My Mother's House Part VI
(Page 3 of 5)
July/August 1982
By the Mother Earth News editors
The next surface was formed by the same technique, proceeding from the end of the now 4" first line (again, the new line must be perpendicular to a tangent at its 3-inch point). Two more 4" segments were determined in a similar fashion, and the final 10-3/8" reflector was also positioned by setting it perpendicular to a tangent intersecting it 3 inches from its starting point. (If all this seems excessively confusing, you can simply prepare a template from the scale drawing that accompanies this article.)
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GETTING FRAMED
The frame for our batch heater consists of five plywood ribs tied together with 6-foot 2 X 4's. The three center sections, which carry most of the weight, are formed from 3/4" plywood . . . while the two end pieces are cut from 5/8" sheets. As you can see from the drawing, the ribs include extensions, which serve as support for the tank . . . and the lowest of the 3/4" braces is also shored up with a frame of 2 X 6's, which extends down to connect to the mounting system beneath the box.
We cut our reflectors from a single sheet of 3/4" X 4' X 8' foil-faced polyisocyanurate foam (marketed under the brand names Thermax and R-Max). Each of the two 4" sections that start at the cusp must have one edge angled about 30° to fit up beneath the tank. The 10-3/8" outer segments should also be trimmed off separately, but you can save some time in forming the three center reflectors for each side—and maintain the integrity of the inner sheet of foil—by slicing from the back to (but not through) the foil along lines 4 inches in from each side of two 12 "-wide sheets.
Because our tank didn't extend the full length of the 6-foot box, we cut out additional angled pieces of insulation that would bounce light back onto the tank from the open end areas. (Depending on the dimensions of your unit, this more involved step may not be necessary.) All the reflective sections were taped together with adhesive-backed aluminum duct wrap. At this point, we also ran the hot and cold lines out through the insulation (installing unions at the tank so that the vessel can be removed easily) and sealed up the holes.
In keeping with the "make do" nature that the entire project had assumed, our glazing cover also became a bit of an experiment. Since the tempered glass of the greenhouse should serve to protect the inner glazing, we decided to try out a vinyl product that several staf members have used successfully for storm windows. Flex-O-Glass (made by Warps) was available at a local hardware store for 20¢ per square foot, so the double layer that we used cost less than a single sheet of fiberglass-reinforced plastic would have!
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