The sun room on the corner of my house isn't especially well insulated, but it does heat up pretty quickly when it gets sunny - often as high as 20C even if it is below 0C outside. I figured if this device worked at all, I could open the sliding door on sunny days and let the free heat spill into the house.
As you can see from the pictures, the build was a little crude, but it used only recycled materials that were on hand and paint that cost about $7. It took about three hours to make, with two helpers working for an hour each cutting the bottoms out of cans.
Since it's been installed, it has been helping to heat up the area and any day that is sunny, the solarium gets to about 25C. The shallow angle of the panel means it isn't working as effectively as it could, so the next one will be built in one of the south-facing windows.
Since the interior of the house is set for about 15C during the day, the solarium boosts it to 19-20C on a sunny day just by opening the door. The next major part of this project is to install a passive duct or solar powered fan that will push the warm air in without having to open the door. If anyone knows of a decent design for a room to room stratification trap, please let me know!
5 comments:
Check this site out if you can't build your own pop can furnace, but would like to save the environment and save money in the long run, www.cansolair.com. My coworker called, it is 2499 canadian. But it was reported that N.S. has a 500 dollar rebate, other provinces or countries may also have similar rebates. On a side note, the entrepreneur is a Newfoundlander :)
Please fix the link to your pictures - I heard you on CBC Main Street and am very interested in seeing if I can do it!
Thanks, Mike. You have to be logged in on Facebook to see those pics. I've added another way to see them here:
Original Pop Can Solar Furnace Pictures
Ideally, you should check out the second attempt as it's much less crude than that first one. Have a look here to start: Step 1.
How do you know how much your heater contributes given that a solarium will have a pretty good heat rise on a sunny day?
Hey Bruce! Good point. The best way to see the difference is to simply cover or remove the panels for a day. At peak sunshine and a while after, I've seen easily a 10C improvement. This disappears quickly after dark though.
One way to improve this is to store the heat... I'm working on water bottles and sand as a thermal mass... not ready yet.
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