News Noctua pitches its PC fans as home heating boosters — active fans beat natural convection

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idea, as most radiators seem to be near windows, have a small controller with an internal battery capable of driving a couple of fans for 12 hours and recharge from a solar panel attached to window or even from the buildings own light source?

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ugh, this looks bad for Noctua. like, "we're desperate over here", bad. Considering the blow up in the custom waterloop market last year that would seem like the most obvious path for them to muscle in on. It fits perfectly with their high end market position as well.

You would need the fans placed anywhere, but where the radiator is, to have any real benefit. Actively pushing the heat up and away from the radiator does nothing that convection isn't doing already. Setting up some box fans to get the whole room to circulate is what you'd want to do.

Of course that pales in comparison to fixing your insulation and air leaks. Literally hanging a sheet of plastic over your windows will help more than this. Stops air leaks and adds a poor man's 2nd or 3rd pane of window insulation.
 
kyzarvs said:
Just get a heat-driven fan like the ones people have used on their wood-burners for centuries?
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Those would not work, because the temperature difference between the radiator and ambiet air is too small. It would also be very difficult to install properly because if you put the base against the radiator, the fan is not facing between the plates.
 
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das_stig said:
idea, as most radiators seem to be near windows, have a small controller with an internal battery capable of driving a couple of fans for 12 hours and recharge from a solar panel attached to window or even from the buildings own light source?

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They make sterling engine fans that are powered by the heat of your radiator or wood stove.
https://www.acehardware.com/departm...et-stoves/wood-and-pellet-stove-parts/4593067
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USAFRet said:
A slow turning ceiling fan moves far more air, quieter.
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The point is to pull air between the radiator plates. A heat pump is more efficient the lower the water temperature is, and you can use lower temperature, if you're not fully relying on convection to transfer heat from radiator to ambient air.

So a ceiling fan wont help because it just moves air around the room.
 
Catrik said:
The point is to pull air between the radiator plates. A heat pump is more efficient the lower the water temperature is, and you can use lower temperature, if you're not fully relying on convection to transfer heat from radiator to ambient air.

So a ceiling fan wont help because it just moves air around the room.
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Warm air rises from the radiator.
Air currents (ceiling fan) moves this warm air around the room, even more than the basic convection.
 
why_wolf said:
ugh, this looks bad for Noctua. like, "we're desperate over here", bad. Considering the blow up in the custom waterloop market last year that would seem like the most obvious path for them to muscle in on. It fits perfectly with their high end market position as well.

You would need the fans placed anywhere, but where the radiator is, to have any real benefit. Actively pushing the heat up and away from the radiator does nothing that convection isn't doing already. Setting up some box fans to get the whole room to circulate is what you'd want to do.

Of course that pales in comparison to fixing your insulation and air leaks. Literally hanging a sheet of plastic over your windows will help more than this. Stops air leaks and adds a poor man's 2nd or 3rd pane of window insulation.
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Pushing air away from the radiator is literally the reason why this works. Read my reply to the other comment.

Though if you have old windows, covering them with plastic is certainly much more cost effective start.
 
USAFRet said:
Neither.

I'm just thinking that air currents via a much larger, slower fan, would be more effective in moving warm air around the room.
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Yes, it is. But that is not what Noctua is suggesting to do. Moving air around the room does not lower the heating bill.

Having as small temperature difference as possible between ambient air and radiator water, when the water is heated with a heat pump, does lower the heating bill.

Using forced heat transfer with fans, instead of relying on convection without fans, gives lower temperature difference.

E: after reading the article again, I see that you're probably referring to the potential cold spots in a room. For that issue, a ceiling fan would certainly help much better than a PC fan mounted anywhere.
 
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das_stig said:
idea, as most radiators seem to be near windows, have a small controller with an internal battery capable of driving a couple of fans for 12 hours and recharge from a solar panel attached to window or even from the buildings own light source?

(C) Me All Rights And Trademarks Reserved 😏
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Honestly I was going to ask the obvious questipn of how to power the damned fan, most home appliances like radiators dont come with power connectors for PC fans, lol. After giving them power, they will have to figure out how to mount the fans in place to the appliance and then attach a cover to the fan so no one puts their fingers in the fan blade.
Honestly putting a PC fan on a radiator has merit, after that, if you need to move air anywhere else in your house, just use regular house fans, lol.
 
das_stig said:
idea, as most radiators seem to be near windows, have a small controller with an internal battery capable of driving a couple of fans for 12 hours and recharge from a solar panel attached to window or even from the buildings own light source?

(C) Me All Rights And Trademarks Reserved 😏
Click to expand...
Wait, since most radiators have pumped water, have a small water-based generator to attach in-line to the piping to provide the electricity

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It's already a thing. I've got active intake and exhaust vents on the closet my home server and network stuff runs in.

If I were building a new house, it wouldn't take much to run an active fan or two at each vent for better circulation.
 
Can yall hire someone who has an electrical engineering background, for the love of god... the only appropriate reaction to PR this stupid, is to have someone who knows the difference between central air blowers, and 120mm computer case fans, mock it mercilessly, and have actually send a list of genuine follow up questions on the calculations they used, to feel confident their "solution" is better than the much more established (central air, mini-splits, etc), and often much much cheaper per fan, and per fan meters³ of air moved. Typically a small/medium sized house with central air has a several HP motor running the large metal fan/air mover. In the US expect to pay $100 a HP for a new motor... how many HP do $100 of noctuas fans have?

Everyone... that dude... the writer of this article .. should also know wafting air over a home radiator is an extremely inefficient way to transfer heat from the stationary, small object, to air that's not markedly cooler. Central heating with air works, because the air is being 1. Compressed by that massive motor/fan assembly, denser air has more thermal conductivity, and 2. It's in that preferred state as it's pushed through extremely hot heating elements. Much hotter than any exposed radiator could ever be.

Y'alls current "work" is so disrespectful to who tomshardware used to be back in the day,
 
wwenze1 said:
Wait, since most radiators have pumped water, have a small water-based generator to attach in-line to the piping to provide the electricity

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So you're gonna increase the wattage the heater pump needs to use to circulate the system, by installing a small water turbine/DC generator. Which isn't going to be close to 100% efficient, so immediately you're running a few dozen watts of power deficit.

Am I in the wrong place? This is a tech website yeah? I bet every single one of the people commenting, could fill a shopping bag with their spare 110/220AC to USB plugs @ 2, 5, 7, 10, 12, and maybe even 15 and 24 V if they're into wierd stuff. You take that USB plug, and here's the real genius of this idea... you plug it into the closest wall outlet. The only reason this isn't a perfect plan, is I'm still waiting for something to "extend" the "cord", and I'm imagining another stroke of genius... at the end of that cord, we could put a whole "strip" of places to get "power" from, if the wall outlet is more than 5 or 6 ft from the radiator.
 
There are already dedicated products on the market that fill the same role much better. The Kermi x-flair is a radiator with fans designed right into it (no eyesore), and for improving the existing radiators the SpeedComfort Duo offers an aftermarket alternative.

In both cases the idea is the same as with the CPU coolers: you have a warm spot, from which you want to transfer as much heat energy to the ambient air as possible. Passive convection could work, but quickly hits its limits. A single large fan would work marginally better. But for the best results you'll want to push lots of air over the heat exchanger fins. And for that nothing can beat built-in fans.
 
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