[evilgenius]

Were having french doors installed to our backyard and taking out a large double glazed window. I plan use as part of a flat box with either alot of coppper pipes much like the thing on th eback of fridge or put a radiator inside the container with the window aimed at the sun.

Ive seen this done on television, some old guy in N.Ireland made one and it heated his water during summer months to boiling point and luke warm in the winter.

What do you think? a mild distraction for the summer if anything lol.

Similar to this, only more discreet.
http://www.byexample.com/projects/ea...tor/index.html

[johntheexpat]

Pictures too I hope!

[Corey USA]

Originally Posted by evilgenius

Were having french doors installed to our backyard and taking out a large double glazed window. I plan use as part of a flat box with either alot of coppper pipes much like the thing on th eback of fridge or put a radiator inside the container with the window aimed at the sun.

Ive seen this done on television, some old guy in N.Ireland made one and it heated his water during summer months to boiling point and luke warm in the winter.

What do you think? a mild distraction for the summer if anything lol.

Similar to this, only more discreet.
http://www.byexample.com/projects/ea...tor/index.html

I would recommend really small diameter pipes or modify the standard pipes and flatten them some into oval to increase the surface area in contact to sun.along with plenty of black paint on the pipes themselves. Since black paint absorbs energy it will transfer to pipes with a mirror background to reflect the sun that misses the pipes on the downward travel to possible it from sides or back of pipes. try to use only recycled material whenever possible. to reduce the overall footprint created by making it. after all the purpose it to reduce resource consumption and pollution

[evilgenius]

Well ive been thinking about it. Do i use say for instance the back of a fridge? This is little water flow and holds only a small amount of water. Or do i make the box bigger in depth and use a meandering copper pipe about .5 inche to 1 inch to hold lots of water and have it U bend along side itself in layers, perhaps 4-5 deep. The double glazed unit is 3 feet by 4.5 foot but will suffice for a prelimary experiment.

I would like a bigger glazed unit but this will have to do for now. I`ll be mounting it on top of my detached garage roof and im considering pmumbing it into a its own water tank below the roof. My garage roof is quite large so this gives me plenty of scope for making a larger one if this version works out.

[johntheexpat]

How are you going to supply the water? Straight from the mains or via a separate, free standing system that will require a pump? Will you go for a 'once through' kind of operation, where the water comes straight from the mains, passes through the solar heater once and is then stored as hot water? Which will save on pumping, but will be tricky to get the water to a steady temperature. Or will you have a system where the water passes through the heater several times, hopefully getting warmer and warmer.

All these questions. But it should be an interesting project. If the sun should ever start to shine!

[evilgenius]

Been thinking quite a bit. I plan to install its own boiler/storage tank and super insulate it with eco woola as ill be buying laods of this anyways any day now to reinsulate the loft.

The heater will have the water pass thru several times heating, and im considering plumbing this to the central heating pipe which is in side the garge also with my oil burner.

In theory it would mean that i could heat a tank of water and store it. What to do with it would be the tricky part. I just need to wait until the work starts to get my hands on the unit, plus i have major work going on at the house so i need to get this all cleared up first.

[dekoded]

Useful info and products here:

http://www.heatmyhome.co.uk/

[evilgenius]

A little update. The building work in my home has now started, thus I have been able to savage the doubl glazed unit I plan to use. In the picture you can see a large piece of insulation. Apparently it has the same as 3" of foam in 1" so Ill use that.

Ignore the mess in the garage, its the temp dump for the builders until the skip arrives.