I love being a tube owner during the cooler months. To save on my gas bill during the winter, I keep my thermostat set at 69 degrees, which keeps the house a little on the chilly side. In my music room, I fire up the tubes and within an hour it is about 75 and very comfortable. Very musical room heaters.:yes:

I use to run a 7.1 surround ALL TUBE system , that did keep things nice and warm in winter for sure!

Gotta love that tube glow and warmth!

My HF-81 runs hot, but it won't heat a room.
My college-era HF-52 mono integrated probably would, though :-)

My Lafayette and Eico heats my office enough that I don't need the space heater anymore! :p: Not so sure it's cost efficient, but the spaceheater sure doesn't sound as nice! :hdphones:

Hey!!!,
I had a pair of Class A KT90 monoblocks. At 47 W of plate dissipation per, plus the front end and heater power I was near 300W of heat. That did make the room warmer. Nice in winter, but a PitA in the summer.

The next pair of monos will run 100W plus to each of the finals, plus 40W each heater power to the rectifiers...plus the front end. That'll move up to about 150W per final when I make the switch to 813's...:) good thing it is in the basement.

I suspect that in summer, I'll be running the little 6V6 stereo amp a lot more. That little guy is probably comming in at under 100W of heat total. I will miss the glow of hot tungsten filaments though.
cheers,
Douglas

Back in the '70's, I worked as a director at a local TV station. They were still broadcasting with the original DuMont transmitter installed in 1948. The station engineers had converted it to color, but it really looked awful.

The transmitter was all tubes and about 12 feet long. The station's heating system was the transmitter. In the winter, the heat was sent throughout the building. In the summer, the air from the transmitter was vented outside.

When the station bought a new SS RCA transmitter, they also had to install a gas furnace to heat the building.

They finally moved the studio and office to a new building downtown. One of the engineers semi-retired and remodeled the office space into a home. He used the old studio kitchen for his kitchen. He lived there rent free in exchange for looking after the transmitter.

Doug

Like a lighthouse keeper :-)

In my father's radio days (1950's) he said the same thing. They heated the transmitter building with exchanged heat from the radio transmitter output tube (probably a 20 or 50 kW, FM transmitter).