Crushed can solar air heater

This is a proof of concept solar air heater I made for an alternative energy class that I teach at our local technical high school. It was made of mostly junk material for less that $20. I wanted to show that it could be made quickly, cheaply and with almost no mechanical skills. The temp. output is impressive considering that it is a very crude setup. Our website is www.thefuelman.com Our blog is www. thefuelman.com/blog

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Solar air heater
• solar can heater
• pop can heater
• solar
• solar air
• solar heater
• solar heat
• crushed can

[sopark434]

I agree its alot of work cutting holes in the cans. I want to build mine with either downspouts or roofing material. Nice experiment.

[thefuelman1]

@sopark434

Thanks!

[tld5500]

Why cans? maybe beer bottle would work, but be too heavy? What if I painted the cans black, and stacked them neatly?

[ParapaDrifter]

@mphuie you got a good point there... I suppose the way it could be setup, is the intake into this 'system' coming from the house, heats up gets put back into the house.

Super test would be the intake of outside air... could you imagine? Fresh outside air in the winter heating up by sun only! Get er dun ay?

[magna59]

So as ever its a compromise.........If you had a panel with a thin sheet of black foil that would work, and give up its energy very quickly, ie great for first thing in the morning, no time to heat up, but you would be able to feel a cloud cross the sun. So may be a mixture of both, one light on thermal mass, one heavy. It's a compromise.............just a thought. I do like your work, 'cos your making it simple, accessible. Regards Bob

[magna59]

Nice...............It's a bit of a mixed bag. If you have / want thermal mass, you have obtain more thermal exposure, to come up to temperature, if you want thermal mass, you need weight / density, this panel could be broken bricks painted black, or pref. the engineering brick, or stone, this would have the advantage of holding a good amount of energy, this weight would also soften the change of sun levels.

A second layer of plastic would also give double glazing effect. Just a thought.

[magicyte]

@sopark434 I'm not going to use cans for my commercial units either. I'll be using a sheet of metal roofing over baffles made from soffit.

[mphuie]

If theres very neglible air flow, of course the internals are going to get hot. The real test is how high a temperature you can maintain with a constant flow of air.

[Lacider]

Intresting, I wouldent have thought you could use crushed cans... If you threw them in a campfire for a bit, you wouldent have to paint them, they'd just be burnt black. :P