoparMiningLLC]

nice, it never gets cold here for something like this, i get lucky enough that I can shut off the ac unit that feeds the room my miners are in -lol that saves me some electricity

[Steamtyme]

Must be hard to deal with the sound the miners give off when its placed in your house.

Not at all.

With the miners in the basement the noise is indistinguishable upstairs, when the family is awake and active.

In the evening I can make out that steady hum.

I did download a free app to measure the sound. Right in front of the miners I got 60-65 DB. 15 feet away in another section of the basement with no doors, i get 50-55 DB.

I'm actually looking to maybe move my 841 inside as well. Seeing how well this is working out. It will have to be tuned down though as they don't cope with the heat nearly as well. Basement is a toasty 29 degrees some days.

[Biffa]

Have you ever consider using the excess heat for heating up any other things? like thawing frozen food, drying laundry or keeping something at a constant warm temperature? These are some activities that won't be limited to just winter.

I seem to recall someone using or planning on using it to dry food in the past, not sure whether it was fish or beef jerky.  

There was an old thread about what to do with miners other than mining with them here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=743571.0

Its from 4 years ago.

[Steamtyme]

There was an old thread

That threads a pretty good read... some trolls before they were; and a few decent ideas.

I like the wood drying idea, this would be a nice way to split the mining load for anyone who still has an old wood burning stove or fireplace. Have a few inside and then a couple outside drying the wood in a shed/garage or something.

I have started using a little rack in the room to give the dryer a break for towels and what not, just gotta catch them before they're like sandpaper and bone dry.

[ricecooker]

I've been mining for over a year now and also enjoy the heat output in winter. But I have recently stopped because, call me paranoid but I feel like the air these machine puts out is affecting my health. And it might not be that far fetched considering how hot they get inside the boards and chips working 100% at all times.

[Steamtyme]

It's not really something I'm concerned with. The operating temperatures are well within the norms for the materials they build with.

If not my miners it would be an electric heating element that is a piece of metal, with poor conducting abilities, but has a high melt point. So either way I'm heating metal and using the air to cool it .

My only concern off anything harmful emitting from the miners would be in case if a fire. That goes for anything and everything in my house though.

[qctechno_isback]

I've been mining for over a year now and also enjoy the heat output in winter. But I have recently stopped because, call me paranoid but I feel like the air these machine puts out is affecting my health. And it might not be that far fetched considering how hot they get inside the boards and chips working 100% at all times.

Main effect mining in-house during winter is air get super dry.
I had reading of 30% moisture, Arizona desert style.
I dry my clothes around the house to help moisture the place.

If you have moisture issues in your basement, mining help a lot  

[Steamtyme]

Well I've managed to get the house up to ~90TH/S
2 x M10 units - I jumped on these a few weeks ago, for the purpose of trying to ROI the equipment faster by offsetting the operating cost in my cold season.
4 741's already in place - These are now at controller setting -1

For this I had to add another 30 amp circuit for the additional miners.

This also required modifying my furnace ducting and switching the fan to continuous. The duct-work was really just opening up the return air on the south side of the run, and opening up the north side of the run near the miner exhaust discharge. This was easy as they were just using tin and the joists as for the run - Which I will be replacing in it's entirety. Upon opening this I found a disgusting crusty mixture of whatever has leaked through the floor boards in the last 20 years.

The M10's in normal mode, have made me consider additional sound proofing. Nothing major probably just play around with the rack I'm using a little more. The hum is noticeable upstairs when the house is quiet, but only I notice when say the TV is on - as I'm always listening for it.

I'll update with pictures soon - So far the wife is happyenoughish with the setup.  

[Steamtyme]

I think you missed the premise of the thread.

I am using my mining to supplement my winter heating requirements. So it is definitely profitable for me to run any equipment that provides a coin of value.

And to the point of mining in general, with low enough electricity costs people are still profitable with some equipment.

[Steamtyme]

I would hope that if they are building them with people residing there that they used sound dampening materials and ducting. Otherwise I'm not sure it would be worth it, especially if the entire home is heated by miners.

I'm purely guessing, but I would have to assume that my rigs are cutting the load from my heating elements by around 25%, the offset is my furnace fan is on all the time to even things out.

Now if you do not mind editing your post to match this:

I heard that in Russia there's a company that produces houses built into shipping containers that are heated by mining rigs. Probably not the quietest place to live but I assume that's a small sacrifice to pay for surviving in cold Russia while also getting paid to heat your home. But for people living in warmer climates, running a room full of miners might not be so great tho. That's one reason why I haven't done much mining myself.

Everything I removed was off-topic for this board and thread. IF you don't remove it your post will be deleted by MODS, as it appears you may be shilling this fantastical mining APP.

[philipma1957]

Well I've managed to get the house up to ~90TH/S
2 x M10 units - I jumped on these a few weeks ago, for the purpose of trying to ROI the equipment faster by offsetting the operating cost in my cold season.
4 741's already in place - These are now at controller setting -1

For this I had to add another 30 amp circuit for the additional miners.

This also required modifying my furnace ducting and switching the fan to continuous. The duct-work was really just opening up the return air on the south side of the run, and opening up the north side of the run near the miner exhaust discharge. This was easy as they were just using tin and the joists as for the run - Which I will be replacing in it's entirety. Upon opening this I found a disgusting crusty mixture of whatever has leaked through the floor boards in the last 20 years.

The M10's in normal mode, have made me consider additional sound proofing. Nothing major probably just play around with the rack I'm using a little more. The hum is noticeable upstairs when the house is quiet, but only I notice when say the TV is on - as I'm always listening for it.

I'll update with pictures soon - So far the wife is happyenoughish with the setup.  

pictures?

please

[Steamtyme]

Sorry slipped my mind ill get a few up tonight, thanks for the reminder Phil.

So below you can see how the beginning of the migration into the home for he M10's on the left. The right is the temporary permanent setup that has appeased the wife so far.



In the current setup I found that having the overhang of in this case the 1/2 inch rigid, definitely helped with the noise above. It just forced the sound to bounce down a bit more before being unleashed on the floorboards above. i'm currently playing with some designs for a build that I can use for years to come. It's just down to the dimensions at this point.

You can see I played with some of my left over 6" mineral wool insulation from my home renos. The difference in sound directly above was amazing so I got to thinking of a build using this as my main sound barrier for everything past the miner exhaust. On the intake side it will be the same, but lined with either with white fire blanket or a lightweight thermal roll cut and stapled. It's really only three to prevent the mineral wool fibres from entering the miner.Now for the unveiling of what I try to forget I've been breathing for 2 winters. Still shaking my head at the thought of it, stupid me thinking they would have lined the joists/floorboards with tin as well.

The top image was in the main air return to the furnace, now acting as the main air return to the basement. This has since been isolated to the right, to prevent air flowing through the ramainder of that patch until I clear the family out to yank it all down. The left is the air return at the base of my main level stairs and front door. the bottom 2 are where I opened up to create return lines to the furnace, these are in the same area as the miners, on the side they exhaust towards.



So far I'm pleased with how this year has gone, but to extend this as long as possible I need to make a few adjustments. I've noticed on our few days of -12C that the basement gets warm. Nothing severe but the fans definitely work harder and I notice them more through the day, over the family noises. It's mostly because I'm listening for it, but best to get ahead of these things.

[RivAngE]

I don't know in which country you reside, but here in Greece it starts to get summer-ish!
Even if Bitcoin doesn't crash any lower, I believe your miner will become unprofitable soon, any plans to counter that?
Maybe use water cooling and create a sauna? Then if Bitcoin crashes even lower you can start renting your sauna for money!

The life of cryptowarriors has become harsh, huh?

[Steamtyme]

Way to rub it in.

I don't know in which country you reside, but here in Greece it starts to get summer-ish!

I legitimately can run all my miners in the house until the end of April especially if I go low power on the m10's. Now into May I will move the m10's to their summer home in the garage. Come the end of May my 741's will be tucked into their dark boxes where it all began. That's just until next winter maybe.

I have been counteracting the profitability issue by upgrading to the M10's; especially with the same free electricity offset of the basement set up. I will probably grab 2 or 3 more to run through the summer bringing me up to 4 or 5.  This will decide whether or not my 741's see the light of day in my home again. This will be a repeat going forward as long as I can make it happen.

[Ritocoin]

For the noise issue plunge miner in dielectric fluid but for the next part I wonder how to make an air exchange to get hot air, at least enough hot air to warm a room.

You need to have an update firmware to handle the fan issue.

This Canaan Mining Warmer  is great idea, I wonder how it works, do you have more inputs HagssFIN  ?

Anyway Steamtyme this is a good idea, well done.

[HagssFIN]

I tried to get one for a review, but they say that it is a mainland China-only product at the moment. I think that the regulations and approvals may be the issue with the international sales.

Cool setup ST.

[Steamtyme]

Thanks Haggs.

The heater was the last thing I spoke to Canaan about and  Steven did say it has no certifications for international sales. I don't think it will ever be sold outside China as they don't have faith in it having enough demand for adoption outside of China.

For the noise issue plunge miner in dielectric fluid but for the next part I wonder how to make an air exchange to get hot air, at least enough hot air to warm a room.

I personally wouldn't set up with liquid cooled. Its a neat idea but not ideal for me for a few reasons.

Added cost and care requirements
I can build a suitable soundproofing alternative

I did however discuss with a guy one time something similar. He wanted to use his miners to heat his water. My suggestion was to use an old radiator (he had multiple from old homes and cars). Same concept to remove heat.

[Steamtyme]

Cool setup, but did you actually see any change in the internal temperature of the house from the miners ?

Tons actually. I have been essentially pumping ~8 kw of heat into my basement directly in the path of air recirculation. It's funny you asked this today as I had planned a little update. We've rolled into some very warm early March temps of about -2C highs in the day. Without the furnace kicking on my house was pushing 23C, that's with the furnace S/P at around 18C.

Needless to say I had to back off the M10's a little, I started with low power mode on both units but was able to put the underperformer back up to normal power mode.

I am hoping it cools off a little though, but it is nice to know that so early into the spring season I am already taking my furnace right out of the equation, and still getting ~80TH from what's in the house.

[Steamtyme]

Well I guess the first day of spring is as good as any to call my Winter mining Dead for the season. Well at least on life support. Currently I am running the 2 M10's in the basement with the 741's offline. Our temperatures just haven't dropped off enough.

In the evening I have played with cycling 2 741's on for a couple hours to help with the evening cool off, but haven't in a couple days. Now the reason I am running such a silly way and not just my 741's and the M10's in the garage is that in short I can't lift 1 arm enough to set up my garage for the spring-fall season.    
I am slowly gaining my mobility back so hopefully tomorrow or the next day I'll get things moved around and can get back to free hash inside for another couple weeks. I figure I'll be between 1 and 3 741's for a few weeks while we hover between -5 and 7 Celsius.

I will definitely update next year when the M10's move back in the house with ideally with a nicely insulated box to cut some of that noise down. Worst case they can run low power mode.

Edit: July 10

I am locking this thread until the fall when I move some miners inside. Maybe even a few other cool locations who knows. For more see what I'm up to this summer. Summer Mining

[Steamtyme]

*blowing sound* Time to dust off the old basement and offset those damn winter utility bills again. I've taken some of the lessons from last season, and applied my sound dampening from the summer mining setup.

I present my test of 3 m10's in my new and improved Winter set up for the basement. Mineral wool insulation both intake and exhaust side. Intake has screen mesh wrapped around it to prevent any insulation being sucked into the fans should it degrade or flake off. Right now 2 30 amp circuits feeding the 3 m10's, and going to let it run another day or so to see how it fares. 2 shelving units sans shelves laying flat for the tunnels, and 1 upright with a shelf to create the seal and balance routers and PDU's as necessary. Animals strictly forbidden from entering the space, gave them a firm talking to.

So far the sound dampening is amazing compared to last year. I couldn't hear any of the fans upstairs over my general background furnace fan noise, so that's huge. This gives me hope that I will be able to put the M20s in there. plenty of space left, and this way I can downclock my 741's super low and place them just on the concrete slab near the furnace to do their part. That or drop them off at my buddies winter shack, but unless I'm going there anyways the gas isn't worth it. I'll get some sound meter readings at some point but this was the end of 3 late evenings of planning, placing, re-planning then just going for it. Oh yeah big difference is that I am exhausting towards the stone wall, atm I just have a larger baton of mineral wool placed against it to prevent degrading the mortar, but will place more. This has redirected a lot of sound and heat from where I have my PC set up downstairs. Here's some photos enjoy.One thing I did forget that I believe will help as well is placing a fitted piece of 1/2" rigid insulation under the miners themselves. It will raise them up a bit and reduce some of the sound I hear downstairs by taking them off the metal rack.

[PopoJeff]

I have 3 miners running in the garage.  They are ducted from the exhaust and dump directly outside.   
Now that outdoor temps are 50-60 during the day, 30-40F overnight, i unhooked the exhaust duct off one unit and turned it facing into the garage. Garage is now holding a steady 72°.

The garage footprint is about half the house, with all 4 bedrooms above the garage area. Unfortunately, I don't have forced air HVAC, so I can't really spread the heat throughout the house.  But hoping the warmer garage will help overall house heating. With a "bleed-out" effect. 

The garage is not temp controlled like the rest of the house (split level) and in the deep winter can get down to another 45-50°. 

I currently have a houseguest living temporarily in the other half of the basement.  If/when she moves out, I can open the interior garage door and basement door, and simply run a box fan to move the heat upstairs. 

Another month or so, and temps may allow un-ducting of a second miner.

[Steamtyme]

Nice. Unless your garage roof is sealed and insulated then you will definitely benefit from the warmer garage. If it is sealed and insulated then it will just heat the garage for the most part. I had to do something similar with 1 of my M10's before I moved them in the house as my garage temps were dropping to low to keep the machines running stable. So it was exhausting to the other 3 miners, and was removed back from the outside air intake.

I'm a couple days away from having my M20S in the house now. So far noise is a complete non-issue, but there may be to much heat. The basement is warm, probably near 25C. while the rest of the house is closer to 19C. I have a few older doors, that I think I will modify to be partially screened and replace the door at the top of my basement stairs. I can close the 2 vents near there and force more airflow to the second floor. I know I could run 1 or 2 M10's in LPM, but I just don't want to after the success in noise reduction.

[PopoJeff]

My garage is partially insulated and partially sealed.  In that, the ceiling has older insulation, but heat/cold still move thru it, but at a rate greater than newer homes.  There is no wall insulation between the garage and the other part of the downstairs.
   As far as sealed, the two garage doors are insulated, but don't seal up tight. The exterior man door is poorly weatherstripped, and the door to the interior is just a basic hollow core door.  It's actually just about the perfect amount of "not fully sealed and insulated." 
    Running three miners ducted outside does not draw negative pressure in the garage like a properly sealed room would.

It's just gonna be a balancing act to warm up the garage and let it bleed thru to the rest of the house, vs making too much heat in the garage where the miners draw their intake air.

In a perfect world, I'd spend a few hundred more bucks and run the exhaust ducts into one collection box. Then duct that another 30' outside along the back of the house to the finished enclosed patio area, with a high cfm inline fan.   The enclosed patio is not tied into the house radiator system and uses elec baseboard heat/window ac

[Steamtyme]

Yeah that's a tough call on what would be best. I hate the idea of "wasting" any of the heat I produce in winter, because I have to pay for it anyways. I'm all for temp modifications/demolitions to make it happen. Within reason of course as I'm not looking to add to my costs. In your case how is the ceiling insulation secured in the garage? Most attached garages are sealed against CO, but if it isn't and you don't run a car in there, you could always pull down the insulation for the winter while you ran the miners in there. It would help warm the floor and transfer some heat. If you are handy with carpentry I've seen a couple of boxes built, for noise reduction you could extend one of the circuits out to your patio area and run a single miner in a box venting to the space for heat. It does make sense to keep the garage heated though, as you said it shares a non insulated wall with the house.

When I first got into BTC I was talking with a guy who I never did meet but was only supposed to be a few hours away. He was working on using a rad system to heat his shop space. I wonder if he ever got that off the ground. He was going to run the infloor heating through an old radiator he had sitting around, then point a couple of S9's at it.

[PopoJeff]

Ceiling insulation there is paper backed fiberglass roll. It's stapled along the sides. Two car garage that's about 6' wider and 8' deeper than typical two car garages. So it would be a task to remove/replace insulation.  Because I would want it back in place for the summer months. 
   Putting a miner in the back patio wouldn't be a feasible plan for me. I'd need it completely silent, as that space has become the primary activity area 24/7.  That's were my 65" and Xbox are. And my chair. You know us old guys have our chair. 
   The miners in the garage is the perfect spot for their noise. Can barely hear them in the room above, right next to elec service panel, and the garage is rarely used other than the wife parking her Benz in there. And the easiest place to duct exhaust heat out. 
   Slight slope to the property, so garage entrance is street level, back wall of garage ends up about 6-7' below grade. But the second story, at grade in the rear of the property, cantilevers out past the first floor/basement foundation wall about 2'. On the left back corner of the garage, that cantilever soffit sits about 12" above grade. So, with the miners on a shelf at the back left corner of the garage at the back wall, ducts only have to run about 2' to go over the top of the block foundation wall, and dump outside thru that soffit

[philipma1957]

The s17pro set to low speed is okay.

Or a modded s9 see my s9 mod thread.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5160194.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzkub23R8QU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztc7XIX_Jtg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvHlfQpNH38&t=338s

also look at my youtube videos on a sound tunnel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DySrCBras3w&t=15s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbH79FdVxpE&t=3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-9sGDZAWEM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mqxy28jPvw&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlB5LikKeiw&t=4s

[NotFuzzyWarm]

I prefer using Canaan's Avalon 841 for quiet heaters. I have a few spread around our facility and a couple at home.
In low-power mode and fans set 30% max can be used in TV room and even bedroom if ya don't mind a little white noise from whatever PSU you use. Will run at 8.5 THs or better.

[Steamtyme]

If I remember right Kano had a sweetspot setting for running a 741 in their living room. A lot of the older gear was easy to tweak to get it right to where you wanted it. Most people though only wanted the max hash. Now that they are either unprofitable or close to it, they make great little heaters if they were sitting around. I would love to run some of this gear in certain spots around the house, but it's not practical for me to do anything other than turn my basement into my furnace air exchange.

On that note, today we had a random power outage. I don't know the specifics of Transformers on a pole but what I could tell was a switch up there was open. We have new neighbors and are the end of the line so I'll blame them. It was nice having that extra heat in the basement as I just opened the door to let it flow up naturally and keep the kiddos warm while they played DS. Only took the utility company a few hours to pop out and repair, but in an old drafty house with one room gutted waiting for insulation I was glad to have an unseasonably warm day. Super happy I didn't have any hardware issues firing back up either.

[philipma1957]

I prefer using Canaan's Avalon 841 for quiet heaters. I have a few spread around our facility and a couple at home.
In low-power mode and fans set 30% max can be used in TV room and even bedroom if ya don't mind a little white noise from whatever PSU you use. Will run at 8.5 THs or better.

yeah the a841 was really good to use for a heater.

in many ways my favorite miner from avalon.

we are getting a pair of  a1066 units soon. i will see if i like them.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

With the latest SW/FW from Canaan they made the A841 easy-peasy to turn into a heater. As I said before, just use the Low Power mode and in the additional commands use:
  --Avalon8-fan 10-30

You now have an instant quiet heater pulling around 750W and giving around 8.5THs. When it 1st starts up for the next 3 minutes the fans run at 100% while the miner does some tests. After the 3 minutes have elapsed -- near silence In a room around 72F and lower the fan coasts along at only 15-20% speed and is extremely quiet, in a room 75F and higher it will run up to 30% fan speed and yet still be very quiet. At 30%miner fan speed the fan in the APW3++ PSU I use is louder.

The only drawback to them is the need to use a RasPi controller in each location you have them though of course you can run multiple miners in each location off the 1 controller.

[Steamtyme]

Well winter has finally hit so I can think about moving more hashrate into the house. I was provided a LP firmware, but am waiting on Yang to send me a file of what I currently have loaded - Not sure I can just pull it from the miner at least nothing I've seen shows me how or where to find it.
The numbers that where mentioned to me should drop me off about 16TH at normal level but that should drop it quiet enough to move in next to the M10's. More than a good trade off as I won't be paying to heat the garage anymore. We'll see how it goes I may still fire up the 741's that are just waiting collecting dust at the moment.
I was hoping to get one of the hotmine space heater miners but they haven't responded after sending me shipping costs through Christmas which I was good with. I might try them again, but I hate chasing people to give them money.

Been a weird few months for me so I've been slow and less enthusiastic about doing things. Pretty much through and past that so there will be updates on this regardless in a few days... I may even just upgrade the firmware and move it then I can wait on the other version from support. I'll update my M20S thread with power draw readings and numbers once done.

[Ameador1]

I have 12 miners running on my bottom floor - almost a basement - but not. It is still in renovation stage. So, I have a place where two large windows are going to eventually go. I have 2 gable fans mounted on the wall where the windows will go to blow air outside with automatic gable shutters over them. In front of this, I built a cabinet with a division wall between the front of the miners and the exhaust side. The exhaust side encloses the 2 gable fans that blow outside. The front side is enclosed using 4 1"x16"x20" MERV3 air conditioning filters to filter the incoming air from the room. Then on the top of the enclosure - also pulling air out of the exhaust side I put 2 more gable fans that blow the air up. I then built a duct over top of these two fans that bring the air through a 2'x2' hole in the floor going into the main floor of the house (second floor). Next to this 2'x2' hole is another 2'x2' hole - all with side walls and chicken wire put over them so stuff cannot fall into them - including pets. This second 2'x2' area allows air from the main floor to flow into the bottom floor - creating a way for air cycling without having to use the HVAC system fans to try to move the air around. Besides that - the HVAC cannot match the air flow capacity of the gable fans. I have all 4 gable fans on smart outlets. I use an Ecobee 3 thermostat in the house. It can be used with IFTTT to turn on/off the two pairs of fans based on the house internal temp. However, I ran into issues where IFTTT alone was not switching all 4 fans at the same time - sometimes with a few minutes delay - not cool. So, I found the servie APILIO.com that allows deeper logic programming integration with IFTTT. So now, when the temp in the house goes below 69F in the house - IFTTT sets a boolean variable on APILIO to true. This triggers APILIO to turn off the 2 outside fans and turns on the 2 inside fans - this happens practically simultaneously - MUCH better then IFTTT doing it. And equally, if the inside temp goes above 69F, then the APILIO variable of set to false and then APILIO then turn off the 2 fans blowing inside and turns on the fans blowing outside.

With my 8 - S9's and 4 -L3+/++ units - in central - higher elevation WV (USA) I can heat our 1800sqft house down to about 12F outside temps. The 3000+cuft per minute of air flow from 2 gable fans cycles the air fast enough that it heats the house faster than out central HVAC system does. With the cabinet built as is and the ducting (about 8') horizontally away from being directly over the miners - the miner sound is really very mild.

I keep the Ecobee set to heat the house if the inside temp goes below 68 and to cool it to 70. So the house usually sits very nicely at 69 without the HVAC system comming on at all in winter and only to cool in warmer weather. As the miners are blowing outside in that case it works very well. The bottom floor usually stays in the 60's on its own - which actually help to cool the miners in summer. I allow outside air to come into the bottom floor as well so that it doesn't pull cooled air from the house when the HVAC is trying to cool.

The biggest issue I have had so far is Ecobee has been having problems for a while now where they are not pushing the house temp changes to IFTTT consistently - so, on occasion the house ends up at 75+ degrees with the HVAC trying to cool it back to 70 or the heat kick on on the HVAC because the miners are still having their warm air blown outside. I use Amazon Alexa and have setup routines there so that I can tell Alexa to send the miner heat inside or outside - but I cannot do it based on thermostat readings from there - at least that I have figured out yet. But still it is working much more than not - it has it's phases. Sometime this is working very well, other times there are days in a row where it is constantly messing up and has to be manually dealt with. Again - I currently believe Ecobee is 99.9% of the problem.

I am 95% done with a custom circuit design to take this logic over completely - including all temp sensors, fan relays, etc. All designed and coded - but need to get the PCBs made and then I can build it. Then the Ecobee problem goes away.

The 2'x2' holes in the floor are also temporary as this is in the location where a set of stairs will be built from the main floor to the bottom floor - probably this summer.

This has almost completely heated our home for last winter and this. Only a few times - while it is working properly - has the HVAC needed to kick in for lower temps that the miners could not handle on their own. We filled our propane tank before last winter and the gauge has barley moved since. We have a heat pump on the HVAC - but the miners have rendered it useless for heating as the heat well below its cutover point from heat pump to switching over to the propane aux heat. It does still handle the cooling though.

Once the reno is done - I will still blow the fans out of the installed windows and will be adding a duct from outside that can be blended with inside air so that when the weather get too cold for the miners to run - the air can be blended on the intake to warm it a bit. They don't like running near the freezing point. In my top duct into the main floor - I have a small opening there that allows some of the heat to go down there to help heat the bottom floor a bit. As it is still open to outside air - in the low 20's the air in the bottom floor will approach freezing - with this little opening - it keeps it in the low to mid 40's.

I'm really overall pretty happy with it - and will love it when my circuit is in my hands



These images are before I added in the top fans and duct to upstairs.

[Steamtyme]

That is an awesome setup. Way to take advantage of the renovation period to find a very efficient way to heat the home. It's  a weird problem running into the HVAC and the miners fighting each other for a stable temperature. I've never delved to deeply into the automation side or smart home systems. I would think though that you should be able to remove the home thermostat entirely from the equation for fan control. Have one upstairs that sends the heating/cooling demand to the fan circuits, and the main one is there to handle the house HVAC only. Maybe a different brand as you mention you think Ecobee is the issue there.

[philipma1957]

a suggestion is get washable air filters.  other then that i truly like your setup.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013QYB3W

you can find them for less then the one above.

we have about 12 for our setup.

[Ameador1]

That is an awesome setup. Way to take advantage of the renovation period to find a very efficient way to heat the home. It's  a weird problem running into the HVAC and the miners fighting each other for a stable temperature. I've never delved to deeply into the automation side or smart home systems. I would think though that you should be able to remove the home thermostat entirely from the equation for fan control. Have one upstairs that sends the heating/cooling demand to the fan circuits, and the main one is there to handle the house HVAC only. Maybe a different brand as you mention you think Ecobee is the issue there.

Thanks! My circuit will effectively be like what you mentioned - but more advanced. I will monitor the exterior temperature, the miner intake temperature, the temperature of the interior space being heated, and the temperature of the room the miner cabinet is located in - or the exhaust heat (toggle-able) if the room temp isn't an issue. This will allow for blending air from outside to keep the intake at proper temps if too cold - and with code changes and available relays also looping in cooling sources in warm weather. It will act as a thermostat for the interior heated space in terms of the miners. Just have to set the HVAC thermostat to heat just below and cool to just above. I will be integrating this with MQTT so as to allow some integration with home automation systems like OpenHAB for remote and dynamic adjustments as well as my only remote management site. The circuit will also have smoke detection built in so intake and exhaust sides of the miner cabinet can be monitored for smoke - allowing the circuit to power down everything. To be able to do that - it will also be able to turn on/off the miners via power relays. With the MQTT integration this would allow for remote shutdown and restart when software control to a miner cannot be gained remotely. Manual overrides on the circuit via push buttons and via the MQTT system to force airflow in whatever direction in preferred - outside or interior - or turning dynamic temperature control off - meaning fans blow outside, or and outright shut down. It's pretty cool! Most of this is already coded. I need to integrate the MQTT aspects and the intake blending - but the rest is done. The circuit is designed and the breadboard prototype is operational. It will have the main PCB and sub-PCBs for the remote temp/humidity sensors that will be connected via standard CAT5/5e/6 network cables with standard network wiring - so no special pin-outs. Sensors should be good out to around 200' if I recall properly (haven't looked for a bit on that spec).

I have more deeper areas to delve into on the home automation side as well - but MQTT helps with that as well.

Anyway - it has been a fun project and I'd say right now - between heat pump power and propane - it has saved us around $2500 dollars so far. I also put in a separate commercial service to the house - it REALLY cut down on the power bills. Home power is like $0.107/KWh and the commercial power feed is running a bit under $0.07/KWh. So right now - my S9's with stock firmware are still profitable even without the power and propane considerations on the home side. I'm still a happy camper at the moment!  

a suggestion is get washable air filters.  other then that i truly like your setup.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013QYB3W

you can find them for less then the one above.

we have about 12 for our setup.

Thanks @philipma1957! I just may get those. I have been buying low priced MERV 3/4 throw aways - at 12 for $36 - so that gets me to about $144 per year - so in a little over 1 year these would pay for themselves and they look like they would be easier to deal with as well. Do you use either of the cleaning/deodorizing sprays they suggest? Considering these do have the air coming into the home air space - what would be your though on these from your experience? That adds another $50 to the cost for these two sprays per what time frame...

[philipma1957]

water from a garden hose and some dawn in a bucket of warm water 💦.

a few rub with an old wet tee shirt of soapy dawn water then rinse with the hose..

I then blow dry with a hair dryer. our miners are in a large ware house with multiple trucks that come into the warehouse seven days a week to pick up and distribute food.

we get a black grime that needs dawn to clean it.

[Steamtyme]

Crunch time and my farm has been down for a bit. The M20S outside is still a brick at the moment. The worst was my M10's went down a few days apart and I didn't have the time until recently to open the enclosure and troubleshoot. Was really missing that heat. Thankfully this was simple enough - all 3 needed a factory reset. I don't know why but they all lost the ability to launch cgminer. Wasn't to bad because up until 3 days ago our temperatures had warmed up significantly, so it worked out that I needed the heat again and finally had the time.
Worst part was my frankenstein chain of routers finally saw it's first failure after nearly 3 years, that made it tricky to figure out the issue originally.