Has anyone had any experience building their own solar panels for home use? I have seen on the news lately that people are utilizing solar panels to power their hot water heaters to save on their power bill.
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iv never herd of it but if you take a enpty pringles can and cut a rectangle and take a bamboo skewer shove it in the botom and put a hot dog on it you have a solar oven it takes a half an hour to cook the hotdog
a solar hot water heater is not a solar panel that makes electricity that runs your hot water heater. . . . . It Is Merely a long tube or pipe, bent back on itself so there’s, say 100 feet in a 2foot by 4 foot space, it’s in a framework and under a sheet of glass or plastic; You put out in the sun and it captures heat. . . . . Ever notice how hot the water is coming out a garden hose that has been left out in the sun in summer? Same idea. . we have used them here in the islands for years and they work great. Even up north, a solar hot water heater that “preheat” the water before it goes to a traditional water heater should work fine.
I found an interesting article that describes utilizing solar power in the home. You can read it here http://ezinearticles. com/?Make-Your-Own-Solar-Panels—Eliminate-Your-Power-Bill&id=3262731. It’s a pretty basic article that gives you the gist of it.
You can make one out of beer cans.
Hey David, yes, we have built plenty of them. If you are into the do-it-yourself world, the easiest type to build is the batch type preheater. What you need is an old water heater, something small, like an under counter model, 10 to 30 gallons in size. It has to be one that has not rusted out yet and started leaking. We stopped at a local plumbing place in town, they are always throwing out units they have removed from homes because the new owner wants a larger unit, or gas versus electric, and so on. He sold us a pretty recent model for $ 10 Take the water heater, home and strip off the outer metal housing and all the Insualtion so all you have left is the tank. Clean it up, and paint it with black paint. Now build a wood enclosure, something the size of a dog house that will fit inside of your tank. Use a glass panel for one side of the roof. What works best is an old window pane that someone is throwing out is about the right size, then build your dog house to fit it. When it’s done, put some styrofoam insulation panels around the back and side walls to keep the heat in when the sun shines on it, then mount your tank inside. Put your dog house some place in the sun, run the cold water that normally feeds into your water heater into the tank (in the cold inlet side), then run a pipe from the outlet of the tank to your regular water heater. We have one just like this installed in the northern midwest, it works great about 7 months of the year. Usually in the summer if it’s about 75 degrees outside, the water comes into the house at around 100 degrees, then the regular water heater only needs to add another 25 degrees to the water to finish it off Since the water starts out at about 56 degrees, the solar preheater ends up doing about 65% of the work. In the winter, we simply drain the tank and lines to and from it, and route the cold water directly to the regular water heater. There are some designs on line, try googling, “Batch Water Preheater.” Take care, Rudydoo