# Heat by Solar Power!?!



## SurvivalMike (Oct 31, 2011)

Questions hoping for answers. If the electrical grid goes down in the middle of January, I'll need a means for providing heat so my family doesn't freeze to death. Is there an economical and/or recommended configuration for hooking up an decent electrical heater to a solar source? A decent 600W solar generate is going to cost me $500 and a basic electrical heater will soak much more Watts that 600... Any info appreciated. :usaflag:


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## FunnyFarm (Oct 26, 2011)

My 1st suggestion would be nix the solar and go with a wood stove. Though there are solar hot water vacuum tubes which if you had enough of them would heat your hot water and if ran on a circulating pump can be used for hot water radiant heat.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Have a look in the HVAC forum in homesteading, but as mentioned above , direct solar heating is much more efficient than solar to electric to heat.


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## k0xxx (Oct 27, 2011)

I too would skip the 600w solar generator. For one thing, it may put out 600w for a short time, but the batteries wouldn't last that long at full output. If you buy 600w worth of panels, you'll spend way more than that and still not have the extra capacity to see you through the night, even at full sun during the entire day.


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## Wallrat (Oct 28, 2011)

Such a system would work perfectly....in July and August. But no chance in Winter with its low sun-angle and short days. I ran my RV/home off of solar for years, with a gen-set backup. It provided 95% of my needs in Summer (in San Diego), and about 50% in the Winter. IMHO, solar is a lose/lose solution.


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## FunnyFarm (Oct 26, 2011)

You get a much better return with the newer solar hot water vacuum tubes. Even some northerners can do solar hot water these days.


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## hedgeliving (Nov 12, 2011)

It depends on how big of an area you want to heat. Solar heating usually means having a large thermo-mass to store that heat. Using solar panels to run your heater would be a very expensive system. I have an $80,000.00 system (solar and wind) and it would not heat my whole house.

If you're just looking to heat a room on the south side of the house you could try making a solar pop can heater. Depending on how much sun you have, how big your heater is, how big your room is, and how cold you get, these have been heating houses on the res. in S. Dakota for years. They're pretty easy to make. Here's a video for one but there are hundreds of videos on YouTube for this:






Good luck and if you try this I would love to know how it works.

Rea


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