Solar Heating

In a previous blog I made a small solar heater.  I tried the little solar heater in a small window in our home and decided I would try it on a larger scale.   This again cost nearly nothing to make as I used corrugated plastic Styrofoam, pop cans, duck tape, wire and high heat black spray paint.

This is what it looks like.   It was taped to the window,  I thought this would cut my need to cover it with glass as I used the house window as the front of the box.

This is what it looked like mounted to the window.  You can see there is a hole in the bottom of the box and a slit  1 by 6 inches in size, in the top of the box to let the heat out.

It is hard to see but this thermometer was topped out as far as it would go for our heat output.  The thermometer stops at 120 degrees.   I rigged it up so that air would flow threw the box to get the heat moving out of it a bit faster.  This worked well but I thought it might work even better for the winter months here in Northern Minnesota if it were a bit bigger.

 

 

The picture above is what our bigger solar pop can heater looks like from outside.  I used a can opener to open the bottom of each can leaving the top with just the hole from the pop tab, feeling it would slow the air flow to heat it more.  This heater also uses the window and the front of the heater.  It is made with 63 cans, again corrugated plastic, duck tape, wire, and the heat proof black paint.  The heater weighs very little, less then 5 pounds.  I have put an air flow area on the top and bottom of the heater, you can see this on the top of this heater. It is basically a box at the top and bottom of the heater with holes in them to allow for air flow. 

To allow for more air flow and to keep the air going into the heater clean, I have captured the air coming from an air purifier with a bag and duct tape. (pictured on the right) I then cleaned and old vacuum cleaner hose and attached it to both the plastic bag and the heater box as you can see above. 

 

 

The picture to the left shows how the top of the box is set up with a slit to allow for the heated air to blow out.  I placed the outside portion of an indoor outdoor thermometer into the heater to test to see how well it was working.  Below you will see the temperature of the room and inside the box.  Our house heat was set to not kick in until the house reached 60 degrees.  The temperature outside of our home was 43 degrees.   We do have south facing windows which gives us the ability to use passive solar heat as well.  Our heat didn't kick in on 10/31/2012 until Steve turned it up to 67. 

 

The main level of our home is small, just 680 square feet.  The rooms in the back of our house were holding just 1 degree below what you see on this digital thermometer.

This picture below shows that we have two windows with one having the solar heater the other remains open.  There are no permanent holes or mounting to installing this type of heater.  The back of the heater is in the house so I wasn't worried about heat loss through the box as the heat would still be going where I wanted it to be.