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Babblin5 created a simple way to save some of your heating costs this winter. For the effort needed this project sounds like it would pay for itself in a about a week of operation!
“Create a cheap and green solar heater for less than $10. All you need is foam board, lots of pennies, black spray paint, and plexiglass. The assembled product should be placed next to a window and can increase the room temperature by a minimum of 10 degrees (according to the video), depending on the amount of sunlight that reaches the heater.”
Via: Life Hacker
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November 22nd, 2007
This is wrong in so many ways. His collecter is blocking sunlight that would heaat the room if left free.
The black paint will transfer heat to the air. The pennies do nothing to help that.
Are the pennies gpoing to store heat? Not really. Pennies haven’t been made of copper since 1982. They are zinc.
I like free range sunlight. The large South window in my house let’s me solar heat about half my small ranch house. No collecter required other than the house itself.
It’s nice that people are trying but, this isn’t the way to do a solar collecter.
November 22nd, 2007
@Fred: Black surfaces absorb sunlight and heat readiation a lot better than a white/grey/whatever carpet or a flagging would do.
And even if you had a black floor in your house the sunlight would heat up the ground, and a lot of energy would be wasted for heating your concrete-floor.
But in one point you may be right, the effekt will not be improved very much by pennies.
For everybody thinking of rebuilding this heater: Pay attention to what kind of plexiglass you are using. especially high-quality plexiglass can have an infrared-blocking effect.
November 22nd, 2007
[...] Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab wrote an interesting post today!.Here’s a quick excerpt Babblin5 created a simple way to save some of your heating costs this winter. For the effort needed this project sounds like it would pay for itself in a about a week of operation! “Create a cheap and green solar heater for less than $10. All you need is foam board, lots of pennies, black spray paint, and plexiglass. The assembled product should be placed next to a window and can increase the room temperature by a minimum of 10 degrees (according to the video), depending on the am [...]
November 22nd, 2007
[...] more here [...]
November 22nd, 2007
I’m looking forward to doing this… I live in Maine, so this will DEFINETLY help!
November 22nd, 2007
We had a large sunroom in a house many years ago, when the floor color was changed to a darker color there was a significant increase in the room temperature. I can see this working mainly from the black color. I am not sure how much mass the pennies have but I was at a conference a few weeks ago and one of the discussions was about how effective concrete can be as a heat storage device.
November 23rd, 2007
Why don’t you just get dark/black window blinds?
November 25th, 2007
Have to go with Fred on this one. The pennies do nothing. A plywood box with a plain glass/plastic cover, painted black inside, would do the same.
Oh….. remember to cut holes for the fan & duct work. Some people know just enough to get hurt. (sigh)
December 4th, 2007
The problem with this comes to when it’s the night and because as well as absorbing heat very well, black surfaces also radiate heat very well, so you might lose some heat from your room at night if you leave this out.
December 5th, 2007
Actually the pennies will help. On a hot summer day which is hotter, a painted black piece of wood vs. black metal on a car’s hood? The metal is hotter as it is denser and absorbs more heat from the sun’s light on a molecular level. Why in a room does a metal object FEEL colder than other objects? If they have both been in the room for a while they are both at room temperature. The reason is that the metal is denser and the heat from your hand touching the metal is transferred from your hand faster due to the metal’s density. That said, the form board should be wood, or the denser the material the better and you certainly don’t want to insulate the unit from the room. Plexiglass is overkill if the whole thing is kept indoors. 3M type interior window insulation, the clear stuff you shrink with a hair drier would work much better.
August 8th, 2009
This is all great information. However I still think the best way to heat a home is with geothermal heat pumps.