# Small scale solar heat



## FrostHeaves (Feb 25, 2011)

Anyone here ever hear of _US Solar Heating_ or have any of their products ?

I live in a modest 1000 sqft home in New England. One side of the house has good exposure to the winter sun. I found a company which makes portable solar hot air heaters - the unit has an optional "stand alone" power unit (PVcell & fan) so there's no additional energy use. This sits inside a window. Not trying to heat the place just take the chill off a room or two.

Yeah, yeah I know I could probably build "something" close to what they offer but I really don't have time to re-invent their product.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

I went to the site in the link,the product appears to be an air warmer, that fits into the sunny window. That IMO is not an efficient way to capture solar heat,
if you have rooms with southern window exposure the sun should warm them, dark colors absorb heat best and thermal mass stores it well, if you are trying to warm a different room with the heat "trap" it might work but the ducting etc cost will prolly out weigh the benifits.


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## alaskan4life (Feb 21, 2011)

*solar heat*

northern tool.com has some solar air heaters,worth takeing a look.hope this helps


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

Mother Earth News had a great plan for solar heat collectors and after looking at the one in the link-if you are trying to heat your home by using the power of the sun-using a plug in fan in the unit kinda defeats the purpose of solar.
If I was gonna make it with a fan a small solar panel and a computer fan inserted into the panel would make it self sufficient. The unit only works when the sun is shining so having a solar powered fan only makes sense.

I am planning on making the Mother Earth News solar collector and then since it is detachable making a box to hold my dehydrator trays so that in the summer it can be used to dehydrate my garden produce on sunny days for free.


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## IrritatedWithUS (Jan 9, 2011)

NPower Complete 1800 Watt Solar Package  Solar Panels, Batteries and PowerHub  A Northern Exclusive! | Battery Backup Packages | Northern Tool + Equipment

wow. a 1,800watt solar panel kit for $1,999.99

That's the cheapest I've seen online


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## FrostHeaves (Feb 25, 2011)

Tirediron said:


> I went to the site in the link,... That IMO is not an efficient way to capture solar heat,
> if you have rooms with southern window exposure the sun should warm them, dark colors absorb heat best and thermal mass stores it well,.


Soooooo, instead of using or fabricating an "Air Warmer" as you describe it I should use dark colored rooms and thermal mass ? What exactly do you consider to be an efficient way to capture solar heat ? I thought solar hot air would involve an "Air Warmer" of some sort. 



alaskan4life said:


> northern tool.com has some solar air heaters,worth takeing a look.hope this helps


Those are several thousand dollars per panel and are for whole house systems. 
Did you bother to read the thread title ? 



Emerald said:


> if you are trying to heat your home by using the power of the sun-using a plug in fan in the unit kinda defeats the purpose of solar.




The unit has a PV panel with a 12V fan. Guess you missed that.



IrritatedWithUS said:


> wow. a 1,800watt solar panel kit for $1,999.99
> That's the cheapest I've seen online


Twice my budget and thats a PV system NOT hot air. No use to me.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

By allowing the sun to get inside the house and having darker colours to soak-up the heat, you will be passively warming the house from the sun. The mini solar-panel (your second link) with 12-volt computer-fan will move a couple CFM of air around but it will never be enough for a house of the size that you have - it would be better suited to a one or two room cabin that is of the "mini-home" size - under 400sq ft or placed in a sealed-off single 10x15' room (150 sq ft) to keep the air moving in there.

A good "passive" solar heater would be a green-house and then "pumping" that heat into the basement of your house through highly insulated air-ducts and circulating the cooler air from your basement into the green-house to warm-up again.

Anything can be done - just depends on how much you are willing to spend to get it done.


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## FrostHeaves (Feb 25, 2011)

NaeKid said:


> it will never be enough for a house of the size that you have





FrostHeaves said:


> Not trying to heat the place just take the chill off a room or two.


:gaah: I give up. Not even the admin reads the posts he replies to.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

My bad ... I saw 1,000 sq ft house and placing it into a window and hit the links that you had shared with us and read the info from the page to see what it was all about ... and totally missed the part about taking the chill out of a room-or-two. Sorry.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

I guess you could always use google to get your answers, I don't respond well to sarcastic insult :gaah:


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## Dixie (Sep 20, 2010)

FrostHeaves said:


> :gaah: I give up. Not even the admin reads the posts he replies to.


*
One post two replies and five insults...think that's a record here. With your square footage and budget, try candles.
*


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## Emerald (Jun 14, 2010)

FrostHeaves said:


> The unit has a PV panel with a 12V fan. Guess you missed that.


Guess you don't bother to read your links either!:nuts:

Snip "Power - the fan in the panel operates on an exterior 120V to 12V in-line adapter, *plugged into the nearest standard electric outlet."End snip
*
If you don't want folks to post on your threads DON'T BOTHER TO POST A THREAD!


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## FrostHeaves (Feb 25, 2011)

Must be the chemtrails causing a comprehension fail here.

Samp crap, different forum


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## Dixie (Sep 20, 2010)

FrostHeaves said:


> Must be the chemtrails causing a comprehension fail here.
> 
> Samp crap, different forum


*
If you've had a comprehension issues on other forums, then the problem might not be the people on the forums. I can't speak for all the other forums, but the people on this forum are not village idiots, most are remarkably bright. 
I can't imagine why someone would try to verbally hurt people that took the time to try to help you. Shame on you. 
Now, have you checked with Harbor Freight? They sometimes have solar panels on sale and they might be able to work you up something....but always wait on their sales. 
*


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

FrostHeaves said:


> Must be the chemtrails causing a comprehension fail here.
> 
> Samp crap, different forum


There is a wealth of knowledge and a lot of well informed people here. Attacking these folks and the board as a whole does nothing to make it a better place. We run a very friendly, non-combative forum here. If it doesn't suit you, you may need to find one that does.


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## Dixie (Sep 20, 2010)

UncleJoe said:


> There is a wealth of knowledge and a lot of well informed people here. Attacking these folks and the board as a whole does nothing to make it a better place. We run a very friendly, non-combative forum here. If it doesn't suit you, you may need to find one that does.


*He does bring up a good question. I'm adding on a very small room to my house, (300sq.ft.) wonder if there is a heat option that would be off the grid for that room instead of a wood heater*.


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## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

Dixie said:


> *He does bring up a good question. I'm adding on a very small room to my house, (300sq.ft.) wonder if there is a heat option that would be off the grid for that room instead of a wood heater*.


Passive solar heat (if you live in a sunny area ) is a great source of heat energy,there are several well written books with a great deal of information,quite a bit on the net too. 
Basicly if you can have a fairly large window that faces south you can capture the suns heat in some form of thermal mass , like rock, masonary,water or any other object with mass. one of the tricks to this is installing blinds so that the very window that heated your room in the day doesn't cool it at night. West facing windows cause unwanted heating in summer as the sun sets , the south facing windos won't get much direct sunshine because of the sun being overhead in summer. Visit permaculture forums: gardening, homesteading and permaculture there are lots of off the grid ideas here


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