I’d heard about heating water over top of a candle for a long time, and I’d been casually curious about it, but my recent involvement with our WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER Emergency Prep group seemed like a good time to try it myself.
Not coincidentally, the scenario we were focusing on the second week of January was LOSS OF POWER. As fortune would dictated, it happened to be our coldest week of the years with temperatures dipping to -40 Celcius, and we were feeling it. Church last week even got cancelled to prevent unnecessary exposure, it was a good week to stay home.
And with us trying to keep the house reasonably warm without straining the system with our electrical needs, it seemed like a perfect time. We lit a fire in the woodstove downstairs and enjoyed the coziness of that warmth for several days, burning up quite a lotta wood. And we had a brief concern that our hot water heater might be having issues, but it had a happy ending.
So the claim I saw was exactly this (see below). I recreated it as closely as I could, but think I had more water than the original test cases used. My smallest kitchen pot is 4 cups, so 4 cups of water was my test.
It took a lot longer than I expected, a couple of hours till it reached 197 degrees. But to be fair, 197 degrees is pretty hot, hot enough to heat some soup, and maybe to even cook some eggs. If you aren’t in a hurry that is.
I’ll be using this hack again in the future – even if just to show off to the grandkids. And its nice to know if we ever run out of power, that we can have hot water with little effort.
After I took the above video, I meant to blow the candles out but forgot. When I came back in about half an hour, I was surprised to see that it had reached a slow boil. I guess what they say about a watched pot not boiling is right. They’re so shy.
I think I’ll pick up another pack of tea lights when I see them. A good thing to have sitting in the linen closet for just such a time as this.
Warmly (in a very cold week),
Cindy Suelzle
