Solar Home Heating

Heat your house with solar thermal (hot water) collectors. You can buy them, I made my own. There are 3 in this arrangement. 1 square foot of collector heats 1 1/2 U.S. gallons of water 40 degrees farenheit in Pennsylvania, USA in winter. The more collectors you put up the more water volume you can heat. Most people use one of these collectors for domestic hot water, showers, etc. I used mine to heat my house. Of course insulate well first, then see if you can use this. You'll need to add radiant floor heat system to get heat out of tank.
It all cost about $2,000 in materials, 3 x 4' x 10' collectors, tank, fittings, pipe, differential thermostat, pump, insulation, collector box, etc. This system would be great for heating greenhouses thru the winter, almost free, once the up-front costs are met. tonyfixit.

Category:

Education

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• solar
• space
• heat
• home
• heating
• tonyfixit
• tony
• buck
• build
• your
• own
• thermal
• collector

[tonyfixit]

There's a lot of magical thinking about gaining energy from different systems. I'm not sure of the system you mean but it must contain the basics of a heat absorber contained within an insulated box which allows the sun to penetrate. Then the ability to move that heat to where it's needed. The laws of physics governs the output of these systems. Look at what's being manufactured and use that as your guide to efficiency.

[bret354]

this is exactly what i was thinking of doing. i was wondering how it's working for you so far this year. Also how big your house is. very nice job. i also live in PA.

[tonyfixit]

Instead of the radiant floor heat idea, I cut a vent thru the floor to let the heat rise passively, I'm trying to use less power. Power down, that's our new direction. Before doing any of this first insulate, then insulate, then insulate again, then see what your heat bill is.

[tonyfixit]

Thanks for comment. My monthly gas bill for summer is $25, that's for hot water and cooking. It's hard to justify the large cost of the type of domestic hot water heater that can accept heat from my collectors. Maybe if someone with 4 teenagers moves in, they'll do it!

[bigdotof]

Well done thanks for sharing.

[hamid4222]

green power

[remember25october]

Can you have sun pump water up to water tank?

[doctorfuse007]

I like your style.

[ScoutCrafter]

Awesome!!!

[theoriginalanomaly]

Very well done... thanks for publishing.

[madsparcc]

Beautiful Job... I was wondering what your opinion is on the "soda can" solar heaters?

[jcanivan]

Go for it Tony. looks like you had some fun building your own solar hot water heating system.

John

[CTOL1]

Most impressive, I am in the stages of something like this. I will be using a "can heater" panel(s) with a fan to drive the air across 2 new car radiators and a thermal siphon to my water tank for domestic hot water via a coil heat exchanger. Any waste heat will go to heating my home, the rest in summer will be expelled out side. I insulated my entire basement including the floors with extruded polystyrene.

My current winter gas & electric is $150 for winter and 2 people 1200 sq ft home +basemnt