On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 01:19:24 +0000, Signal wrote:

Circuit components transfer much of their heat through matter to
regions of lower temperature - conduction. This means they are not
efficient sources of heat (for heating your environment). You could
perhaps snuggle up to the chassis of your amplifier to maximize the
potential.

But they still release fair amounts of heat into the room, relative to
the electricity input.

Also consider airflow. Take lightbulbs for example. Are they located
in floors or ceilings? Heat rises, by the way.

You take that example but there are others. My two PCs and their CRT
screens seem to be quite efficient at heating the small room they are
situated in. The heat they output rises alright... but it maintains a
nice convected circulation in the room. That circulation helps to make
the light bulb heating more efficient by dragging 'ceiling heat' back
down; convection is a wonderful thing.

But I am not trying to argue that PCs and light bulbs are AS efficient
as a well designed heating system.

In Summer and on other warm days, of course, things are very
different...

--
Dave