Mirror as heat shield

yooper08 said:

Aren't we talking about putting a mirror in front of the stove, below the window where the table is in Magdalena's picture is to protect the wood paneling there? If we are, it's apples to apples if it's up to code.

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Yeah, so I went back and started over and yup....I have mentally put the stove in the wrong place as well as this damned mythical mirror. This is where a picture from January 2019 that shows what's going on would have been a little more helpful......I have no idea where the stove sits but if it's far enough away from the wall then by all means, put a mirror there! I'm not going to say it won't get broken but melting the mirror would be the least of my concerns.

I'm just gonna go pound my head against a wall for a bit.

Mirrors in Hubble hold up to the heat just fine. Mirror would be good for temp solution. Reflect the Infrared Heat. If your mirror can do that? https://www.quora.com/Do-mirrors-reflect-ultraviolet-and-infrared-light-too

You are simply outside of the scope of the majority of the membership of this forum. This is a male dominated group, something like this has simply never been considered by most of this forum, myself included.

I think you should try it. At worst your are out of a mirror and a messy cleanup. At best it works and you reflect some heat back into the room.

Dataman said:

Mirrors in Hubble hold up to the heat just fine. Mirror would be good for temp solution. Reflect the Infrared Heat. If your mirror can do that? https://www.quora.com/Do-mirrors-reflect-ultraviolet-and-infrared-light-too

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So you think the Hubble mirrors are the same as the one in question here?

Yup the same. Made of Glass. For what he wants if it's Temp it's going to work. Glass has high melting point. 1400 °C to 1600 °C

Polyethylene terephthalate/Melting point (Mylar) has melting point of 500f. Works in Space just fine to reflect the SOL's rays.

Dataman said:

Yup the same. Made of Glass. For what he wants if it's Temp it's going to work. Glass has high melting point. 1400 °C to 1600 °C

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The mirrors they use for thermal solar are highly polished metal surfaces with no glass. Glass absorbs enough of the light to decrease the efficiency by quite a bit. Plus glass is fragile and heavy. Not sure of your source that they use glass on space mirrors, but I'd love to hear the source.

ED 3000 said:

The mirrors they use for thermal solar are highly polished metal surfaces with no glass. Glass absorbs enough of the light to decrease the efficiency by quite a bit. Plus glass is fragile and heavy. Not sure of your source that they use glass on space mirrors, but I'd love to hear the source.

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fabricated by the Corning Glass Works using their high silicon Ultra Low Expansion Glass (ULE 7971)

https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/mirror-primary-backup-hubble-space-telescope

they take big chunks of silicon and melt them. Same type of Mirrors were used in Land Based Telescopes.

Dataman said:

fabricated by the Corning Glass Works using their high silicon Ultra Low Expansion Glass (ULE 7971)

https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/mirror-primary-backup-hubble-space-telescope

they take big chunks of silicon and melt them. Same type of Mirrors were used in Land Based Telescopes.

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Ok, glass, but absolutely nothing like what's in the mirror in Maggie's house. Space age processing has made it tough and thin and light (one fifth the weight I believe they said on the video). They can also make fiberglass insulation and computer chips out of sand.

Thanks for the research, I enjoyed it. I guess you call sign isn't dataman for nothing.

We used huge mylar mirrors on "Who wants to be a millionaire" in the same studio where the 3 stooges were filmed. Also Seth Myers where (of course) the union guys punctured it.

Dataman said:

Polyethylene terephthalate/Melting point (Mylar)

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Really amazing lightweight mirror surface but VERY fragile and expensive.

Rearscreen said:

We used huge mylar mirrors on "Who wants to be a millionaire" in the same studio where the 3 stooges were filmed. Also Seth Myers where (of course) the union guys punctured it.

Really amazing lightweight mirror surface but VERY fragile and expensive.

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Which is funny, because aren't those silvery balloons made of mylar, and Christmas tinsel?

Also, maybe inexpensive survival blankets might be mylar. Hadn't thought of that until just now.

I tried to source some mylar once, and rolls were very expensive. Turns out white glossy paint is a better reflector of light than glass mirrors, but mylar is the best.

HomeinPA said:

I'm just gonna go pound my head against a wall for a bit.

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Meh, no need. Having a bourbon, cheers!

yooper08 said:

I would indeed, that wasn't my point though.

Put a mirror too close though and it'll reflect too much radiation back to the stove and nuke it.

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Good point. Some years back I had a coworker who used a mirror to deflect heat from his wood stove. It worked so well he decided to put a second mirror on the opposite side of the stove. Fatal mistake. The reflection of heat from one mirror to the other and back caused an infinite loop that could not be stopped. In a panic said coworker placed himself in between the two mirrors and the stove in an attempt to break the loop. He was never seen again except for a permanent reflection of him in one of the mirrors. I was always puzzled why his image imbedded in only one of the mirrors, but then thermo physics was never my strongest subject.

Glass melts at 2800 degrees F.

I would be more concerned about a heated mirror suddenly being exposed to cold air. Won’t have time to acclimate (shrink too fast) and will shatter. Same goes if it’s suddenly heated from being cold. Tempered glass is a different story. So hopefully you don’t have it near an entry door if it’s a regular mirror.

If that isn’t an issue, I don’t see anything wrong with putting a mirror behind the stove If you're still meeting clearances.... not that it would even catch on fire.

yooper08 said:

Enough mirrors angled the right way, we might start creating lasers.

In all seriousness Magdalena, if it's outside of clearance requirements, you could be ok. If you have a way of measuring the mirror's temperature (ie IR gun), give it a shot and see what happens.

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An IR gun will not read a reflective surface. However in my room in my shed I have bright corrigated tin behind my stove. When the stove is running hot the tin is still cool to the touch.