Post by WVsnowflake on Jun 18, 2008 12:09:20 GMT -6
Last summer my family and I started digging out the foundation for our new home. However, after only two sweaty days of laboring under the Florida sun, I realized that we might be going about the whole project in the wrong order. Maybe, I thought, we should be erecting the solar water heater and shower — which we'd already planned as part of our new homestead — before actually constructing the house itself! Well, the more I considered this notion, and the more layers of grime that built up on my tribe's bodies, the more that bit of backward logic began to make a frontward kind of sense.
Mother's Insolation Monitor
Keeping track of the efficiency of alternative, passive solar energy consumption, including constru...
As you can probably imagine, when I finally proposed my topsy-turvy suggestion to the rest of the family, the whole gang clapped and cheered their approval. So I sat down to research the current literature on solar water heaters. I studied every book and article I could find, but ended up more confused than educated! All the plans called for elaborate pumps, sensors, control switches and other complicated paraphernalia.
(Oh, I did get one fact straight right away: I discovered that we sure weren't going to buy our water heater. Some of those commercial solar units cost over $2,000!)
It took a lot of time and sifting, but I was finally able to devise a simple and inexpensive water warmer that I knew "us regular folks" would be able to build. In fact, my design involves only three steps:
First, build a glass-covered wood "hot box" to catch the sun's heat.
Second, install a manifold of copper water pipes inside this collector box so the gathered warmth will heat water.
Third, hook the outlets from the manifold to a storage tank (this container should be set above the heat collector) so the thermosiphon principle will move water from the collector to the tank. (That fancy-sounding phrase, "thermosiphon principle," simply means that, since hot water rises and cold water sinks, liquid heated in the closed loop system will move up toward our elevated storage container, while cooler water will circulate downhill toward the collector to soak up more sun.
www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1979-09-01/A-Homemade-Solar-Water-Heater.aspx
Mother's Insolation Monitor
Keeping track of the efficiency of alternative, passive solar energy consumption, including constru...
As you can probably imagine, when I finally proposed my topsy-turvy suggestion to the rest of the family, the whole gang clapped and cheered their approval. So I sat down to research the current literature on solar water heaters. I studied every book and article I could find, but ended up more confused than educated! All the plans called for elaborate pumps, sensors, control switches and other complicated paraphernalia.
(Oh, I did get one fact straight right away: I discovered that we sure weren't going to buy our water heater. Some of those commercial solar units cost over $2,000!)
It took a lot of time and sifting, but I was finally able to devise a simple and inexpensive water warmer that I knew "us regular folks" would be able to build. In fact, my design involves only three steps:
First, build a glass-covered wood "hot box" to catch the sun's heat.
Second, install a manifold of copper water pipes inside this collector box so the gathered warmth will heat water.
Third, hook the outlets from the manifold to a storage tank (this container should be set above the heat collector) so the thermosiphon principle will move water from the collector to the tank. (That fancy-sounding phrase, "thermosiphon principle," simply means that, since hot water rises and cold water sinks, liquid heated in the closed loop system will move up toward our elevated storage container, while cooler water will circulate downhill toward the collector to soak up more sun.
www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1979-09-01/A-Homemade-Solar-Water-Heater.aspx
