Solar Can Heating for Shop

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MrAudio815

MrAudio815

New User
Matthew
Re: 11+ Hours later

Gotcha6 said:
Probably a Moderator decision to move or edit the thread since the issue seemed to take on a life of its own & needed to be in an more appropriate forum.
Click to expand...



Cool, That makes sense. It is a good thread and some great ideas/advice~!


Thanks Everyone....Actually Thanks Dan, your Can's started this~! :notworthy:
 
froglips

froglips

New User
Jim Campbell
Re: 11+ Hours later

Busted! I did it. And, if I had to do it all over again, I would!

Its a very fascinating topic, and one I thought many of us who are "cold" in our shops could enjoy.

Jim

Gotcha6 said:
Probably a Moderator decision to move or edit the thread since the issue seemed to take on a life of its own & needed to be in an more appropriate forum.
Click to expand...
 
K

klimb2hi

New User
klimb2hi
Be interesting to see what the temperature rations would be based upon the following factors: Outside temperature, sunny/cloudy day, size of room being heated. Is that data available?
 
Don Sorensen

Don Sorensen

New User
Butch
I agree with Roger (sapwood) (Happy Birthday!) I don't want to give up my bottles!.

Oddly, it can be 20 degrees outside, but if it's sunny, my poorly insulated two car shop is just comfortable to work in, if you don't mind wearing a sweater. But if I could get it up to the 60's with a nice dry heat...hmmmm. Let me go back and look at those links.
 
CrealBilly

CrealBilly

New User
Jeff
It would be nice to have an optimum collector area / CFM / inlet / outlet / room area matrix or calculator.

Looking at yours I'm guessing the collector is ~ 2'x6' what are your pipe sizes, CFM rating on your fan and shop size?

What would really be cool, would be to be able to power the fan with a solar cell / 12v rechargeable battery, that means no paying the electric company to run the fan. Some sort of 12V thermostat with programmable logic to work the fan and and a baffle to stop air flow. Let me think on the logic for that)

I think with a little effort someone could produce a set of plans with a bill of materials and a collector area / CFM / inlet / outlet / room area matrix. I know one thing I would buy such a package... I mean this thing just sits there and collects heat from the sun. Once it's constructed and installed there is practically no maintenance and most importantly no propane to buy. What a cool idea to cheaply supplement the heat bill.

Looking forward to more info...

Thanks
 
Gotcha6

Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
One of the BORGs sells a solar powered attic vent that may be suitable for that use.
 
dlrion

dlrion

New User
Dan
Pipe sizes? It is made from Beer Cans... so Beer Can size I guess... is that your question?

CFM?? No idea, I Cann'd a small fan from a shop heater.
My shop is 13' x 26' and VERY VERY drafty.

All in all it ended up costing about $80... as I have it now... if you don't figure in the attic fan I bought. I did have it running on battery power, but the money you save is not worth the poor reliability On very cold days the battery tended to run a bit sluggishly, since the heat in the shop comes from the air flow, it was a sort of a death spiral. I had one of those "Polar Bear" solar attic fans running the air, but I paid upwards of $150 for it, and decided that it really is not worth the extra effort, for the attic, I think it is a great idea, but for winter it is designed wrong.

I ended up cannibalizing a fan from a cheap heater, I think I got it for $10 on sale at Lowes. What really makes this work is a small snap disk thermostat that kicks the motor on at 135 degrees, and off below 95, this way, when it is cloudy the whole unit will wait and charge up, then dump all the heat in the shop at once, instead of running the fan constantly. I put a "Kill-A-Watt" unit on it that measures energy consumption and came up with 25-35 kilowatts a month... but I shut the thing off during the week when I am not in the shop. At 11 Cents a kilowatt hour I didn't think I was breaking the bank.

It sounded like it would be GREAT to me, but the cloudy days produce very little. The trees on my border also don't help. I would say if you are going to mount this on a pitched roof facing south, it would be worth it, on a flat shop roof, it is worthless, and on the side of the shop where shadows fall it is ok, but hit and miss sometimes.

Does anybody know how to measure or calculate BTU's? That would make it a whole lot easier to compare.
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L

lonehunter

New User
Jeff
The normal heating of the air would cause the air to flow but, I have seen where a 12 volt computer cooling fan and a cheap Harbor freight solar panel was used to circulate the hot air.



Jeff
 
L

lonehunter

New User
Jeff
Re: 11+ Hours later

MrAudio815 said:
The Guy on the Right, He is new to North Carolina Woodworker....dlrion.....Dan Rawlings.... He added his shop at the last minute and I am very greatful, it made for a great end to the Goldsboro Shop crawl. :notworthy:

He showed off his wonderful scroll saw puzzles, had a old Mail box with a chimney that he burns wood in to keep his shop warm....A blazing 70 degress (80 over the box). He is a great member to North Carolina Woodworker already, and has some great ideas.


Sure missed you Jeff.
Click to expand...

How about a pic of the mail box heater?


Jeff
 
dlrion

dlrion

New User
Dan
Here is the Mailbox heater,

I have to give credit where it is due though, NCGrimbo took the photo.

You can see the fire blazing through the mail crack, I use this to let more or less air in.

I get the wood for free, so it's a no brainer to me.
 
L

lonehunter

New User
Jeff
Thanks, for the pic.

So did you just cut a opening for the stove pipe in the back of the mail box?

Is there a grate that the wood sits on to make it burn better?

Do you have any problems with smoke in the shop?

Thanks,

Jeff
 
MrAudio815

MrAudio815

New User
Matthew
dlrion said:
Pipe sizes? It is made from Beer Cans... so Beer Can size I guess... is that your question?

CFM?? No idea, I Cann'd a small fan from a shop heater.
My shop is 13' x 26' and VERY VERY drafty.

All in all it ended up costing about $80... as I have it now... if you don't figure in the attic fan I bought. I did have it running on battery power, but the money you save is not worth the poor reliability On very cold days the battery tended to run a bit sluggishly, since the heat in the shop comes from the air flow, it was a sort of a death spiral. I had one of those "Polar Bear" solar attic fans running the air, but I paid upwards of $150 for it, and decided that it really is not worth the extra effort, for the attic, I think it is a great idea, but for winter it is designed wrong.

I ended up cannibalizing a fan from a cheap heater, I think I got it for $10 on sale at Lowes. What really makes this work is a small snap disk thermostat that kicks the motor on at 135 degrees, and off below 95, this way, when it is cloudy the whole unit will wait and charge up, then dump all the heat in the shop at once, instead of running the fan constantly. I put a "Kill-A-Watt" unit on it that measures energy consumption and came up with 25-35 kilowatts a month... but I shut the thing off during the week when I am not in the shop. At 11 Cents a kilowatt hour I didn't think I was breaking the bank.

It sounded like it would be GREAT to me, but the cloudy days produce very little. The trees on my border also don't help. I would say if you are going to mount this on a pitched roof facing south, it would be worth it, on a flat shop roof, it is worthless, and on the side of the shop where shadows fall it is ok, but hit and miss sometimes.

Does anybody know how to measure or calculate BTU's? That would make it a whole lot easier to compare.







Click to expand...



Thanks Dan,

Those are some great pic's. Thanks for the how to.

And Like Jeff said, a solar unit from Harbor Freight and a small computer fan should work great.
 
dlrion

dlrion

New User
Dan
Yeah, I just used tin snips to cut a hole, and they have an adapter at Lowes that you just insert into the hole, and bend over. I sealed it up with heat resistant caulk. I originally had a 3" muffler from a big dodge cummins diesle truck that I used as a stovepipe... It didn't work very well and smoked a LOT. So I replaced is with the big 6 inch dryer duct pipes from lowes. I could have bought real stove pipes but they were like 60 bucks instead of 12 and the big difference was the black heat resistant paint... I don't care if it looks rusty, I care how it heats!!

I have an oxacetalene torch and a welder, and had an old grill, so I took the grate off of it, and welded it back together in the proper shape. It DRASTICALLY increases how well the unit works.

This works alright, but the problem with this is the problem with every wood burning fire, it does not properly combust about 80% of the fumes that come off of the flame. I am going to create a downdraft gasification burner next year. I have been experimenting in small scale, and I am VERY impressed!! It sucks the fumes down into the stove, mixes them with more air, superheats them then ignites them again in a secondary burner!! You can actually run an internal combustion engine from a wood gas generator, and it is WAY more efficient combustion of wood.
 
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