Do-It-Yourself Solar Heat Collectors

February/March 2006
By Tabitha Alterman 
solar heat grabber, solar home heating
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If you have at least one unshaded, south-facing window, you can use a solar heat grabber to direct warm air into your home.
J. WEILAND
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Wouldn’t you love to heat your home with free energy from the sun? There are simple, inexpensive, do-it-yourself solar projects that can reduce your heating bills.

RELATED CONTENT

The sun’s energy can be captured by homemade solar hot-air collectors and thermosiphoning panels to provide free heat. The units direct air warmed by the sun through a window or wall opening into the adjoining room.

If you're serious about cutting your home heating bills this winter, one of these inexpensive, do-it-yourself projects will help:

Solar Heat Grabber
Build this simple solar heater that hangs outside of a window and sends free heat from the sun into a room.

Building Plan for the Solar Heat Grabber
You can build a heat grabber from this detailed, large-scale plan.

Building Plan for a Solar Hot-air Collector
This shed-type hot air collector will help heat your house in the winter and offer storage space in the summer.

The Hot-Line Solar Collector
This is similar to a conventional flat-plate solar collector, but what makes this panel unique is that it contains a specially curved reflector which acts to concentrate incoming sunlight on a wedge-shaped absorption tube.

Storm Window Solar Heating Panels
This article details how to use recycled storm windows to make a solar hot-air collector that delivers heat into the home through a vent installed in a south-facing wall or window.

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