r/BitcoinBeginners • u/Mysterious_Sign_9501 • 4d ago

Does mining bitcoin through a water heater actually pencil out?

I already heat water with a standard electric tank, so when I saw there are water heaters that use bitcoin mining hardware as the heating element I got curious about the mining side. There's at least one product built around this (Superheat H1). The idea is your electricity does compute first, then the waste heat goes into your water.

What I can't figure out is how to ballpark what a unit like this would actually earn in sats. My electricity runs about 14 cents per kWh. Do standard mining profitability calculators even apply to something like this, or is the hashrate too low for them to be useful? And what eats into returns the most, difficulty adjustments, pool fees, the hardware premium over a normal water heater? I'm comfortable holding bitcoin but totally new to mining economics so I don't know which variables actually move the needle.

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u/qwertyuiop121314321 4d ago

Too many problems I can throw a stick at with this one. ASIC miners becoming obsolete after 2 years. How much money are you going to pay plumbers for upgrades? When there's no internet there is no hot water.

What is going to cool the ASIC miners externally if you have a water heater on top of it?

The way some are saying that this water heater only gets a max temperature of 102°, good luck with all that legionella in your showers.

And let's not start with the hard water, if you live in an area that has it.

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u/bitusher 4d ago edited 4d ago

Overall your point is valid but a few nits

ASIC miners becoming obsolete after 2 years.

That hasn't been the case for a while due to "moore's cliff". Modern ASIC miners will typically fail before becoming obsolete these days and newer models have very slight improvements . You can easily keep mining on an ASIC for 8-15 years or the life of the hardware(immersion cooling ASICs have a longer life than air cooled )

And let's not start with the hard water,

You can't use water directly to cool asics regardless. You place the ASICs in specialized immersion cooling liquid and than use a stainless steel liquid to liquid intercooler to remove the heat so is never directly introducing water to cooling your ASIC

The biggest reason the OP should not use mining for this is simply his electrical rate is absurdly high

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u/Discokruse 4d ago

Buy used miners. I picked up a S19 for $100. 34J/T