this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2026
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Why does no one seem to use peltier elements to heat small greenhouses? (feddit.org)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by viertesauge@feddit.org to c/gardening@lemmy.world
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Genuine question. When I look up options for heating greenhouses its either propane, kerosene or electricity. So if you dont want to use fossil energy for any reason, why not use peltier elements which would boil down to resistive heating and moving heat from the outside to the inside?

Is it because they dont last in the weather? Or because they require a DC source? (couldnt you simply move the PSU inside the greenhouse and use any conversion losses as additional heating?) Or maybe its because you would have to possibly cut a hole in your greenhouse walls so that the peltiers cold side is actually on the outside?

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[–] Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm no expert, but from what I have been reading. It seems that it is difficult to design a heatsink that is able to dissipate the heat quickly enough before the entire device heats up and causes the cool side to warm and efficiency to drop.

[–] viertesauge@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

i thought about using a cpu heatsink and fan. those are designed to dissipate 100+ W of heat.

[–] Zamboni_Driver@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're not going to be able to heat a greenhouse in temperatures where frost is an issue with only 100w (~341btu) of energy.

[–] viertesauge@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

that number was just an example, of course you could scale things up as needed (multiple elements with multiple heatsinks for example)