Solar Convection Heating

I love the idea of using the energy from the sun to power my life. It's clean, readily available, and if it ever burns out, you have worse problems than not being able to make eggs in the morning, like the fact that there is a giant Black hole one million times larger than the rock you are sitting on,  93 million miles from your front door, and it's closing the distance.

Anyways, heat is one of the most primitive forms of energy. Anything can be turned to heat, and alot of energy is lost due to heat when using or producing energy. So why would you use energy to produce just heat? Unless that energy was free of course. Solar convection heaters are simple and they work GREAT. It's pretty amazing how much heat you can produce using just the suns radiation. Why not the sun light? It's overcast right now and I can still feel heat on my arms as I write this, the suns radiation penetrates some clouds and hits the earth as heat and cancer. But according to the state of California, so does my ray gun so I'm not too worried about it.

Man do I get off topic!

Anyways construction is simple, all you need are several soda cans, some silicone caulk, some aluminum foil, a box to put it in, some black spraypaint, a metal hole saw drill bit, some 90 degree elbows [to change direction of the air, you can also use dryer hose.] and something clear to cover the open face to the box. Some insulation wouldn't hurt either.

Step 1. Throw a party! What? you need some way to get all those cans together, why not throw a party?

Step 2. Build a 5 face box, You will put your heater in here, the solar rays need a way to get to the cans so leave one side open [you will cover this face with your "something clear"] The easiest/most sturdy way is a simple wood framed box, as this would be able to hold up better when being transported. Now paint the outside of the box black and line the inside of the box with aluminum foil or paint it with silver reflective spraypaint. This will catch some of the heat that hits the side of the box and conduct it inside. The silver is to reflect more radiation into the convection chambers [soda cans]. The neat thing about radiation is that it will penetrate your clear barrier to get in, but will bounce around on the inside and little will escape, making your heater more effective. Insulation inside the box would aid in heat retention although you wont be able to spray paint the styrofoam.

Step 3. Take your aluminum cans and drill out the tops and the bottoms of them, this will leave the structure of the can intact and allow you to stack and adhere them easily. Now take your silicone caulk and attach as many cans together as your box will allow. After the silicone sets, spray paint the can columns black.

Step 4. Put your can columns inside your box and attach them somehow [Use more silicone, or zip ties, or train a monkey to sit inside and hold them in place* ]

*NOTE: DON'T FORGET TO FEED THE MONKEY.

Step 5. Drill out holes in the top and bottom of the box where the top and bottom of the can columns meet. This will allow the hot air to circulate. Take your 90 degree elbows or dryer hose and attach them to the holes in the top. Take them and attach them to wherever you are heating, In my case I am attaching them to insulated hose and feeding it into my house.

Step 6. Add your clear something to the front of the box and put it out in the sun, have the cans facing the sun.

Step 7. FEEL THE HEAT! These things create silent heat as long as they are in the sun. There is a very high probability that you will have to shut the vent off in your tiny house because it will be too hot.

If you aren't getting enough heat you can run a hose from the intake inside your house so you use the warm air already in your house and heat it more.

The reason this design works better than the black box is thats the air travels up the cans, it is heated more and more. If you want to generate a WHOLE bunch of heat, place your cans horizontally and attach them together like a serpentine, giving you one long tube of heat. Leveling this would be your biggest challenge as hot air rises, although you could just lightly angle the output end up so the heat flows into the dryer hose and into the next pipe.


You could probably dehydrate foods using this heater, and your house will always smell delicious.


Here is a link to someone else who built one so you can get a better visual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqObr-M39Ug


The Colon D for the day is.
Pick flowers from a field and give them to people.

I saw some beautiful flowers in a field one day so I decided to pick some, I didn't really have a use for them [It's not like I would put them in a vase and have them wilt away in my house, that's dumb] So I gave them to people as I walked around town. I didn't care who, homeless folk, cute couples, random people, police officers, whoever! Sure they are going to look confused and probably ask you why you are giving it to them. I usually just say "I want you to have this." and offer the flower, then if they ask why I usually say "because it's a beautiful day." The smiles you will get are AWESOME!