If you've thought about building a soda or beer can solar heater, I can save you some grief and walk you through building this can-free and bs-free solar home heater, step by step with photos of each easy step.
The solar heater will look like you purchased it commercially because I chose only fantastic durable materials that lend themselves perfectly to this plan and it looks great.
My early determination to build the EASIEST solar heater for everyone pushed my design naturally to be light-weight, super-rigid, strong, rock and hail defiant (No stupid heavy glass!), transportable enough to bring along on your next RV trip or on the next ice fishing trip, or your new house.
You start by bringing your list of materials (on your phone) to the big building center near you or by ordering the materials off the Internet. I show you where you can order the materials if you are in a remote location or if you were banned from the store for buying stainless crews and saying they are zinc coated at checkout.
Once you learn how to build my solar heater, you'll be able to build various-sized solar heaters using this design! I'm working on a hexagonal design and I'll update the manual when I get it completed and you'll get it free when it's done.
How much does it cost to build it? -I'm always asked this first. The materials out the door for me were $275.
What kind of fan blows the air from the solar heater into the house? I will show you where to get a commercially made temperature-controlled fan controller that is available through the link in the manual. It's perfect in that it's designed specifically for solar heaters and comes delivered to you. It reads the temperature inside the solar heater and ramps up the fan's power up or lowers it accordingly with the sun's power and shuts the fan off at night. I have two of them now and they are beautiful units indeed. You can even get nice wall grates that come filtered so you are cleaning the air as you heat it. Your cheaper $18 alternative is available at the building store but is not as sweet.
What kind of fan blows the air from the solar heater into the house? I will show you where to get a commercially made temperature-controlled fan controller that is available through the link in the manual. It's perfect in that it's designed specifically for solar heaters and comes delivered to you. It reads the temperature inside the solar heater and ramps up the fan's power up or lowers it accordingly with the sun's power and shuts the fan off at night. I have two of them now and they are beautiful units indeed. You can even get nice wall grates that come filtered so you are cleaning the air as you heat it. Your cheaper $18 alternative is available at the building store but is not as sweet.
How is the solar heater fan powered? You can run it on the AC power of your home or go off grid with a small solar panel you can pick up at the building store with the other materials. You can even simply run the solar heater fan with a car battery using an inverter also available at the local building store for around $60.
How hot does a solar heater get? Here's how I tested it and the temperatures it reached for me. I tested in winter and in Fall. When the solar heater is mounted on your home, you'll be pulling floor-level cooled air from your home into the solar heater outside your home and through the solar heater's sun-heated chamber where it is heated and sent back inside your home. During these tests, I drew air directly from the outside to represent a worst-case coldest scenario.
My Fall test was on a 55 degrees F sunny day and the temperature inside the unit buried the needle on the meat thermometer at 220 degrees F. Your home furnace puts out heat at just 140 remember. So I was encouraged and anxious for winter for the next test.
I tested the solar heater when it was sunny and 22.5 degrees F (well below freezing at 32 Degrees F). So the fan pulled 22.5 degree F air directly into the heat chamber. The output was a fabulous 155 degrees F. Still way hotter than the home's standard furnace. Again, when you install yours, you'll be pulling air from your home that won't be nearly that cold, so you can expect really warm constantly-flowing air being sent into your home every sunny day.
What happens to my regular furnace when the solar heater is installed? Do I turn it off? Nope. Your furnace is simply going to get a well-deserved break. It's thermostat turns it on when the temperature inside your home falls to whatever temperature you set it to. When your solar heater is pumping in warm air all day, your furnace will simply remain off and the oil and electricity to run it will be reduced.
Cold parts of the house you normally avoid during the winter months like the basement can be made toasty warm and usable all year round. Are you like me and love to almost live in the garage, but because it's so cold and expensive to heat, you set those projects aside until Spring? Regain your man cave or girl spa by warming it up.
Tools to build my solar home heater are few and they are inexpensive and safe to use by just about anyone. There's no glass and no need to cut or break glass. There's no wood and therefore no need of a saw of any kind. This is also why you can build this project in the house on a tarp or sheet of plastic with very little mess or dust of any kind. When you're done, you're clean and you wonder how you built this cash machine staying so clean.
It is a cash machine indeed. Much like a vending machine stands there and collects quarters all day long without the attention of it's owner, you solar heater just stands there and whispers to your furnace to stop sucking oil and electricity, reducing your utility bill, putting cash in your account. That's more dinners out, more money for the kids, a new bike, or new LED 3D television you know you want.
Did I say cash machine and not mention the other use for your solar heater to keep working all year long, especially in the peak of summer? Run your solar heater vent into your clothes drier! You may have not thought about this, but you might be doing something really crazy. You might be spending your hard-earned money to cool the air inside your home with an air conditioner. Then, you're allowing your drier to suck in this nicely-cooled air into the rear of your drier to be heated up to dry your clothes, and then sent outside! That does sound crazy, abut that's what you're doing every time you use your dryer with the air conditioning on. What if you simply pulled in sun-heated air into the back of your drier from the outside, then heated your drier with it, and then sent it outside without your air conditioned air being used? At the same time you've again stopped the flow of gas and electricity to heat your drier. Add this up and see how it saves you money in two ways.
Did I say cash machine and not mention the other use for your solar heater to keep working all year long, especially in the peak of summer? Run your solar heater vent into your clothes drier! You may have not thought about this, but you might be doing something really crazy. You might be spending your hard-earned money to cool the air inside your home with an air conditioner. Then, you're allowing your drier to suck in this nicely-cooled air into the rear of your drier to be heated up to dry your clothes, and then sent outside! That does sound crazy, abut that's what you're doing every time you use your dryer with the air conditioning on. What if you simply pulled in sun-heated air into the back of your drier from the outside, then heated your drier with it, and then sent it outside without your air conditioned air being used? At the same time you've again stopped the flow of gas and electricity to heat your drier. Add this up and see how it saves you money in two ways.
Are you ready to build this awesome solar home heater that you'll absolutely love? When you see how cheap the manual is, you'll think I'm crazy. Hey, it's not about money, I want to see more people get free heat with my Do It Yourself Solar Heater Manual.
If you are dissatisfied with my manual
I will refund you up to 60 days.
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I will refund you up to 60 days.
If you would like to share this page with all your friends, I'll LOVE you.
Here's the share button -and I love you!
