Passive Solar Heating Basics. Posted Categories: Construction Methods The very root of what makes a home green is how effectively it responds to its surrounding environment. You could say that this has defined the primary material pursuit of mankind for all time – building better shelters to keep us warmer, cooler, and drier. Many of the native building techniques employed centuries ago are still reliable in similar climates today, and used as optimal models for environmentally conscious architects. That said, since global acceptance of the air conditioner in the 1950s, the benefits of responding to a unique climate have been left by the roadside. The principles of passive solar heating, such as basic types of systems, their description, and the components making up any passive system are presented in this course.
Sources of data for heating requirements and available solar radiation throughout the U.S are identified and discussed along with a method for estimating the rate of heat loss from a home. FreeBook Download Page. Installing your own small, remote off-grid solar system by Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM. A typical residential-size solar system installation will involve properly sized and installed AC and DC electrical wiring to reduce the risk of electrical fire, a proper grounding system to prevent shock and lightning damage, proper battery installation and venting to prevent gas explosions, and a properly installed solar array to maximize performance while avoiding roof damage. In almost all of my past articles I have described many different types of solar power systems, but did not go into detail on how to install them yourself, since most systems should be sized and wired by licensed solar professionals.
However, the Backwoods Home website continues to receive many e-mail questions related to smaller do-it-yourself solar projects for remote weekend or vacation cabins in areas not served by power lines. Otherwise—don't try this at home. I am staying with all 12-volt DC equipment which has a limited shock hazard and allows using many of the electrical components you can find locally.
The Wood 103. This page is all about a rather silly, quick project where in about 1 day I built a small wind generator using the following items, and nothing else.... (1) Wood (2) Copper wire (3) Surplus Neodymium magnets (4) Dirt (5) 10" piece of 3/8" steel shaft (6) Two bolts, but these are optional. ...and that's all, unless we count glue, and linseed oil which I used for finishing.
Pictured above is one of the magnets I used. Above you can see the armature for the alternator. Pictured above you see the wooden pillow block bearings. The stator, on which the coils are wound was cut from two pieces of 2" X 4" lumber. I dragged a magnet around in the dirt of my driveway, so that it would attract the magnetite sand. The dirt was mixed with epoxy, so that I had a thick paste. The completed alternator!
To stay with the "style" of the project I decided to build the whole windmill out of wood, it's a fairly simple design and should be self explanatory. The prop is wooden, made from 1" X 4" lumber. Solar Slab. Using large super-insulated water tanks to inter-seasonally store solar hot water is popularly known as the Sonnenhaus concept in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The water tanks vary in size from 40,000 litres for a standard house to up to 200,000 litres for apartment buildings and usually cost between £1.50-£2.00/litre. Sonnenhause owners boast heating bills 50% lower than the occupants of Passive Houses. The Solar panels and Water tank can be a costly addition to the construction budget and they can take up quite a bit of room.
In order to explore this concept a super-insulated 10,000L Hydro Thermal Energy Store (below) was connected to 24m2 of Solar tubes in Cork in 2008, this reduced the clients heating/hot water bill by 65%. 24m2 of drain-back solar thermal tubes heat the water in the tank which reaches over 90 degrees most summers. A 12V PV powered pump fills the drain-back solar tubes with water when the sun shines, so there is no need to use antifreeze. Solar Slab Passive Slab. Tesla's Big Mistake? While experimenting with a long, thin 'secondary' coil from a Tesla Coil, I suddenly connected up several things in my mind which had been separate up to that moment.
After years of messing with Tesla Coils, I finally see what Tesla was up to with single wire transmission, with resonant coils, and with longitudinal waves. See if the following doesn't make sense. If we wrap a single-layer coil of wire upon a very long plastic tube, we have a Tesla resonator as in Fig 1 above. In essence, this is an an electrical transmission line. We can inject AC into one end using a little primary coil wrapped around.
Now we put a metal sphere on either end to prevent corona from spewing out of the dangling wire tips, and we've built a simple electrical power system. This is the infamous single wire transmission line. In conventional cables there are two conductors, and the voltage between them forms the "E" part of the EM wave. Interesting? HOWEVER, this is not unique. How does this relate to Tesla? Renewable Energy & Efficiency Technologies | Home Power Magazine. 99mpg. Our Simple DIY Home Solar Power System. Bringing some of the benefits of electrical power to our off-grid home has been a hit-or-miss affair. Over the years we’ve tried some very simple approaches to lighting and small battery recharging for our flashlights, such as hauling a 12 volt car battery to a small rural school about a half mile away every time it needed to be topped up.
This was time consuming and inefficient. But we didn’t want to lose the feel of our simple home by bringing in a large generator and the jugs of gas needed to run it, and the prospect of setting up a wind turbine or solar array seemed expensive and a technological eyesore in a natural setting. …developing Eartheasy.com using a dialup internet connection on a phone line strung through the woods was challenging… Today, with the help of a local expert on off grid home solar power and alternative energy systems, we have the best of both worlds. The cost of this complete solar system, in today’s pricing for the components, was less than $1000. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Sue Robishaw and Steve Schmeck, Unique Artwork and Homesteading Notes from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Off-Grid Power. Off Grid System This section is dedicated to off-grid power as well as back up power systems. Articles: Brooks Solar Living Off Grid – 12/10/2010 Build Your Own Generator – 12/10/2010 Cheap Solar Power Setup – 12/10/2010 Choosing a Backup Generator – 12/10/2010 Emergency Power Options – 12/10/2010 Generator Buying Tips – 12/10/2010 Generator Sizing – 12/10/2010 Getting Started in Solar – 12/10/2010 Home Power Magazine – 12/10/2010 How much is enough?
Living Without Electricity – 12/10/2010 Low Voltage Living – 12/10/2010 Power Outages – Things to be Aware Of – 12/10/2010 Red Cross Power Outages – Things to be Aware Of – 12/10/2010 SunWise RV Kits - 12/10/2010 Video’s: To Download Video’s – Right Click on Link and Select “Save As” , then Select Download Location on Your Computer If you click on the link itself – video may not play.
Reference Material for DIY Solar Projects. Solar Research Home Page. Solar Energy. How I built an electricity producing Solar Panel. Several years ago I bought some remote property in Arizona. I am an astronomer and wanted a place to practice my hobby far away from the sky-wrecking light pollution found near cities of any real size. In my attempt to escape city light pollution, I found a great piece of remote property.
The problem is, it's so remote that there is no electric service available. That's not really a problem. No electricity equals no light pollution. I built a wind turbine to provide some power on the remote property. Here is a video of the solar panel set up and in use on my remote, off-grid property. Let me state up front that I probably won't be able to help you out much if you decide to build your own solar panel(s). So what is a solar panel anyway? I started out the way I start every project, by Googling for information on home-built solar panels.
After a while, I came to some conclusions: <a href=' seller. A solar panel is really just a shallow box. Make a Simple Solar Air Heater - Solar. Heat a room or outhouse with a solar heater made from recycled aluminium cans solar | heating Using the sun to heat water is a very cost effective way to save energy. Typically payback on even the most expensive systems is under ten years, with DIY Solar Water Heaters paying for themselves in just a few months.
Similar techniques can be used to make a Solar Space Heater - a device which warms the air inside a room or building. Solar Garage Heater Pictured above is a simple small passive solar heater made from recycled aluminium drinks cans and used to heat a garage. If the building to be heated is well insultated, a solar heater such as this can lift the temperature by a significant number of degrees. Offcuts of 2 x 4 and a sheet of plywood were used to build a box to tightly hold 5 rows of 10 black-painted aluminium drinks cans . Click here to find out more about this basic almost free garage heat project. Building a Solar Space Heater Building the Box Drilling the Cans Solar Heating Links. 40W Polycrystalline Solar Power Panel - GreenergyStar Grid Tie Inverter, Grid Power III 600W, For Solar & Wind Hybrid Systems. Solar Panel Specification: Solar panel generates free energy for many general household appliance. These solar panels also specially designed for use in sailing boats, green houses, cars, radios, recreational vehicles, portable televisions, warning lights, flash lights, garden lights, house light, garage lights and ventilators for rooms and cars.
They can also be installed into a grid-tie system. - 36 pieces silicon solar cells - Enclosed with epoxy and high-quality resin material - Rain proof, rust proof and corrosive proof, protects against wind, rain, salt air and solar radiation. - Weather resistant, charge batteries in dry/wet condition Comparison Chart: One Per Cent: Grid-scale battery could keep going and going... Hal Hodson, technology reporter We need a big battery for when the sun doesn't shine (Top Photo Corporation/Rex Features) A new battery technology may pave the way for cheap, long-lived power storage that can quickly pump electricity into the grid to compensate for fluctuating renewables like wind and solar. Developed by Yi Cui and colleagues at Stanford University in California, the battery's key advantage is its electrodes, which can run for a thousand charge cycles without degrading.
Battery electrodes typically degrade over time as ions in a battery cell repeatedly slam into them and are ripped away again. By coating the negatively charged cathode in copper hexacyanoferrate and using an anode made of activated carbon and a conductive polymer - compounds that allow electricity-carrying ions to move easily in and out - the team were able to build a prototype battery with electrodes that didn't lose capacity over time. (Image: Business Wire) Sustainable design, zero energy passive solar green home HTM high thermal mass holistic housing consultation packages for the earthhome do-it-yourselfer. With over 20 years of experience, we are the original zero-energy green home building company! Sustainable design, zero-energy, passive solar homes are free from mechanical climate control systems for truly independent living.
Our website is packed with loads of valuable free information, so please take the time to read all of this passive solar chapter and all of the many detail pages. Learn why high thermal mass (HTM™) dry stack block, mortared concrete block, or poured-in-place concrete wall construction is a much better answer than super-insulated (high R value) air-tight construction for ANY climate. Conventional stick framing, log homes, strawbale houses, autoclaved aerated concrete construction, and especially insulated concrete forms ICF's are simply not feasible, passive solar, sustainable design materials because they don't effectively store and release energy.
HTM construction homes will function just fine in any climate, anywhere in the world. Atlantic Canada Solar Directory | Solar Nova Scotia. Power Strength & Energy Solutions Ltd is a renewable energy company utilizing the latest technologies to bring about the most efficient use of the sun's energy for residential and commercial applications.
These applications include solar thermal for domestic hot water and space heating, wood stoves/boilers, wood chip boilers, pellet stoves/boilers, photovoltaic for electrical energy generation and LED lighting. We combine solar thermal collectors and wood boilers/wood gasification boilers which is a great marriage. Our principals have over 30 years experience in the fields of renewable energy. We bring this experience and expertise for the advancement of clean, safe renewable energy systems. As a Professional Energy Manager we can run calculations and Energy Audits for energy efficiency projects. We design and install systems to strict and safe standards in accordance with local code requirements. Areas serviced: Canada, all provinces and territories.
Solar Water Heating Projects and Plans. Solar water heating systems have a good economic payoff, and are manageable systems to install or build as a DIY project. Some of the solar water heating designs are very simple and low cost. You can save as much as $7000 by building your own system. There are just over one hundred projects with full construction details listed below -- all free. The projects range from simple batch heaters for warm climates through closed loop and drain back systems that will work in any climate.
One of the systems is our own $1,000 solar water heating system that has provided a solar fraction in excess of 90% through our cold Montana winter. My thanks to the people who have built systems, and then taken the time to send in pictures and descriptions for others to use. Directory for this page: Information on pumps, heat exchangers, heat storage tanks Controllers, pipe insulation, backdraft dampers and other components for solar space heating systems here... Solar Water Heater kits or packages... Questions? Prices drop - GreenergyStar Grid Tie Inverter, Grid Power III 600W, For Solar & Wind Hybrid Systems. Bradford Research and Extension Center: Building a Passive Solar Greenhouse. DIY Solar Projects Part 1: Build a Solar Heater Using Recycled Cans.
A few months ago we did an article about Cansolair Inc’s brilliant solar home heating solution that uses recycled aluminum cans in a forced convection solar heating unit. These units work by pulling cool air from a room, passing it through a panel of aluminum cans that are heated by the sun, and blowing the heated air back into the room. Just about anyone can make one of these heaters, and they can be constructed from mostly recycled materials. This is a fairly simple project for DIY’ers that can be used to heat a home, a greenhouse, a camper, a garage, a cabin, or just about anything else you can think of.
Once the unit is built, all you need is an outside wall for it to sit against that will get plenty of sun. As long as the sun is shining, you will have free heat with little to no maintenance costs. Comments comments. Turning soda cans into solar heating panels. Brilliant Newfoundlander Invents the Solution! DIY Passive Solar Water Heater- Vol. 2. DIY Solar Projects Part 2: Simple All-In-One Solar Water & Space Heater. Before You Go Solar – READ THIS | Off Grid World | Page 2. DIY Solar Water Heater For About $30 In PVC Supplies And Paint. Build a Simple Solar Heater.