Miner for heating water

[domob]

I'm toying with the idea of using a Bitcoin miner to heat water (for domestic use) with excess electricity from a PV installation.  The goal is definitely to just use it when heat is needed and spare electricity is available, and not to run it always.  I'm not trying to maximise mining profit, but just do a fun project that has some useful purpose, too, but obviously I don't want to just burn a lot of money.

I can take care of all the control aspects easily, but I'm trying to determine whether or not there is suitable mining hardware available at all.  Basically I would need a miner with these properties:
- low power, 500-1000W intake
- can be watercooled easily (I'm not too much of a hardware tinkerer, so fitting some pre-made watercooler onto the board is the most I can do)
- cost in the $500-$2000 max range
- does not need to be the most efficient available, but obviously if it only makes $10 a year, there's no point

Does anything like this exist?  I've seen that there are watercooling solutions for S19's, but they draw a bit more power than I want to give it based on my estimates.

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[SirJohnVonSlotty]

I wanted to do a YouTube series about miners that also act as heaters and I found very, very little info around it. A few startups, kickstarters and AliBaba solutions, but in general nothing too serious.

The only way to do this would be to go custom, and if you have DIY skills and spare money, it should work.

[mikeywith]

I'm toying with the idea of using a Bitcoin miner to heat water (for domestic use) with excess electricity from a PV installation.  The goal is definitely to just use it when heat is needed and spare electricity is available, and not to run it always.  I'm not trying to maximise mining profit, but just do a fun project that has some useful purpose, too, but obviously I don't want to just burn a lot of money.

I can take care of all the control aspects easily, but I'm trying to determine whether or not there is suitable mining hardware available at all.  Basically I would need a miner with these properties:
- low power, 500-1000W intake
- can be watercooled easily (I'm not too much of a hardware tinkerer, so fitting some pre-made watercooler onto the board is the most I can do)
- cost in the $500-$2000 max range
- does not need to be the most efficient available, but obviously if it only makes $10 a year, there's no point

Does anything like this exist?  I've seen that there are watercooling solutions for S19's, but they draw a bit more power than I want to give it based on my estimates.

The problem here would be your power range, so you will need to disable 2 boards and keep only one, with those S19s removing two hashboards leave you at slightly below 900w, with whatsminers set on low you can get a single board down to 800w range.

Of course this makes the cost per th a lot higher, and on average you are going to get 30-35th out of those new gen miners, so anywhere between 1.7$ to 2$ a day.

You can check my miners sale topic for price refferences to see if the project is worth it, also water blocks cost between 100-200$ for the new gen miners like M30s and S19s.

The downside of your project is the limit of power, if you could do up to 2000w it would make a lot more sense.

[domob]

I've seen that there are watercooling solutions for S19's, but they draw a bit more power than I want to give it based on my estimates.

The problem here would be your power range, so you will need to disable 2 boards and keep only one, with those S19s removing two hashboards leave you at slightly below 900w, with whatsminers set on low you can get a single board down to 800w range.

Of course this makes the cost per th a lot higher, and on average you are going to get 30-35th out of those new gen miners, so anywhere between 1.7$ to 2$ a day.

You can check my miners sale topic for price refferences to see if the project is worth it, also water blocks cost between 100-200$ for the new gen miners like M30s and S19s.

The downside of your project is the limit of power, if you could do up to 2000w it would make a lot more sense.

Yes, I'm aware of that.  The S19's are just the first "somewhat suitable" devices I found, but as you say, they are above the power range I think would be reasonable.  I can run the numbers again and maybe I could go with 2000W (or disable some boards as you say), but I was wondering if there are perhaps other devices that are lower-powered out of the box.

However, as stated in the OP, the first priority is using available electricity to produce heat (not the mining itself), so in any case, I would only run the miners intermittently.  And if I run them with 2000W, it means that the water I need heated is done sooner, so it would run for shorter periods of time.  The total energy usage and thus the total hash produced over some time frame would be fixed anyway; so it might not be worth it anyway.

I will need to look closely at the costs of course.  But disabling some of the boards sounds like at least one first potential option to consider, thanks!

[domob]

I wanted to do a YouTube series about miners that also act as heaters and I found very, very little info around it. A few startups, kickstarters and AliBaba solutions, but in general nothing too serious.

The only way to do this would be to go custom, and if you have DIY skills and spare money, it should work.

Yes definitely.  It is a cool idea (that has been floating around since the first ASICs were created), but it never really went anywhere for some reason.  Maybe it is not practical on a larger scale and without DIY aspects (as every requirement is different).

In my case, I'm fine doing a bit of DIY, such as building the control parts with a Pi or other small computer and modbus to the various other components (power meter, temperature sensors and so on), getting the watercooler to exchange heat with my boiler and stuff like that, but I'm not an expert at all about mining hardware, that's why I created this topic.

[mikeywith]

Yes, I'm aware of that.  The S19's are just the first "somewhat suitable" devices I found, but as you say, they are above the power range I think would be reasonable.  I can run the numbers again and maybe I could go with 2000W (or disable some boards as you say), but I was wondering if there are perhaps other devices that are lower-powered out of the box.

However, as stated in the OP, the first priority is using available electricity to produce heat (not the mining itself), so in any case, I would only run the miners intermittently.  And if I run them with 2000W, it means that the water I need heated is done sooner, so it would run for shorter periods of time.  The total energy usage and thus the total hash produced over some time frame would be fixed anyway; so it might not be worth it anyway.

I will need to look closely at the costs of course.  But disabling some of the boards sounds like at least one first potential option to consider, thanks!

1kw range would be an S9, stock setting will be 1300w and 14th, you can get 10th at 900w with LPM or some custom firmware, but with that hashrate you will be looking at 60 cents a day at todays figures.

The problem would be, not finding a play n plug water blocks, but you could get the S9 hydro it comes with everything you need, you just need more pipes and a pump and some other basic stuff.

[LoyceV]

First: I have no experience mining. But I know a thing or two about energy, and that's where I'd start. Do the math: how often do you have excess electricity available? What do you do with it now: do you get paid to sell it to the grid, or do you have negative prices when that happens? How much water do you want to heat up, starting from which temperature and going how hot? How many hours per day does this happen?

My gut feeling tells me it's not going to be worth it, but it's always fun to see the numbers. The next question would be how hot the water coming out of a miner could be, followed by how much hot water you use in a day.

Some made up numbers to get an idea: if you have 1 kW excess electricity for 8 hours on a day in summer, that's 8 kWh. That produces 28.8 MJ of heat. Let's assume you manage to capture 80% of that heat in your water, that's 23 MJ, enough to increase the temperature of 100 liter water by 55^oC.
Assuming you'll only use this around summer, and can't use it when you're on vacation, you'll be able to use this maybe 110 days of the year. That's 880 hours mining, or 10% of the year. Taking mikeywith's numbers, that's $70 per year in mining revenue. A year later, when the difficulty is much higher, your revenue will be much lower unless you upgrade your miner.

[kano]

Myself and many others have run 100% standard avalon 7 and 8 series miners as very quiet winter room heaters for years.

An A851 does about 9TH for 900W - and the important part there is the '900W'
If you want to heat a room you need enough power.

No doubt for water, you need to work out the heat you need and it wont be small either.

[stompix]

I don't know why we bring up the aspect of money here, we're talking about 1kw at max generation hours so if we go by the most efficient things out there it will be 2$ a day as mikey said, but, that was assuming 24/7, and you're on extra PV, that would be 8 hours a day depending on where you live ? 60 cents? I think what we need to clear up first is how is your electricity system setup-up, do you have batteries or are you grid-tied or other, if you don't have storage capacity for the extra electricity then there is an avalanche of problems including the gear not working at all during one cloudy day because your already strained system can't generate enough extra power.

The other thing as heaters were mentioned, those were heaters that run on the grid, you have here a boiler that runs when you have extra energy, so for the comfort it's a big no. I understand the hobby part but it's going to be a pain in the ass to make it actually usable,  and if at any moment you're bringing the $ in the discussion it's already a futile attempt, with 150-200 you can get a water boiler, it draws around 2-3 kwh a day to keep the water warm if you don't use so you don't need to power up a gear again to reheat it (if you can ) and you don't need to release water if you reach boiling point either.

My gut feeling tells me it's not going to be worth it, but it's always fun to see the numbers.

In $ it will never be worth it, if it's a hobby and he's doing it only for fun, yes it might be!

[LoyceV]

In $ it will never be worth it, if it's a hobby and he's doing it only for fun, yes it might be!

Depending on your electricity prices it may very well be worth using excess solar power, but in that case there's more to win with a heat pump than mining.

[mikeywith]

with 150-200 you can get a water boiler, it draws around 2-3 kwh a day to keep the water warm if you don't use so you don't need to power up a gear again to reheat it (if you can ) and you don't need to release water if you reach boiling point either.

If "heating water" is the only goal, he could just get solar water heater, those are pretty cheap and very efficient and heating water.

But according to him, he mentioned this

I'm not trying to maximise mining profit, but just do a fun project that has some useful purpose, too, but obviously I don't want to just burn a lot of money.

So the main part is fun, however, I still think it makes economic sense to actually deploy such a setup, The miner could be powered up from both the solar system and the grid, and using the right inverter and setup the miner would run for "free" during sun hours, and then run "on-demand" for the rest of the hours, so a thermostat of some type that powers the miner on when needed and shuts down when water temp is hot enough.

The whole setup isn't going to be a straightforward plug-and-play sort of project, but it would be fun and if done right, might actually make economic sense if the right conditions are met.

[philipma1957]

Below is a 2 board s19 pro set to 2475 watts for braiins. it uses 1750 watts and does 62-63th

You could set it higher say 2950 watts and do

2000 watts and maybe 74 th







It is likely the best unit to use.

but you need water blocks to cool it.


I am USA based.

Maybe you buy a s19 pro set it to braiins with zero fans water cool put in only 1 hash board.

add add these on either side of the hashboard.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/374821449402?

maybe 4 of them would work to cool the hashboard off.

four of them is about 60 bucks.

a 2 board s19 pro 110th is not that costly maybe 900

you need a pump and tubes to move the heat from the blocks to the hot water.

It could be a fun project.

braiins allows 2475 to 6500 watt settings for 3 boards.

You could set it to 4000 watts with one board and the extra double sided cooling.

It would do maybe 1500 watts and 40-42th

[domob]

These are very good points of course.  I did my own maths, based on about 500W for 6 hours a day, which is power I should have pretty much "always", even in winter.  That would be enough to heat all the water we need.  But yes, of course, it would mean that the miners do not run all the time, which is of course a thing to factor in.  That's why I was also thinking about running especially cheap, less efficient old miners - because in essence it would still be better and more fun than just burning the electricity anyways to heat water.  Some people (including "experts") I talked to suggested not getting a thermal solar installation anymore, but just PV and simply doing that instead for hot water.

It is also a good point though that of course it won't be worth it if it just generates $10 a year or whatever.  So that is indeed something to consider, especially as difficulty goes up and rewards are halved.  I will have to carefully look at the hardware suggested here (S9 and S19 with some boards disabled) to see what makes sense for me.

The alternatives would probably be getting a heat pump to more efficiently use the electricity (but then, the heat pump itself is a lot more expensive than a S19 with watercooling setup), or just keep using the oven (burning wooden pellets in my case) and selling the electricity back to the grid.

The discussion is quite interesting though, and I think it shows that the individual details matter very much - and that might be why miners for heating have not yet been a thing used more widely.

[mikeywith]

It is also a good point though that of course it won't be worth it if it just generates $10 a year or whatever.  So that is indeed something to consider, especially as difficulty goes up and rewards are halved.  I will have to carefully look at the hardware suggested here (S9 and S19 with some boards disabled) to see what makes sense for me.

It's also worth mentioning that the continuous OFFs and ONs are pretty bad and shorten the miner's lifespan considerably if done too often, miners LOVE to run at a steady state, so it's good if you want to give it a 1-day rest -- it probably won't mind that, but turning it off and on a dozen times a day is bad, to somehow mitigate this issue you would either buy a dirt cheap old gear like S9 or Avalon 7-8 series, so that replacing it won't break the bank, or, you get a very, very efficient gear which you can run on grid for cheap while making good enough income.

Some people (including "experts") I talked to suggested not getting a thermal solar installation anymore, but just PV and simply doing that instead for hot water.

PV is more versatile that's for sure, it's also space efficient, but speaking of efficiency in heating water, thermal solar is at least 50% more efficient, it doesn't require a lot of knowledge to figure out the loss of sun > heat is a lot less than Sun > AC > DC > heat, unless they have a different reason which I am not aware of.

[vapourminer]

The alternatives would probably be getting a heat pump to more efficiently use the electricity (but then, the heat pump itself is a lot more expensive than a S19 with watercooling setup)

in a very round about way i did something like this as a side effect of having a 6 card GPU rig in the basement with an air source heatpump hybrid hot water heater.

GPU rig (~700 watts) -> basement air -> basement air source hybrid hot water heater

bonus is the air source water heaters also cools and dehumidifies my basement, reducing the load on the existing basement dehumidifier. so a a part of the hot water is free as i would have expended some electricity on dehumidifying/cooling anyway. might as well move the heat around to where you want it rather than waste it.

[domob]

It is also a good point though that of course it won't be worth it if it just generates $10 a year or whatever.  So that is indeed something to consider, especially as difficulty goes up and rewards are halved.  I will have to carefully look at the hardware suggested here (S9 and S19 with some boards disabled) to see what makes sense for me.

It's also worth mentioning that the continuous OFFs and ONs are pretty bad and shorten the miner's lifespan considerably if done too often, miners LOVE to run at a steady state, so it's good if you want to give it a 1-day rest -- it probably won't mind that, but turning it off and on a dozen times a day is bad, to somehow mitigate this issue you would either buy a dirt cheap old gear like S9 or Avalon 7-8 series, so that replacing it won't break the bank, or, you get a very, very efficient gear which you can run on grid for cheap while making good enough income.

Yes indeed.  That's why the plan is (if I'm going through with this project) to use low power like 500W, so that I would be able to basically run the miner throughout the day pretty much always, as there will be enough unused power to run it while it is daylight, more or less.  And not to just turn it on for half an hour and then off again while the sun is shining maximally onto the panels.

Some people (including "experts") I talked to suggested not getting a thermal solar installation anymore, but just PV and simply doing that instead for hot water.

PV is more versatile that's for sure, it's also space efficient, but speaking of efficiency in heating water, thermal solar is at least 50% more efficient, it doesn't require a lot of knowledge to figure out the loss of sun > heat is a lot less than Sun > AC > DC > heat, unless they have a different reason which I am not aware of.

Yes definitely.  Although with a heat pump that can apparently around 4x the energy input, the difference might disappear in a sense.  And if I run a miner, it would be extra utility ("free" bitcoins) as well.

[philipma1957]

well if you want 500 to 600 watts the antminer L3+

is a  really good pick.

My house is a bilevel and the first floor is always cold.

In the summer the AC makes it 5 degrees cooler than the second floor.
In the winter the Heat works better on the second floor so it is also cooler on the first floor by 5 degrees.

So I run an antminer L3+ 24/7/365.

I solo mine doge I grabbed 1 block in the last year 10,000 doge for a value of around 650 usd.

The power burned is 650 watts 24/7/365 about 5700 kwatts a year. Around 885 usd in power burned.

So I lost 885-650 = $235 loss.

Vs $885 if I use a space heater.