MAKE | "The Solar Parasite" Window Box Heater

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By relaxshax
Posted 2012/01/10 @ 10:00 am
Category Energy, General, Home, Woodworking

This time around on Tiny Yellow House, I decided to mess around with passive solar heat so as to warm the always-cold front foyer of my home. The result: a smallish, closeable, passive solar collector that fits into a window opening. Its not rocket science (and it NEVER will be here on Tiny Yellow House) but it does work, even in January, in New England.

The NEW version of my book Humble Homes, Simple Shacks is out in a week or two! Check it out (part of this design is from that book).

Subscribe to the Tiny Yellow House podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo.

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4 Responses to "The Solar Parasite" Window Box Heater – Tiny Yellow House

Tim Gray on January 10th, 2012 at 11:12 am said:

Unfortunately it has a very inefficient design, it needs to draw cold air in from the house, and then let warm air back in. adding a center divider will do this. It also needs insulation around the outer edge and a way for you to close it off at night as it will act as a radiator to let heat OUT of the house.

It’s a great start.

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Anonymous on January 10th, 2012 at 1:56 pm said:

how about putting some fans (solar powered perhaps) to blow the hot air in the house from the box?

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Al Miles on February 17th, 2012 at 5:36 am said:

I have made four hot air solar collectors for my garage with different adsorbor plate systems. They have been mounted vertically on the south wall of the building and provide up to 125 degree air for almost six hours on a sunny winter day in eastern PA.

I used 1×6 pressure treated lumber to make a simple rectangular frame to fit glass from patio doors that neighbors had left out for trash pickup. I used a router to make a recess for the glass on the front side and the the insulation (1/2″ foil covered foam board) on the back side. The inside walls are also insulated with the foam board and act as the support for the adsorbor plate which is vented soffit painted flat black. I feed inside air into the box in the lower corner behind the soffit and extract the air at the upper corner opposite the inlet from in front of the adsorbor plate. I use a small 110 volt cage blower to circulate the air. I looked into solar powered fans and found them way too costly.

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POD HD500. on April 1st, 2012 at 5:59 am said:

An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a friend who had been conducting a little homework on this. And he in fact ordered me dinner because I discovered it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending the time to discuss this topic here on your website.

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