Answers
Straight answers about bitcoin heat
Short, sourced answers to the questions people ask most about heating a home, hot water, or a hot tub with a bitcoin miner.
Heating with a miner
- Can a bitcoin miner heat a home?Yes. A bitcoin miner turns essentially all the electricity it uses into heat, the same as an electric resistance heater. A liquid-cooled miner can move that heat into a water heater, radiant floors, a furnace coil, or a hot tub, while it earns bitcoin.
- How does a bitcoin miner compare with a heat pump?In mild weather a heat pump is more efficient, moving about 2.5 to 3 units of heat per unit of electricity. In cold weather that advantage shrinks, and many systems lean on electric backup strips that make heat one-for-one, like a miner. A miner makes heat one-for-one all year and earns bitcoin with the same power.
- How loud is a liquid-cooled bitcoin miner?Quiet. The Aqueon measures 34 dB, quieter than a library, because liquid cooling replaces the miner's fans. A typical air-cooled miner runs at 75 dB or more.
- Can a bitcoin miner heat a hot tub?Yes. The HashTub's sealed, roughly 4 kW miner heats a hot tub through a cupronickel heat exchanger, up to 104°F. It comes built into a Snorkel cedar tub, or as a retrofit kit that replaces the heater in a tub you already own.
- What happens to a bitcoin heater in summer?It keeps heating your hot water, so it keeps mining all year. It runs whenever something calls for heat, not around the clock, and you can schedule it around your power rates. To mine when there's no heat to make, an optional outdoor dry cooler carries the extra heat away.
- What is the HashTub immersion heater?The HashTub is a sealed immersion heating system from Hashrate House with a bitcoin miner already installed. The miner runs submerged in dielectric fluid, and its roughly 4 kW of heat moves through a heat exchanger into a hot tub or a home's heating. It comes built into a Snorkel cedar hot tub, as a retrofit kit for a tub you already own, or set up for home heating.
Install & power
- What electrical circuit does a home bitcoin heater need?A 240V circuit. The Aqueon plugs into a NEMA L6-30 receptacle on a 30A circuit, often the one an electric water heater already uses. HashTub home heating needs a dedicated 30A, 240V hardwired circuit, and a complete Snorkel HashTub uses one 60A GFCI spa circuit.
- Who installs a bitcoin mining water heater?The same licensed pros who install a water heater. For the Aqueon, a plumber connects a hot and a cold line with the included stainless flex connectors, and an electrician wires a standard NEMA L6-30 receptacle. The miner side is set up before it ships.
Bitcoin & the numbers
Comparing options
- How does Hashrate House compare with Heatbit and Braiins?They solve different problems. Heatbit makes plug-in heaters that mine, sized to warm a room, plus a water heater element on preorder. Braiins makes mining software, a mining pool, and a 40 W desktop miner for solo mining that isn't a heater. Hashrate House makes 4 to 5 kW liquid-cooled systems that heat a home's hot water, floors, or a hot tub on a 240V circuit.
- Bitcoin mining hosting vs mining at home: which is better?Hosting puts your miner in someone else's facility: you pay their rate for power, and the heat is thrown away. Mining at home, you pay your own power rate, but a liquid-cooled system puts the heat to work in your hot water or home, which offsets that power. Home mining makes the most sense when you'd be paying to heat anyway.
- What's the best bitcoin miner for home mining?The best home miner is one your home can live with: quiet enough for indoors, on a circuit you have, and putting its heat to use. Most standard ASIC miners are air-cooled, run at 75 dB or more, and need ventilation, so for a home a liquid-cooled system that heats water or a hot tub is usually the better fit.
- Is there a turnkey bitcoin mining system for beginners?Yes. A turnkey system arrives with the miner installed and set up, so you connect power, water, and internet and it runs. The Aqueon is the simplest for a home: it plugs into a 240V outlet and a plumber connects it like a water heater. The HashTub by Snorkel arrives built into a cedar hot tub.