I know some peeps build a mini wooden shed for their figs and put a lightbulb in it to keep it warm... I had a followup question. for a 8x8x8shed i have a place to put a lightbulb on the top, and i was thinking why not leave it on during such a cold spell in Philly ...
Im leaving it on overnight past few nights...
I was curious though what type of light gives off the most warmth?
I assume a brighter 100W incandescent light bulb gives off more warmth than a 60W.

I was thinking the new energy efficient light bulbs prob give off less heat... then again i thinking those are probably split into Halogen and LED (i dont know anything about light bulbs haha)... While LED i assume is cold, Halogen lights i thought get hot.
I also saw Brooder lights at Lowes which reminded me of lights i used to use to keep my baby quail warm.
I wasnt sure what is best for a standard lightbulb outlet to maintain some warmth on these cold days. Any thoughts?

-Arian

Get something in a halogen - they generate a lot of heat.

A 1500 watt heater with a fan (about $20 at Home Depot) will be more than enough heat. This is what I use in my 8 x 8 x 8 greenhouse. Thermostat on the heater determines run time. Put it on a timer if you want to run only at night.

Almost all portable heaters are1500 watt, and the expensive ones don't get you anything more than the cheap ones.

Add a fan up high and point it to the floor, to circulate the air, otherwise the heat all stays at the top, and put the heat source at the bottom, as it will rise anyway.

Cool, i already have a Dayton 1500W heater and extra thermostat control i was thinking to use on extreme cold days (if those 10-15F days come along that cold hardy pomegranates can't take). Guess its pretty cold and I can break it out.
Think i was delaying as the figs and pomegranates i have are cold-hardy types and in the shed and wrapped with burlap/carpet... If they can't survive that, I was debating not planting or keeping them, aka Survival of the Fittest [for my area].
I'll look for a Halogen bulb.

All light bulbs convert proportionally more energy to light (depending on conversion efficiency) and some energy wasted as heat. So, if your intention is heat then most of consumption is wasted as light (think of electricity bill if the rates are as high as ours).
If you are going to do it more often for a number of months, better do Google search with " low wattage space heater". You may find some heater with 400 watts max that can be operated at less than 400 watt and ensure situation for very cold nights. I am using 700 watt setting on a 1500 watt space heater and try to keep the temperature around freezing in the garage when it is about -10F outside.

It's all about the watts.  Certainly a 1500Watt space heater will give you the most bang for your buck.  A 400W halogen bulb will provide quite a bit of light, as well as a decent amount of heat. 

Here is some info on light bulbs and conversion efficiency.  All light bulbs currently available on the market are relatively inefficient converting electricity to light.  A typical incandescent bulb converts about 4% of the energy to light, 96% is given off as heat.  They are fairly cheap, but grossly inefficient as light creating devices.  In truth, they are very efficient space heaters with the side benefit of generating a small bit of light.  A typical fluorescent is about 4X as efficient as an incandescent, so it converts about 16% of the energy to light, 84% is wasted as heat.  A cutting edge LED maybe is 2 or 3 times more efficient than a good fluorescent, so maybe it's 50% light, 50% heat (they may feel "cold" to the touch, but they are still generating some heat).  Secondly, even if light is produced, as long as the light is contained in the room, it won't be completely wasted.  Meaning, if you put a lightbulb in a closed wooden shed, any light produced will be absorbed by the walls and converted to heat at that point, so nearly 100% of the electrical charge used will end up going to heat the shed, regardless of the lighbulb efficiency.  On the other hand, if you put a lightbulb in a glass or plastic greenhouse, some of the light will escape and be wasted, but as long as you don't use an LED, I would expect the fraction of energy wasted would be fairly small. 

Since you already have an extra thermostat, you could put whatever you decide to use on the thermostat, so having a little extra wattage won't hurt you.  Just don't point a 1500W space heater directly at a young plant, it might dry it out.

Rob

Thanks Rob. Very good information.

Cool thanks for info. I want to avoid the heater if I can (also don't like idea of running something electric that has risk of fire itself if shed for some reason leaks etc).
I also saw 125W and 250W Brooder heat lights at Lowes today.
The 125W one was for heating up baby chicken enclosures..
The 250W one was a red colored one, that they said is nice for warming up a bathroom when you step out of shower I think.
Wondering if those would be good as well as far as light bulbs or Halogen still best.

I was tempted by the red one as it wouldnt be bright so I could avoid putting a posterboard to cover outdoor shed door's window (so neighbors don't see).

You can also use Christmas lights and wind them among the pots.  They're very cheap right now if you can find any.  The smaller ones are better because the bigger ones can melt pots or burn plants if they come in contact.

Check out this link . I have a similar setup that should be helpful .

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=5040799

John

Cool, thanks guys.
I'll experiment with a couple different types (couple incandescents, a halogen, a brooder light) just to see what emits best heat for shed.
That information was pretty cool about the % of energy 'wasted' as heat Rob.

Nice idea about the Christmas tree lights. I'll bet I can get that one past the wife.

Came across this older thread.  This topic, in the context of the "Winter 2013-2014" seems very relevant and deserving of some revived, notice.  I wish I would have heeded the advice contained within this thread, and followed some of the suggestions for heat sources.   Wish I would have read this thread back in November 2013, and followed some of the suggestions...maybe my trees would still be alive.  Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda.

Some good information posted here, and also within the "Figloo" thread/link.


Frank

Except now, if you have the $$, this is a great item to do exactly what we need.

http://www.amazon.com/DeLonghi-EW7707CM-Safeheat-ComforTemp-Oil-Filled/dp/B000TGDGLU/ref=pd_sim_sbs_misc_6?ie=UTF8&refRID=1P99JV1WQE6BNYZP5RHB

It turns on at about 44 degrees to keep the room from freezing and is very safe.  It was $49 last year.  Lightbulbs are much cheaper, of course  :)

I thought about electric heaters (some of those oil-filled radiator types... they're fairly efficient), but discarded the idea because my figs are in a garage along with gasoline powered antique cars, and I didn't want anything with an on/off switching action in there that might spark.  Instead I replaced each of the two ceiling-mounted incandescent bulbs with 250W "heat bulbs"  (like spot light bulbs, about $7 at Lowes).  (They're similar to what persianninja posted above in post #7 a couple of years ago... one of mine was red and the other was white).  The 500W was enough to keep the temperature considerably warmer than the outside... on average at least 20 degreesF warmer.  This strategy worked out pretty well the past two winters, including this brutally cold one in 2013-14.  I confess that I did calculate how much I was spending on electricity (you don't want to know)... the numbers were round enough (I was burning 12Kwh every 24 hour day if I left them on continuously)... a couple of dollars per day.  Almost forgot to mention:  I put a couple of reflectors over the parts of the cars that were in direct light (those windshield sun reflectors), just to protect the paint.

By the way, those conversion statements up above (about the amount of electricity converted to heat versus light) aren't necessarily true of all incandescent bulbs.  I remember a Physics experiment in school, using a 100W incandescent bulb, where considerably more energy was converted to heat than was converted to light.  (I don't remember the percentages, but I remember being amazed that incandescent bulbs were more efficient as sources of heat than they were as sources of light.  As I recall, the higher the bulb wattage, the more skewed toward heat-efficiency they were).

Mike   central NY state, zone 5a

If you factor in the initial costs of quality, thermostatically-controlled heaters, timers, etc.....and by using some incandescent bulbs can get you to the same results i.e. live, damage-free fig trees at the end of the storage period, each spring,  I guess I would opt for using the bulbs for a heating source.  It's probably cheaper and safer, in the long run.

I need to do something this coming fall/winter, to get some heat in my storage shed.  I think I will try a string of low wattage lights around the containers, and maybe throw a cloth tarp over the trees to trap some mild heat.  I will probably need this supplemental heating only during the coldest months of Jan-Feb. and then, only throughout the coldest days/nights.  It a cheapo way to get some heat into my shed so that the fig trees won't freeze solid and die, like they did over the past winter.  I don't want a repeat of last winter, and more dead trees.

Does this sound like a plan?   I really don't like the idea of using an electric heater in a very crowded storage shed.  It makes me nervous.  What if the heater malfunctions?  Will some 40 watt bulbs around the containers prevent them from freezing solid?  Would the bulbs give off too much heat?  I could also invert a large cardboard box over each container, and stick a low wattage bulb under each box, so that the heat will be trapped and concentrated around each of the individual containers.  By doing this, hopefully I will prevent the root-zone from freezing.  I could do this for each tree that is being stored, and connect the bulbs to a thermo-timer.  Yes, no?  Your thoughts....

HELP!  Advice is needed.  (Storage shed is only 6 ft. X 6 ft.....just a very small area).


Frank

Hey Frank ,

Sorry to hear about your winter losses .
I think that a properly insulated space is the place to start . The Figloo costs me pennies a day to heat because it has 2.5 inch foam insulated panels .
You could insulate your shed , or a portion of your shed , or a small area in your garage with foam board insulation panels which you could temporarily attach together to make a structure , and then heat with light bulbs attached to a t-stat set to 34f  ( thats the temp I use ) . Also the floor in the Figloo is the bare ground , no insulation required and it never freezes . 

John

Newbie here, I stored 17 trees in an 8 x 8 corner of my garage. I hung two moving blankets to close off the corner and a tarp over the open rafters. I picked up an electrical 3-way plug-in at Home Depot that switches on at 32 and off at 45 and plugged two 500 watt halogen work lights into it. I pointed the lights at each corner which are cinder block walls. I figured the walls would hold the heat thereby limiting the amount of time they were on. I only had to check once in a while to make sure a bulb hadn't burned out. A sure sign of that was the other light staying on longer to reach 45. All my trees are leafing out except for a sickly Scott's Black that didn't look too good last year. If you have a concrete floor you could point the lights down. Remember to leave some space in front of lights as they get really hot and definitely do not lay them against wood, plastic or electric cord. We got very cold in North New Jersey this year. Hope this helps!

Frank -- if you're going to put the bulbs close to the fig pots, I think the wattage you describe is more than you'd need.  A string of incandescent "christmas lights" would likely provide enough heat. (Note: incandescent ones, not LED).  I think Bob Cantor uses those.  Of course the thing that John Parav describes might work out to be less expensive in the long run.  But your idea of 40W bulbs close to the pots seems like too much heat.  I don't know if you've read any of the threads from prior winters, but if you get too much heat around the soil, your trees could sprout some new green growth too early (and you definitely don't want that in the Northeast!).  (Have you ever noticed that the more cold hardy varieties also tend to sprout new growth later rather than earlier in the spring, compared with other less cold hardy types?  There's a reason that it works this way... new green growth is particularly vulnerable during that time in early spring when the temps vary up and down a lot... and it saps energy from the tree to lose out on the benefits that it put into the sugar sink of new growth).  Anyway, I think 40W bulbs close to the pots is too much.  

Mike   central NY state, zone 5a

Hi,
Never let a bulb touch a plastic pot, or the pot will melt - and could cause fire .
I used a 40Watts bulb to heat young born chickens, and you would get a wound if you touched the bulb with your hand ... The bulbs even just 40 watts get really hot to the touch.

I would rather use a "space heater with/containing oil".
Heating air directly is very inefficient . So to be more economic, the space heater heats the oil, so its surface gets hot, and then the air gets the heat from there.
I have one with two buttons 1000W/2000W with a balance to select the desired temp .
This avoids temp swings as well, as the "oil space heater" will remain hot for some time even after being switched off .
Of course, insulating the room is the first step to go .

Thank you all for helping me with some answers.  I kind of had a feeling that the 40 watt bulbs might throw too much heat.  Maybe the incandescent Christmas lights, or lower wattage bulbs will be all I need to keep the pots from freezing solid.  I'm gonna look around for some appliance bulbs that might be 15-25 watts....maybe even use low-voltage bulbs used in cars, tail lights etc.  I will find something that will work.  I will only need to keep 4-5 containerized trees from freezing, so low-tech options are the way I'll go.

Thanks for all the help.


Frank

Hey Frank ,

I use 3 sixty watt bulbs in a 7 X 7 by 7.5 foot tall structure  with 2.5 inch insulated walls . If you use a thermostat to control the bulbs it doesn't matter what size they are . I have  used 100 watt bulbs also for a while .
Many of the thermostats out there don't shut off till 45f , i use one thats a bit pricier but it gives me the precise control I want at apx 34f , which keeps the cost of heating down which easily pays for the cost of the stat . You also have a digital display of the temp in the space .

http://www.patriot-supply.com/products/showitem.cfm/JOHNSON_CONTROLS_A419ABG_3

You just plug in your lights ( or whatever heat source you have ) to one end and the other to the power outlet . 

John