The block was still hot - too hot to carry inside with bare hands. I'm hoping it will warm up the living room just a wee bit and am now pondering more, and better, ways to harness this solar heating potential.Smaller bricks would fit in both solar ovens more easily. They are smoother than cement blocks, too, so they would not scratch up the oven insides so much nor damage carpeting. They could easily be spray-painted black for better thermal gain. Hot bricks could be arranged appropriately by reading chairs in the evening for a nice warm foot rest.
What I'd really like, though, is a practical way to warm up the bed. Bricks would be a bit too heavy and sharp-edged for the air mattress. Any suggestions for ways to create a bed warmer that can be solar-heated and will hold the heat for hours (under covers)? The only thing I can think of is making flat pillows filled with buckwheat or rice. (No cherry pits in quantity here, unfortunately.) I'd love some other ideas for how to bring the sun's warmth into my bed!
10 comments:
Brilliant! You know one side benefit of putting Recycled Rubber Tire Mulch for the floor in the greenhouse is similar to this idea- The rubber holds and retains heat for a while. Good choice for a green house!
You could buy simple hot water bottles at the drugstore (or find them at a flea market) and simply heat water in your solar oven, then transfer your hot water to the water bottle, and have that between the covers with you!
let polie and angel lie in the bed for an hour or so before you go to bed. I am a big propronant of the "3 dog night" recipe of bed warming
When I was little and lived near the Canadian border, we used to heat bricks in the stove and wrap them in towels to carry to bed with us.
First, they were moved back and forth over where we would like down and then the whole thing was placed at the foot of the bed for our toes. It's amazing how warm you can be when your toes are warm! Good luck!
In Germany, we used to run across these antique bed warmers. http://www.tias.com/516/PictPage/3923208039.html If painted black and filled with water, they would be easy to heat in a solar oven. Wonder if anyone is making these nowadays.
I was going to suggest hot water bottles, too.
Another option is to find some small, smooth rocks, like river rocks, and heat those in the solar oven and then fill a sock or something like that with them. They'd stay warmer longer than a rice pack and wouldn't have the sharp edges of a brick (safer for the air mattress ;).
But we use Rob's method, too, and let the beagle do most of the work of warming the cold bed ;).
I wouldn't use water bottles in bed. The rubber gets old and breaks.
I've made wheat pillows. Easy to make, recycled fabric is fine. Once they get too old compost the wheat, sew a new one.
I heat mine in wood stove oven.
This probably won't help much but I've been dreaming lately about those old-fashioned bed-warmers that people put coals in lately. If you could rig one of those up to be heated by the sun - and stay heated until you go to bed - then use it to warm up between the sheets before you crawl in... mmm.
Chilly indoors at 70s! And I'm starting to think 33F is spring weather. I keep wondering if I'll melt at 70F.
what about a flat square cast iron pan. pancakes cooking kind. You could heat it up, wrap with a towel for a bed warming prep. Not sure about sleeping on it...too hard but it would get the bed toasty for sure.
No thoughts currently about trying to keep the toes warm - it's over 100 degrees outside! Come winter though, I'll be trying out lots of idea to stay warm. Thanks, all!
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