PLUMBING UP MOTHER'S SOLAR FURNACE

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MOTHER NOS. 55 and 56 showed you how to build a low-cost solar furnace frame and a sophisticated tracking system. Now it's time to put those components to work!

Bark in MOTHER NO. 52 (pages 94-95), we featured a solar furnace designed and built by a fellow named Charles Curnutt out in Twentynine Palms, California. It seems that Mr. Curnutt had not only come up with an apparatus that captured the sun's energy and made it work for him, but he had done so for a total investment of only several hundred dollars. This meant that, for the first time, energy self-sufficiency was available on the "little guy's" level ... and that a small back yard—or even a rooftop—would provide enough space to house a genuine home powerplant!

Then—as if just inventing the furnace hadn't been enough—Charles granted MOTHER permission to copy and modify his design, and make it available to her entire readership ... which is exactly what she's been doing. MOTHER NO. 55 (pages 93-95) included an article on how to build the inexpensive sun-tracking system, and the following issue (MOTHER NO. 56, pages 142-146) detailed the frame construction process. Now we'll get on with the next phase: plumbing the furnace so it can be used to generate steam!

HOW IT WORKS

A steam generator (which is-in effect-a "simple" boiler) is mounted inside an insulated box and installed-on a boom made of pipe-about 10 feet above the mirror frame. Each of the one hundred 12" X 12" glass reflectors is then aimed directly at the boiler, creating a total reflective surface area of 100 square feet . . . enough (when concentrated on the 18" X 18" target) to create temperatures within the insulated steam generator housing in excess of 1600 deg F!

This intense heat then "flashes" the water (the liquid enters the serpentine boiler through one of its supporting sections of boom pipe) into steam, which in turn is forced out of the generator and through the remaining length of rigid conduit. Because the steam is under pressure (we achieved over 300 PSI during one test session), a check valve is necessary—on the "feed" side of the plumbing system—to prevent incoming water from being driven backward. This piece of hardware can be installed in the water line at any point between the control valve and the steam generator.

GETTING STARTED

If you've been working right along on your own solar furnace, you already have most of the tools needed to complete the steam generator assembly detailed in this issue. The only additional pieces of equipment you'll need are a tube cutter and a pipe threader.

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