Our climate is changing so it is ever more important to manage heating and cooling in your home. This passive heater will save you money, too!
Build this window heater that uses the suns energy to heat your home or garage in the winter. No more drilling holes through the wall or rigging power hungry fans to blow air through your solar heater. This heater uses a thermosiphon effect to pull in room temperature (cold) air as it expels hot air into the room.
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Plan for this same heater was published in Mother Earth News somewhere between 1978-82. A friend made one using a glass top and three pieces of plywood with the glazing on top over flat black plywood. It measure roughly 2 ft wide by 4 ft long. The facility where I worked had a cooler where food products were stored. We brought the panel and did a temporary install to test it. We achieved a 20 degree difference on the air change pulling 40-degree (F) air from the cooler (bottom compartment) and witnessing 60-degree (F) air exiting the top glazed compartment. As I see it, what this first design lacked was a baffle that could be closed at night to stop the process, which may very well reverse at night. For the slow passive air exchange, I'm not sure the inconvenience of uninstalling it every night is a good idea. Perhaps just a block of foam to fit the window opening from inside the structure could serve as a shut -off at night.
Useless in England as we don't get any sun to Geo-engineering.We use to get sun but not now
Hydronic solar , works really well and won't stick out in the yard.Also could be turned off at the valve .
P.s. The board you used is referred to as strand board , not plywood .
hi I am a Mechanical Engineering student and My Instructor gave me same task to design and calculate also model this type of system mathematically and also drive equations of efficiency, heat transfer, thermal circuit.
will you kindly please share details of this project with me I will be very thankful to you
I can not find the results video? Did it work?
STOP SNIFFLING!!!!!
You did a great job on how to build a passive solar heater window unit, I will build one just like you did except for the screen, Instead I will use two layers of black shingles that I have extras of and let the sun heat them. 2 thumbs up on your design.
Nice video. Did you make an updated version? If not could you send me instructions based on your experience. Also
..does the angle of the box against the window make a difference?
Looks great, but we have a dull cloudy day here it's raining and cold that's only going to work if the sun is shining and you may not even need to heat the house.
I heat my house for free with a waste oil heater and it burns dirty car engine oil cleanly.