Solar Water Heater DIY

Do solar panels work in cloudy weather? Learn how one Oregon resident designed his own solar water heater DIY project to heat his home, even after weeks of overcast skies.

By The Mother Earth News Editors
Updated on April 1, 2023
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by AdobeStock/baisa

Do solar panels work in cloudy weather? Learn how one Oregon resident designed his own solar water heater DIY project to heat his home, even after weeks of overcast skies.

Back in 1967, when most of the world was still scoffing at the notion that the sun could be a viable source of home heat, a retired carpenter and construction millwright named Henry Matthew built a six-room solar house on Oregon’s cool and very foggy coast. Henry’s self-designed system — which consists of 725 square feet of water-type collectors and an 8,000-gallon storage tank — has furnished 75 percent of his Coos Bay home’s heat in bad years and as much as 90 percent to 95 percent most of the time! Henry’s solar success story so impressed the University of Oregon that its scientists monitored the system with a battery of instruments for many years.

A Solar Engineer Ahead of His Time

As you might suspect, Henry — a modest, soft-spoken do-it-yourselfer — has had a long-time interest in solar energy.

“When I was a boy,” he recalls, “my father would tell me, ‘Someday people are going to store up heat in the ground… solar heat.’ Then, when I was 40 or 45 years old, after my father — who was a lawyer — retired in San Diego, he wrote to me, ‘If we could buy some of this inexpensive desert land down here and put in a solar pump to irrigate it with, we could make some money.’

“Dad’s idea sounded good, so we located a book called Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy by Farrington Daniels. After he read that book, though, Dad decided that the project would require too much work, and he backed out. But, I was still sure it was feasible. Then I learned that Harry Thomason had designed a successful solar house, and I knew right there that I could build one, too — and maybe even improve upon his design.

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