After setting up a six-miner operation in late 2017, it was observed that the excess heat the miners were generating had made the home so hot that air needed to be vented when it was any warmer than 20°F outside in order to prevent internal temperatures in excess of 80°F. As a result, the furnace was not in use the entire winter.
The accumulation of LTC has thus far paid not only for the miners' electrical requirements but also for the remainder of the home's electric usage as well as the already dramatically reduced gas bill (the only gas currently being used in the home is the water heater). Even in lower price dips, the overages during the higher price periods more than offset the difference.
More dynamic trading might yield higher returns, but the experiment should also show that even on a simple schedule of drawing what is necessary at the time bills come due, the system will remain self-sustaining.
As this site is developed, the project will focus on more practical mounting, exhausting, and sound-reduction. This site will evolve with the project and more data systematically made available.
The purpose of this project is to not only prove a concept but also start to develop an open-source alternative heating solution for people with the means to utilize the procedure for themselves or in places like shelters where every penny matters to an even larger number of people.
Please visit the realtime data site: https://dev.idkline.com
There will be plans for cases, exhaust manifolds and venting, schematics for computer-controlled power regulation via Raspberry Pi and solid-state relays, source code for easy monitoring and configuration software in various languages (C#, Javascript, Python), and links to other resources for setting up mining pool membership, trading/selling your coin, and basic crypto information.
I will also continue to post updates here, a practice I fell out of quite a long time ago, but really would like to get back into.
Some basic data available on the site:
hiveblocks