catjac1975
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Has anyone ever seen a solar heater for a greenhouse? Not too expensive?
Solar heater for greenhouse
- Thread starter catjac1975
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Chickie'sMomaInNH
Garden Master
not really but i have seen a neat home-brew design for a solar heater using soda cans spray painted black and encased in plexiglass. i've also seen the dryer vent tube used instead of the cans. http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2007/04/26/almost-free-garage-heat-just-drink-a-lot-of-soda/
if you live near the southern NH/ME border i could give you plenty of soda cans to use for this! we are cleaning out my FIL's house and for some reason he seems to have been collecting a lot of empty cans.
if you live near the southern NH/ME border i could give you plenty of soda cans to use for this! we are cleaning out my FIL's house and for some reason he seems to have been collecting a lot of empty cans.
Smiles Jr.
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I have seen several. The two that I think were the least costly (to build and to operate) were:
1. A pile of round rocks piled up in the center of the greenhouse and painted flat black. They absorbed the solar heat all day long and released the warmth all night long. I do not have any technical data of the efficiency or effectiveness of this approach but the owner says it works much better than his expectations.
2. A 3-sided lean-to type of greenhouse with the back wall (the solid exterior barn wall) covered with black 5-quart plastic oil containers stacked up to create a wall covering of these bottles. The bottles are filled with a 50/50 mix of water and anti-freeze. On sunny days the black surfaces warm the liquid and the liquid gives off the heat at night. This was my design and my greenhouse. It worked very well to allow me to extend the growing season in the fall and to allow early starts in the spring. It sometimes maintained a low of 40F inside when the nighttime temperature was as low as 20F. But the warm area was, obviously, close to the oil bottles and it was much colder near the clear plastic walls of the greenhouse. I made 1/4" thick foil covered bubble-wrap blankets for the inside surfaces of the walls which helped tremendously. But in the end I abandoned the use of the blankets as they were a big hassle (putting them up and taking them down every day as well as storage space). After I used the greenhouse about 12 years a storm blew the barn down and my greenhouse with it. I plan to build a new one this winter.
I hope this helps.
1. A pile of round rocks piled up in the center of the greenhouse and painted flat black. They absorbed the solar heat all day long and released the warmth all night long. I do not have any technical data of the efficiency or effectiveness of this approach but the owner says it works much better than his expectations.
2. A 3-sided lean-to type of greenhouse with the back wall (the solid exterior barn wall) covered with black 5-quart plastic oil containers stacked up to create a wall covering of these bottles. The bottles are filled with a 50/50 mix of water and anti-freeze. On sunny days the black surfaces warm the liquid and the liquid gives off the heat at night. This was my design and my greenhouse. It worked very well to allow me to extend the growing season in the fall and to allow early starts in the spring. It sometimes maintained a low of 40F inside when the nighttime temperature was as low as 20F. But the warm area was, obviously, close to the oil bottles and it was much colder near the clear plastic walls of the greenhouse. I made 1/4" thick foil covered bubble-wrap blankets for the inside surfaces of the walls which helped tremendously. But in the end I abandoned the use of the blankets as they were a big hassle (putting them up and taking them down every day as well as storage space). After I used the greenhouse about 12 years a storm blew the barn down and my greenhouse with it. I plan to build a new one this winter.
I hope this helps.
