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Yeah that will look attractive. 🙂
Posted on 12/19/2022 8:35:17 PM PST by Jonty30
Solar space heating is tricky. Air is harder to keep warm than water, and while most of us need a shower on a hot day—we tend to want space heating when the sun is not doing enough for us. Nevertheless, from a Mad Max style partially solar heated home, through a DIY solar heater from old campaign signs (yeah, politics and hot air...) to a soda can solar panel, we've seen plenty of attempts at harnessing the rays of the sun to actively heat the air inside our homes.
Here the folks at Fair Companies present one Seattle man's attempt at heating his home studio with soda cans. (The video was shot on a phone, so please pardon picture quality.)
(Excerpt) Read more at treehugger.com ...
You could do something similar by filling the cans with water to absorb the heat on warm days.
Bkmk
Easier to use black poly pipe. You’d be surprised how much heat you can get off the sunshine on a cold winter day.
Either one works.
I’m told that cans work much better if you paint them black.
Yup
And you punch irregular holes in the bottoms, that is also important
YAY. Something that I can participate in using my engineering experience mixed with living off grid.
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/3/1/63/htm
The do work better. Black absorbs the heat. With poly you use water to transfer your heat. With the can method he is just using air moved thru the cans to transfer heat to the inside of a structure. Pretty simple concept. 4 inch dryer vent pipe painted black would be more airtight and speed up your build. Using two used computer cooling fans and a small solar panel to run them and you’re all set. I have a friend that hears his greenhouse that way.
Yeah that will look attractive. 🙂
Just make sure the side wall faces south and your front door does not. :)
well, luckily my southern exposure is the back of my house, but I live on acreage anyway. 🙂
Simple laws of physics here:
Collection area and airflow.
Before building an overcomplicated concoction, search youtube for a guy who did the research already.
The ‘can’ method is inefficient and a waste of resources (I’ve been down this road).
I don’t know why it would be inefficient or a waste of resources. It doesn’t look expensive to build and you’re going to drink what is in those cans anyway.
It seems to me that it’s almost free, especially with the energy you save. It looks like it works to me.
Again, been down this road and someone else did the science.
But win/win. /s
I’ve been meaning to make one of these.
If you don’t have cans, you can also use other materials. The below uses disposable aluminum serving pans. I would suggest black stove paint since it’s meant for indoor high-temp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKvys3wvY6U
To each his own, but if I had an acreage, I’d be willing to build this if it meant saving $5/month. To men, that means eventual money in the bank.
However, if you meant it won’t last long enough to recover the $50.materials that I paid out for the cans and glass and materials, then you have a point. I am familiar with solar and wind that you don’t get your money back when you count the costs of everything that goes into the materials, wear down, and disposal. I agree with you there, if that’s what you’re alluding to.
Even just as a project, it has value.
My only question is whether the differential in the cost of blowing fans all day long is large enough to make up the savings in heat.
I recommend to anyone and everyone a book by Edward Mazria, 1979. A gold mine for passive solar for residential buildings. Terrific for DIY. If you can do algebra and read tables, you can do it. No fooling.
https://www.amazon.com/Passive-Solar-Energy-Book-Greenhouse/dp/0878572376/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=1E6F5R37V8ANL&keywords=mazria+solar&qid=1671526811&sprefix=%2Caps%2C89&sr=8-3
I've used the book for designing two passive solar homes, both new construction and located in New Mexico, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. However, there are methods covered that address what is reasonable for most of the USA states. What is reasonable for a given location is based on if heating or cooling gives the biggest bang for the buck and if it's new construction or retrofit.
BTW, I'm a retired engineer geek but that said, if you know basic algebra and can read tables, you can do it. Freepmail me if you would like to brainstorm some.
I always liked this guy.
He gives off the retired Engineer vibe.
He appears to live in a nice house, nice neighbourhood
He has lots of videos, and is constantly refining his heat from waste oil concept
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw3v2gN_sLk
I’d probably ditch the plug-in hair dryer fan for the inlet and go with a computer fan. Amazon has a 3-pack of 12v 1.44watt fans for around $10. Shouldn’t be too hard to rig one to a small solar panel that could sit right on top of the solar heater. I have some solar chargeable light bulbs with panels and I bet the panel could be multipurposed to run one of those fans no problem.
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