This $30 Solar Setup Heats a 30 X 40 Workshop for Five Hours or More Every Sunny Winter Day
(Page 3 of 9)
November/December 1977
By the Mother Earth News editors
The truncated triangle spacers were spiked into position in three evenly spaced horizontal rows so that they were two feet apart, center to center, both horizontally and vertically. Once they were in place we slapped a good, thick coat of black wood stain on the triangles, all the wall area bounded by the collector's main frame, and the inside and outside surfaces of the frame itself. (As you know, dark colors—especially black—tend to absorb the sun's heat, whereas lighter colors reflect the sun's rays away ... and we wanted our collector to absorb.)
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This is a good place to mention that you should not coat the inside of one of these collectors with a paint that contains lead or any other toxic compound. The relatively high temperatures sometimes generated inside the unit can release the noxious elements as gases which will then mix with the air drawn through the collector and spew into the living or working area that the solar setup heats. Even the wood stain we used emitted a rather disagreeable (though harmless) odor during the first few weeks our sun-powered heater was in operation. And that was bad enough. So take a tip from someone who knows: Paint the inside of your collector only with a high-temperature, flat black paint or stain that contains absolutely no toxic compounds and which—if at all possible—will emit no odors when heated to as much as 200°F or more by the sun.
THE BLOWER
Once you've framed in and painted the inside of your collector—and before you add the facing strips and plastic film to its front—you'll probably find it convenient to install the blower on your heater's exhaust (top) vent. (Although this blower is installed inside the shop or room that is to be heated—not inside the collector itself-you may very well find it convenient to put the fan in position with one man or woman working inside and a second on the outside of the building. After the plastic film is in place, of course, that will no longer be possible.)
We salvaged our blower from an old, unused gas furnace that was gathering dust in my father's basement. The "squirrel cage" fan was ideal (as well it should be, since that's exactly the kind of job it was designed to do) for distributing warm air throughout the 30' X 40' area we wanted to heat.
If you don't just happen to have an old blower on hand the way we did, ask around at your local furnace sales and supply houses. For every new central heating unit that goes into an already-built house, there's usually an old one that comes out. One dealer, in fact, told my father that he sometimes accumulates so many replaced furnaces that he has to cart them—lock, stock, and blowers—off to the dump. Which is why he's always happy to remove some of the fans and sell them for a price. His price? Usually about $3.00 for a blower with a working motor ... although we talked him out of four of the fans with motors and two without for a grand total of eight bucks. Bargain a little.
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