Hot Water for the Homestead
(Page 4 of 5)
January/February 1974
James B. DeKorne
Another homemade wood-burning design, which makes use of the same principle as the old laundry stoves, can easily be constructed out of a 55-gallon drum. The barrel is used as a firebox and heats the water in a coil of copper tubing which fits inside. The making of such a device is described on page 75 of Mother Earth News, No. 22 and on page 26 of a very valuable book entitled Making Do: Basic Things for Simple Living by Arthur M. Hill (Ballantine Books, New York, 1972).
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Back in 1972, as I've said, we opted for wood to warm our bath water mostly because I didn't know enough about solar heating to be convinced that it would work well. Now I'm somewhat better informed, enough to assure you that the sun can and does do the job effectively.
Solar water heaters have been in use for a long time in other countries—notably Japan and Israel—and were fairly popular in Florida and California during the 20's and 30's. There are several basic designs, all of them easy to build. What amazes folks who have never seen these gadgets before is that they really do work!
One solar water heater design, invented by Peter van Dresser (see the interview in Lifestyle! No. 7), makes use of two pieces of corrugated iron roofing. The sections are placed face to face so that each corrugation combines with its opposite to make a "pipe" for the water to flow through (Dwg. 6). The sides of the unit are welded or brazed together and the "troughs" between the corrugations are joined by rivets, spot welds or bolts at intervals of approximately eight inches. (Great care must be taken to make those fastenings leakproof, a difficulty with this design because water pressure tends to force leaks at the rivet points.)
At the top and bottom of this heat collection unit, pieces of galvanized or aluminum roof-peak flashing, bent to fit, are brazed to provide for the intake and outlet of water. One end of each flashing tube is connected to a pipe, and the other is folded over and brazed watertight. The entire collector is painted black and positioned to face south to absorb the sun's heat . A piece of glass (not plastic) is placed over the device to help retain warmth.
The principle of this solar water heater, and of most others, is the same: Cold water enters at the bottom from a storage tank placed above the collecting unit. As the sun warms the surface of the metal, heat is transferred to the water inside. The warm liquid moves upward by convection and eventually displaces the colder contents of the reservoir. This process continues until the whole tank of fluid is heated and ready to use.
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