The Smug Bastard
 

I think I mentioned somewhere that I installed a SolarSheat over the summer. We had a cold/dark week here so by Friday I was thinking about lighting our first fire of the season. Friday had occasional sun though which was enough to keep the living space from dipping below 68 degreesF my target temp. Yesterday and today are sunny so we're storing heat again. So it is October 5th and I'm in zone 5b feeling warm and smug, burning no fuel. I'm working on the basement this winter to make an insulated space that'll double as a quiet place to contain Lil' Griff's drum kit.

Yes, he certainly is.





;)

Bloody good for you!
I am very impressed and you have every right to feel smug.

I couldn't work out why I was so hot on Friday.
I checked the burners and the oven twice because the kitchen was so warm (we have a gas hob and the kitchen has a HUGE skylight, meaning people sometimes leave them on by mistake)

The third time I went in there I was so concerned I walked around to find out where the heat was coming from.

They'd switched the thermostat on. It was about 15 degrees outside! (59 to you) That's the temp when the weather starts being bearable in my book.
Shocking waste of heat, when the door to the yard was propped open.

Griff, I don't understand how or where it is installed. Do you have any pics?

The back of our house faces mostly south with no tree cover so we draw a lot of solar into our kitchen through the glass door and bay window. We have a manual awning on the deck, so I leave the awning down in summer and up in winter.

That solar panel might be good for our basement, but the basement is sunken except for 3 feet so I would need it to exhaust the air at the bottom.

I wonder how long it would take for the $2000 to pay for itself?

Griff, I did a search and couldn't find where you had discussed this before. Can you provide more details?

Google is my friend! Install:

http://www.yoursolarhome.com/docs/So...Manual_2.3.pdf

coll! link them together for more heat

http://store.altenergystore.com/mmso...on_7_13_06.pdf

I think they should design one of these that is a direct replacement for the screen in a sliding door. It's about the right size and would only require designing it to fit in the track.

I guess they could even make one to replace a hinged door. That would be handy, particularly if it came pre-hung.

I'll have to take a picture. I have a South facing walk-in basement. What I'd like, in fantasy world, is for the solar heater to eliminate the need for the pellet stove. We've found that if the basement gets too cold the Russian fireplace we heat the rest of the house with has to be burned more often. My thinking is to super-insulate the basement keeping the pier the fireplace is on from getting cold and conducting heat out of it. If it works as I'd like the payback is 10 years when pellets are $200 a ton. However, that assumes I won't have to replace the used pellet stove I've been using with a new one. I think the stoves are starting at about $2500 these days.

Sliding door would not really work without significant clearance for input/output duct, even just the opening. I would forever remain passive but I guess you could just put a little door or them that open and close with a slide.

That is a brilliant idea!

Rich, you can mount them landscape style as well.

On our sliding doors, the screen is on the inside, so you wouldn't need the ducts. The fan (and thermostat) could be inside the panel.

Griff: can you pass along more technical data?

I have a friend who is redoing his house and might be interested in this. Is this really worth the investment?

Brian

Heres a page with specs. I'm looking at this as an experiment. I don't think it would be useful as a main source of heat, but as a way to take the edge off a cold shop or basement it should have value. It only runs when it has direct sunlight, which works for me because those tend to be the coldest days. My basement temperature rose 17degrees yesterday under optimum conditions.

Would probably work for us since we live 3 miles from the sun.

Nifty Griff.

We just finished the insulation phase of our master plan and now have 8" of dense packed blown cellulose in every wall of the old house. Plus all new insulated windows. The addition has 5.5" of cellulose and the kitchen, since it is mostly windows has 5.5 inches of rigid foam board. R-30.

No heat yet, a comfy 68 inside. We are angling to put in a solar hot water maker for domestic HW this year, as a shake-down cruise for a larger array to heat. We use about 350-400 gal of oil per year to make hot water. At $4.00/gal that's about $1400 to $1600/ year. The solar system installed (by me of course) would run about $3800, so that's about a three year payback. Unless of course oil prices plummet to .76 a gallon, then I'm fucked.

[Mother Earth] : pats Griff on head: [/Mother Earth]

I now covet the SolarSheat. I'm on the second floor of a 5-story building, and have no south-facing walls...but I do have an east-facing wall. Hmmmm.

I wouldn't worry about oil getting too cheap. :) That sounds like a good plan footie. "They" say hot water is the best place to start.

Thanks Mom!

I also covet the SolarSheat. I'm already working on the analysis of 1 vs. the 2 pack and horizontal stacked vs. side-by-side.

I'm thinking of installing one so that the intake is on the lower floor and the heat delivery vent is low on the dining room wall, which is on the upper floor. I think that will maximize the heat delivery.

[GHWBush]Na gah dah[/GHWB]

East won't get it done. When you need the heat in mid-winter the sun rises in the South East. It won't be direct enough.

Uh huh. Well, I am configuring an explanation to the Philadelphia Historical Commission, as to how the SolarSheat will be more beneficial than it is damaging to the facade of our old-ass building.

Oh, just read Griff's post. Nevermind.

Coool! :)

Griff, by-the-way, do you know how to type the ° symbol (as in °F)?

It's Alt-248.[/pedantic]

liar!

[dumb enough to have tried it]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, classicman. Hold down either Alt-key, press 248 on the number keypad (not the row above the letters), then release the Alt-key. Try it. You should get °. There are a lot of characters you can type this way. For example, Alt-0248 is ø.

°
HLJ is my new hero. You are the mutherfocking man! I have been trying to get that shit to happen on my keyboard for, like, forever. ◘•○♠○°♦•◘X▐Ü♦7▬o

Umm, how do you make the infinity sign? (not the car)

Windows - Alt Key Numeric Codes
 

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/i...s/codealt.html

http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm

http://www.tedmontgomery.com/tutorial/ALTchrc.html

http://www.yellowpipe.com/yis/tools/ALT-Characters/

I haven't looked it up, but is this one of those deals that absorbs solar heat, then blows it into the house when it gets to a certain temp? I read an article on how to build those things years ago. I've a got a shitload of South/Southwest exposure on my place.

nope nothin :(

That's the idea. Mother Earth News had a do it yourself article with plans for one without a blower, then I saw the SolarSheat and figured I'd go that direction.

Sounds like the same principle as a heat pump. Is that the case?

Not really, a heat pump captures latent heat from the air, water or ground, whereas this thing accumulates solar heat and transfers it indoors.

I've seen a number of DIY articles, using the same principles, for everything from home heating to drying firewood.

That's where I read it, actually. :D

∞

I can be smug too.

Pete lit a fire while I was away last night. Oh well, better snug than smug. On the upside one armload of wood, a 50° sunny day, and the house back up to temp.


ye olde laptop no number pad... copy / paste expedient googling for next time.

Sweet. I am very jealous. I've been contemplating turning on the heat. I really want to make it to November before I turn it on, but it's been cold in the morning. It was 58 in the room when I got up today.

We've only got insulation in the attic floor, and one of the upstairs exterior walls. Retrofitting insulation in this house is not a straightforward task and the payoff probably wouldn't come in my lifetime.

I didn't have guts enough to push it that far.

Have you looked at exterior insulation? It might be cost effective if you were going to do siding anyway. Air quality is an issue as well though.

It's been in the thirties outside upon waking every morning here. Which means the inside house temp has been in the fifties. Bless it all, it's time to turn on the dang heat!! (house was built in the early 80's; no spiffy solar heat or anything like that for us. Wood burning fireplace. Good thing we've got five acres of trees...)

That would be the only solution I can think of, but that opens a different can of worms when you have that extra thickness to deal with in various places. Mostly, it's getting to the point where we are willing to do a costly home improvement like that where you only get a small, mostly cosmetic, benefit, and a hope for an eventual financial payoff.