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How To Produce Easy, Free Home Heat

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How To Produce Easy, Free Home Heat

Based on a design by a mechanical engineer who writes a column for over 100 national newspapers, here's a way to increase the heat in a cold room using nothing but the sun's energy! Based on a design by a mechanical engineer who writes a column for over 100 national newspapers, here's a way to increase the heat in a cold room using nothing but the sun's energy!

Step 1: The Idea

Winter is fast approaching and so are higher heating costs. What if I told you that you could lower your heating bill this winter by using 100% free heat? We all know how hot a car can get when it sits in the sun with the windows closed. That’s because the sun’s light is converted into heat. And that’s our perfect source, the sun. So I’ll show you how to make an inexpensive solar heater that uses this hot car effect very efficiently.

Step 2: Create The Board

I use a 20”x30” piece of foam board as heat converter. Pennies makes an ideal medium because it is both easy to find and because copper is highly conductive and absorbs and disperses heat very effectively. I sprayed the foam board with adhesive and attached the pennies in rows. And then used black spray paint to maximize the conversion of sunlight into heat. I then cut another section of thorn board into the four pieces to build the frame.

Step 3: The Finished Product

The slits cut into the two-end sections create a circular airflow within the room by using the heat as it rises to draw the cool air into the heating unit. I use a hot glue vent to assemble the frame. Then used packing tape for reinforcement. I used an inexpensive clear plastic drop cloth then cut a section to cover the front of the frame and attached it with more packing tape. This gave me an enclosed area that would give me a good basis for testing the design.

Step 4: The Test

As you can see the outside temperature was 75 degrees. I placed the heater in the sunlight and within five minutes the temperature had risen almost 35 degrees. Despite the fact that it was quite windy. My final step was to replace the plastic sheet with a piece of plexiglass to provide a clear window and greater overall strength. This solar heater can be placed from the sill of any window to get sun and will quite easily raise the temperature of a 15 x 15 x 10 ft. room, by a minimum of 10 degrees. Which is about 8 thousand bits used of heat or roughly 2.5 kilowatts of energy every hour. With an average of 3 hours of sunlight per day, that could translate in to $35 to $45 energy per month. Not bad.

Step 5: Your Chance To Experiment

Now here’s an easy way for you to test the cell for yourself. Simply take a plastic bin and lined it with a piece of black poster board like this. Cut slits in the ends then hold it against the sunny window. Even though it’s not nearly as efficient as a full blown solar heater, you’ll soon quickly feel the hot air as it rises from the top. Have fun and thanks for watching.

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Tips & Comments
  1. bobskiferguson

    Like the idea-but reading the conflicting comments i wonder if it would be better to have several of these boxes--or just one long one just above the ground outside the house--from a pvc tube sealed to the boxes and fed into the house via hole drilled in wall--or by building a small enclosure that fits round tightly round one of your smaller windows-when slightly open.If the window attachment is sealed then no heat is lost and you could have as many of these boxes as you want -linked together to add to the heat your own glass windows are already providing. This could also be used for basement apartments etc- with enough boxes you could have free heat during sunlight hours-now all we need is a way to store that heat for when its dark--what about build the boxes deeper and at the back put in the bricks used in electric storage heaters-they build up heat and when the sun goes down-we may get another couple of hours heat from the bricks-more free energy--should be able to pick these bricks up for free-just search the salvage places or houses getting pulled down etc recycling at its best. Im no engineer but these are just my thoughts as i like the idea of free heat and looking at it just now--heres an idea i have been think of--when you heat your rooms most of the heat goes to the ceilings i believe!--in that case 4 small vents one in each coener of the ceiling and linked to a floor vent in the room above could let us use that ceiling heat ti heat upper rooms--allowing us to turn down our heaters upstairs and save energy and money.

  2. jesse_a_b

    The solar energy that enters the windows will provide as much heating power... this gadget is useless

  3. suz7

    Dan Sharp Ireally like the way you clearly explain your ideas. Would you address the possibility of using underground homes as a way to keep energy costs down, solar hot water heating alternatives - maybe even outside showers heated by black hoses, additional heat collected from inside fireplaces, solar ovens how to make them...

  4. Anonymous

    Why would you need heating when it's sunny? neat invention but this is like a solar-powered torch

  5. Anonymous

    The temperature reached in the device when it was outside shows the potential of solar energy. But how are you increasing the net solar energy when you bring it indoors? The sunlight would have entered the room anyway, and would have ultimately been turned to heat, except for that which would be re-reflected back out the window. Cars get hot because there's a large amount of window compared to the amount of air to be heated. But you have not increased the total amount of light warming the room in your house. A lean-to greenhouse against the house wall, with openings in the wall high and low for convection would increase the amount of sunlight heating your home (it could be double-paned for insulation, and you would probably want to remove or cover it with something white in the summer). Or install more windows, provided that they are well-insulated so that you don't lose more heat on a cloudy day, or at night.

  6. chacha1

    worth having a go,will start savingthe pennies for the board now.

  7. Anonymous

    awesome my housemate always turns the heater on when its cold instead of rugging up but now i can set these up and save money...housemate cant complain anymore and we save gas.

  8. Anonymous

    If you live in a dungeon then you probably have other things to worry about.

  9. Anonymous

    I'm building a little cabin in northern BC and I'm going to try this. Thanks for the tip!

  10. Anonymous

    only just found videojug by accident the whole site is cool and this idea is so cool its freezing thankyou noname