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Frugal and Energy Efficient Living

Woodwizard

(1,055 posts)

9. Solar hot water

Reply to applegrove (Original post)

Thu Mar 26, 2015, 06:50 PM

Mar 2015

I have been heating my shop with solar hot water using pool panels and polycarbonate twinwall glazing the pumps on the system are brushless dc pumps running off 12 volt photovoltaic panels it works great. I put radiant heat tubing in the floor before pouring the concrete. The trees shading it have been removed we have planted other trees in areas where solar is not an issue

I plan on building another for the shop and one for the house for our hot water and supplement heat.

A great resource for do it yourself is http://www.builditsolar.com

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14 replies

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Highlight:

"Fredericton man builds $300 solar furnace, decreases heating bill" [View all] applegrove Feb 2014 OP

I've built two of these. Neither one worked out quite right. bloomington-lib Feb 2014 #1

Interesting... sendero Feb 2014 #3

It was 4" with a fan inside designed to boost heat through heating ducts. bloomington-lib Feb 2014 #4

I use an integrated multi-source FLson Nov 2015 #14

One generally tries to move 100 cfm per 6" heat run Kaleva Apr 2014 #7

Seems like it would be easy to adapt this noamnety Feb 2014 #2

Here's another article about them. This one is slightly different than the one I made bloomington-lib Mar 2014 #5

Interesting. I was driving in rural ontario and quebec and saw solar applegrove Mar 2014 #6

I remember seeing an article about a similar system in gejohnston May 2014 #8

Solar hot water Woodwizard Mar 2015 #9

Do you have any issues with Freezing in the winter? mackdaddy Mar 2015 #11

freezing Woodwizard Apr 2015 #12

Here are some excellent resources for do it yourself Solar air heating. mackdaddy Mar 2015 #10

A number of videos on youtube brag about the temp rise from their design but... Kaleva May 2015 #13