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Peak homelabbing (lemmy.world)
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[-] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 day ago

That free computer is going to cost you a lot on your electric bill.

[-] maxwells_daemon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Not really, electricity is pretty cheap when you live right beside the largest hydro plant in South America.

[-] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 5 points 1 day ago
[-] grue@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Even in winter, it's terrible compared to a heat pump or (probably) directly burning gas or wood.

[-] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 day ago

Not how heat works.

If you're trying to heat your home, every electronic device becomes 100% efficient. All its "waste" heat becomes wanted heat. That it might only be 40W of heat is not the point.

[-] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 15 hours ago

Heat pumps can actually be over 100% efficient if you’re measuring it based on heat produced. Because heat pumps aren’t designed to produce heat; They’re designed to move it around via refrigerant. And if you can use 1w of energy to soak up and bring in 3w of heat, you’re now 300% efficient.

So by that metric, a server would be a “bad” heater. It would still contribute to your heating, but not as much as a heat pump would. It doesn’t mean the device is below 100% efficient, it just means the bar for “good” heaters is much higher than 100%.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Every electronic device is 100% efficient after the electricity has already been generated and delivered, sure, but a bunch of efficiency losses occurred before that. If you're comparing methane burned on-site in a furnace to methane burned at a power plant, transmitted to the site as electricity, and then used for electric resistance heating, burning on-site is gonna be better even if the furnace loses more heat up the chimney than the power plant does.

Also, a heat pump is "300%-500% efficient" in the sense that it moves 3x-5x as much heat as it uses. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance

this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
817 points (100.0% liked)

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