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DIY Solar Hot Water Heater Two - Doug Kalmer |
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Thursday, 19 January 2006 |
This is an article written by Doug Kalmer about his friend's DIY solar hot water heater, and follows on from his experiences with his own system:
My 10+ years of success with solar hot water made my friend Bob want a similar system for his new house. Through word of mouth, I heard about someone in Huntsville who had a four panel solar system free for the removal.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 January 2006 )
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DIY Solar Hot Water Heater - Doug Kalmer |
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Monday, 16 January 2006 |
This is an article written by Doug Kalmer about his DIY solar hot water heater:
"This Photovoltaic (PV) pumped hot water system has been working well, with no maintenance, for years on my house.I am now past the point where the money I invested in the solar water heater equals the money I would have spent on electricity to heat water. Most of the year, we have more free hot water than we can use. Consider the fact that in the next five to eight years you are going to pay the cost of a solar water heater,whether you buy one or not. I kept costs down by doing all of the work myself, and buying a used collector panel, but still created a long lasting, efficient, high quality system. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 January 2006 )
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Build your own solar panels? |
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Friday, 23 December 2005 |
Brief but interesting article about how to build solar panels yourself.
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Homemade Solar Lumber Kiln |
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Friday, 23 December 2005 |
A guide to planning and building your own lumbar drying kiln that uses only the sun's energy.
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Making and using a solar cooker |
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Friday, 23 December 2005 |
"Solar cooking is a delightful alternative to conventional cooking methods. The solar cookers available today really work and they deserve serious evaluation by a much larger audience. For 40 years, small groups of people have been using and refining some very good designs. But these designs have, for the most part, gone unnoticed even by those involved with alternative energy. With such a lack of support, you’d think they would have vanished from view long ago. But they haven’t."
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Cheap solar room / shed warmer |
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Friday, 23 December 2005 |
For a super-simple and super-inexpensive solar heating system that really works," say Don R. and George Waterman of Springfield, Missouri, "you only have to follow four rules. One, glaze with low-cost plastic film instead of glass or plexiglass ... two, use a structure's existing south-facing wall for the back of your collector ... three, forget about trying to store the heat you collect ... and, four, scrounge!"
This $30 solar setup heats a 30 x 40 workshop for five hours or more every sunny winter day.
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Monday, 19 December 2005 |
Came across this guide (which can now be found on our site) on how to build a solar furnace at home. Reasonably simple and can be very powerful. It's amazing what can be done by using a few mirrors to concentrate the sun. For rather cheap you can build a furnace that will melt metal in a number of seconds and cause wood to burst into flame almost instantly.
You can also build a system that doesn't require the actual furnace tracking the sun. Instead, a large flat mirror reflects sunlight on the furnace. This mirror (known as a heliostat) tracks the sun, allowing the furnace to be fixed in place. Here is an animation to show the basics. This one in Odeillo, France is huge.
Fresnal lenses can also be used for the same effect. A decent guide can be found here.
I'm planning to build one of these over the near future and hope to document the whole thing, including pictures of construction and it in action.
Warning: These devices are not toys. They can easily be made to melt metal - they will do much worse to your body if you enter the focal point. You should always keep the mirror array covered when not actively in use, and cover if you are removing or placing something in the focal point. |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 18 December 2005 )
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Infinitely Large Solar Furnace |
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Sunday, 18 December 2005 |
(c)1996 William Beaty
This article is reproduced from amasci.com with permission from William Beaty. Original article is here. Thanks go to Bill for writing this article and allowing us to have it on our site.
For those who dream of giant solar collectors which can generate temperatures high enough to melt steel, here is a method for building your own Solar Furnace of any size you desire. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 17 January 2006 )
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