sunshine to dollars and blackout

7/31/2019 SunShine to Dollars and Blackout

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SUNSHINETO DOLLARS

CAPTURING FREE SOLAR ENERGY AT LITTLE OR NO COST

Fast, Easy, Visual Solar HeatinCooling, Cooking a

Experimen

Steven E. Harriswww.StevenHarris.net

www.KnowledgePublications.com

2003 KnowledgePublications.com

Energy is Life

$19


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For my Father, Mel Larsen, Edwin York and Cresson Kearny

Copyright, 2006

By


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Contents

Title Page__________________________________________________________________

Dedication and Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Why Waste is Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

This Book, Solar energy, and the Future of Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

Free Solar Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Free Glass and Mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

What to Do With All That Glass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

A Twenty-five cent Window Heater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Making a Solar Oven for $9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Uses for a Solar Oven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Solar Hot Water Heater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Desalination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Excellent Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

The Solar Puddle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Free Fresnel Lenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Free Insulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Ice Making and Air Conditioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Heat Exchangers for Hot Water and Cooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Steam Distillation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

New House Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Updates To This Book and Energy Philosophy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Civil Defense & Solar Ovens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

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There is no advancement with-out waste. There must be theability to test something andbreak it. The ability to makemistakes in development work iswhere discovery is made andimprovements are forged. With-out the capability of having asurplus of material so multipleversions can be developed, com-pared, and analyzed side by side,there IS no advancement. Forexample, if a person has ONE ofsomething, they are not going todo experiments with it and risk itbeing lost. If sand were asscarce as gold, transistors wouldhave never been invented, letalone developed to the state thatthey are today.

This philosophy is good formodern development work and

engineering, such as designingvehicles, computers, and eventhe silicon in the chips that arefound in everything that isaround us today. It also appliesto the home experimenter in you.Why haven't you done solar ex-perimenting on a large scale, forperhaps your entire house? Theanswer is probably because ofthe cost of glass. "What size do

I get? Do I need two pieces?When it expands from the heat,will it break? I really want a bigoven, but that requires $200 inglass alone, etc. We are al-ways finding reasons NOT to dosomething. This book is goingto show you how to get enough

glass and other free items tobuild a solar oven, NOT one thatis one foot by one foot, butFOUR FEET by EIGHT FEET.

There will be more than enoughglass to waste, break, drop, or tomake mistakes with. In doingmy research for the writing ofthis book, I lost about one inevery ten pieces of glass forvarious reasons. The glass wasbroken either in hauling, mov-ing, experimentation, or by theneighbor kid (Anthony and hisslingshot). Once, I accidentallyleft a double piece of glass lyingon a black metal surface in thesunshine. Well, the sun heatedthe black metal, which heatedand expanded the first layer ofglass that was in contact with thehot metal. That piece of glass

expanded at a different rate thanthe second layer of glassand...well, when I came backfrom Home Depot, I had a shat-tered pieces of glass on myhands. Oh well, I have twelvemore pieces just like it, and I justlearned something :)

Some of the biggest businesseswere started from someone

elses waste product. Back inthe early 1900s, "gas" for cook-ing and lighting was made in asteam reformation process ofcoal. This made carbon monox-ide and hydrogen gas (for moreon this, get the Hydrogen & FuelCell Video at www.Knowledge- Pub-

lications.com). The process wasnot ran at the high temperaturesthat are used today. It alsoformed byproducts, most ofwhich was a sticky, stinky, blackmess called COAL TAR. Thiswas something the gas compa-nies had to pay to have hauledaway. This coal tar was a treas-ure trove of chemicals, one ofthose being just what wasneeded for the manufacture ofred dyes. At that time in history,a red dye was hard to make andvery expensive. Well, a smallcompany started using the coaltar to make dyes, other pigments,and then a whole family ofchemicals, resulting in the com-pany's growth. Maybe youveheard of the company, TheBASF Corporation.

I could fill this book with exam-ples of businesses that werestarted from another companies'waste, but this book is about us-ing waste to gain knowledgethrough experimentation as wellas to make solar energy relateditems, many of which can besold, and all of which are fun.

Remember, waste is good. Next

time you see waste, look at it asan opportunity to make some-thing else, an opportunity tomake money, and an opportunityto learn (and have fun).

Why Waste is Good

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This Book, Solar Energy

and the Future of Energy

What is the future of energy, andwhat is it going to look like?

Where should a person study andlearn to be a player in the energyfuture rather than a participant.

People ask me these questions allof the time. I have been deep intothe energy business for manyyears doing experiments, devel-opment work, and very focusedon the subject of energy. I under-stand the role of energy in human

life. I know the history of energyand invention I also understandthe human spirit, and the instinctto drive forward and improve. Iunderstand energy from 8000years ago to 500 years into thefuture. Ive worked on manyconfidential research projects re-garding energy, and what couldhave been done 100 years ago, 40years ago and what we can do

today. And not only what we cando today with our engineeringand manufacturing, but what wecan do tomorrow and a few yearsfrom now. If you knew what Iknow right now, you'd be stayingawake all night like an excitedchild who just saw Star Wars forthe first time. The possibilitiesare endless. I'll be sharing a littlesecret with you in this book.

This book is very low tech. It is ahands on, how-to-do-it-in-your-backyard, book. For those whowant to be a part of the excite-ment of the future energy busi-ness, this book is a better primerand instructional tool than anyfancy $100 books. They discusslong formulas and containdiscus-

sion about fuel cells and new gen-eration photovoltaic and otheritems on the front page of PopularMechanics.

The real future of energy is notProton Exchange Membranes(PEM) powering vehicles andhomes, or Solid Oxide Fuel Cells(SOFC), and it sure as heck is notsolar cells on roof shingles (whata failure). The strength we havein year 2003 is not the new tech-nology. It is our ability to domass manufacturing with world-class economics. In our wonder-

ful disposable society (which isgood), we make things faster andcheaper and in greater varietieswith newer versions quicker andeasier than we ever have before.It is only through mass manufac-turing and 21st century materialscience that we will make solarenergy so affordable that it is ac-tually disposable. Imagine a dis-posable solar energy device.

The future of energy is not inhard-to-make membranes for ex-pensive fuel cells and one billiondollar solar cell manufacturingfacilities. Here's the little se-cret...the future of energy is madeof iron, steel, aluminum, copper,plastic and glass. We know howto mass manufacture these itemscheaper and faster than at anytime

in history.

This certainly does not sound assexy as the stuff that Popular Me-chanics uses to put on their frontpage. All they care about is sell-ing magazines, and most of theirwriters are English and Journal-ism majors. The articles aredumbed down to the lost, com-

mon reader.

What is the future of energy? Itlooks like many of the items inthis book uses wood, metal, glass

and plastic, and the sunshine thatis falling on your head all daylong. This book contains the fun-damentals that you must under-stand to be a future player in theenergy field.

The items in this book are massmanufactured in such quantitiesthat most of the items get thrownaway. Asmart person can get

glass, wire, wood, metal, andmore, for free. A 20-year oldglass door will work as well as anew piece of glass for a solarheater. All you have to do is hoseit off and maybe clean the inside.

These are the fundamentals andYOU can LEARN them YOUR-SELF in your yard. This doesNOT require going to college or

buying expensive books or expen-sive equipment. If a person wantsto be in the energy field, it is in-cumbent upon that person toteach himself or herself.

This is 100 to 200-year old tech-nology that we can use to makeenergy today with 20th and 21stcentury materials.

My objective with this book is ahope that the reader can startlearning and experimenting withenergy TODAY instead of justreading Popular Science maga-zine and dreaming about workingwith energy.

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FREE SOLARPANELS

These panels cost me absolutelynothing, that is, free. I justhauled them away. How?Where? This is one of the rea-sons you bought this book, right?Have you seen flashing arrowsigns on the highway near roadconstruction? Many of these aresolar powered. The alpha nu-

meric signs that flash words andnumbers are also solar powered.These bulbs used in the sign tomake the flashing arrows used tobe powered by diesel engines,such as the Lister diesel engine.Now these signs are powered bysolar panels, large batteries, andLED based illumination. A sim-ple "arrow board" trailer typi-cally has two 55-watt Siemans

panels on it with two or three8D-sized lead acid batteries.Each battery weighs about 200pounds. Imagine this heavytrailer with six hundred poundsof batteries, several hundredpounds of metal, being hit by adrunk driver (BOOM). Well...ithappens all the time. Drivers hitthese things on a VERY regular

basis, especially during the win-tertime. The panels end up get-ting cracked. Actually, theglass laminate on top of the poly-crystalline solar cells getscracked while the cells them-selves are typically okay. Thou-sands of cracks will run aroundon the surface of one panel mak-ing the top of the solar panelless clear. Thus, the glass ab-sorbs some of the incoming solarlight, which gets turned to heatrather than striking the solarcells. These panels, that were 55watts when new, now put out 15to 25+ watts for me in the Michi-gan summer sunshine. But, theywere free. When NEW (2001),each 55-watt panel costs $230-$330. My cost for the fracturedpanel at half-output was $0. InOctober of 2002, I had over sixty

panels like this. That's free en-ergy. As you drive down thehighway and see these arrowboards, take note of the names ofthe company on the arrow board.These are generally NOT ownedby the state, and those are gener-ally NOT state workers out there.The workers you see are a con-

tracted construction company andthey RENT the arrow boardsfrom a rental company. Ap-proach the rental company andask them to save the broken solarpanels for you. They normallythrow these in the trash. The in-surance company for the con-struction company will pay therental company for the damagedpanels.

A friend of mine and I put tenpanels on a frame made of 2x4s,and we wired the panels up.Three men and myself manhan-dled this up a ladder and onto myroof. We should have only putfive panels on a frame rather thanten, as it was a little heavy. Nev-ertheless, after a few screws, abunch of wire, and some wood, Ihad free electricity on top of the

house. The panels feed into abattery bank in the basement,which is connected to a simple1750-watt modified sine waveinverter. I do the charge control-ling manually. With these, Ipower the lights and the fans inmy basement. I do this typicallyduring the daytime when I am

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down there working. Sometimeswhen it is hot, I just hook up thesolar panels to the 12-voltblower in my homemade airconditioning system. If I add agood trace inverter/charge con-troller to the system, wire it intomy house box, and put up somemore of the solar panels, Illhave a nice system. I still haveabout forty more panels to putup. The wiring and the frametake time. Half my house isshaded from 1PM to 7PM by abig tree, but that keeps the housecooler in the summer. As youread this book, you will find thatmost of my solar work is in areasOTHER than photovoltaic (PV).The only reason I have these upis because the panels were free,plus I like to have panels upcatching sun that I can use forcharging batteries used in otherexperiments I am doing.

Ive frequently said that I thinkphotovoltaic solar panels are theWORST thing that ever hap-pened to the solar energy field.It seems people thought this wasthe nirvana and the pinnacleof solar energy that could bereached, but no one bothered to

do the math. PV panels take tento fifteen years to pay back theirmoney. Also, consider theamount of electricity it tookmake the silicon. Regardless ofthe faulty articles some solarpower magazines have put out, a6th grader can calculate the Re-turn-On-Investment numbers.There are more inexpensiveways of making electricity withsolar energy, and there are waysthat are far more efficient. Theinexpensive ways are typicallyless efficient, but are made ofnothing but iron, steel, copper,aluminum and other mass manu-factured components such aspipes and tubing and glass orplastic. The solar-based systemsthat are very efficient typicallyinvolve extremely high tempera-tures beyond the abilities of met-als. For an in-depth discussionof this subject, see my otherbook, The Positive Promotion ofHydrogen Energy, A Model for

Success in an EconomicallyDriven Market. When it is avail-able, it will be at KnowldgePublica-tions.com.

Sunshine to Dollars is NOT go-ing to be the typical solar energybook you read. This book is go-

ing to SHOW YOU HOW to doexperiments around YOURhouse with simple tools and in-expensive or FREE materials.This book will ENABLE you,not just tell you about things youcan only dream about or thatareout of your reach. It is the au-thors opinion that the largestvalue from this book is theFREE GLASS that can be easilyobtained. Even free solar panelswon't lower your electricity bill.There is still a charge associatedwith getting an inverter and withthe life cycle of storage batteries.Making a solar heater and blow-ing hot air in even ONE roomdirectly reduces fall/winter/spring-heating bills. Batteriesfor solar electric systems mustbe replaced approximately everyfive years, and cost hundreds tothousands of dollars. Glass,wood, and insulation in a solarair heater can last for twenty tofifty years and cost only a fewdollars. Every major solar pro-ject in the world has failed dueto poor economics and principle.Don't let your home experimentfail for the same economic rea-sons.

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These are the high-way construction

arrow boards I amreferring to. Thisone is folded over fortransport, and thesolar panels that nor-mally point straightup can be seen.These are two 55-watt Seimens panels.These panels are

okay and workingfine. I'm waiting for

a drunk driver to hitthis so I can get themfor free.

This is my pickup truckloaded with about 25 so-lar panels. Some of thepanels are bent, and allof the panels have acracked laminate on topof the solar cells. All ofthe panels DO work and

will output energy in thesunshine. One of thealpha numeric highwaysigns can be seen in thebackground. These lar-ger signs have six 80-watt Seimens panels andabout twelve Trojan six-volt golf cart batteries.I've not seen a drunkdriver hit one of these

yet. If one does, he'll getwhat he deserves, and I'll

get a bunch of free solarpanels and maybe somefree batteries. The guyswho run the sign rentalcompany will be gettingsome hot corn bread andbeer when I show up toget the panels. It is al-

ways good to show ourappreciation to the peo-ple who are saving thepanels for you. Some-thing fresh and deliciousgoes a long ways and isalways appreciated.

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FREE GLASS(the best value in this book!)FREE glass can make solar ov-ens, solar water heaters, solar hotair heaters, and anything youwant solar. All this glass is dou-ble insulated (two sheets), tem-pered safety glass, and it is allfree. If I can get all I want, socan you. I looked in the yellowpages and called some glass andwindow companies. Severalwere ALL TOO HAPPY for me

to come pick up the glass. Thissaves them from paying for thedumpster that the glass goes into.Since I work for a non-profit or-ganization, I even offer to givethem a receipt for tax donationpurposes. Many of them donteven want to bother with that, butare glad to get rid of their glass.They set the glass aside for meand I come by at least once a

week and pick it up. If someoneis going to save glass for you,make sure you stop by and keepit out of their way. When theycall and say, "Come get theglass," you get over there fastand get it. I prefer to get theglass that was removed from slid-ing glass doors. These are typi-cally 34" x 76" and have two

sheets of safety glass. Safetyglass is hard to break unless you

hit a sheet on the edge. Whenthese do break, the sheets breakinto rock salt-like bits, in sizeand shape, that are easily sweptup. They dont break into largeshards that will act like a guillo-tine and cut your hand, arm, leg,face or body. The glass in thephoto (bottom right) in woodframes is also double insulatedglass. This makes it easier forme to include these in experi-ments because I have wood I canscrew into, making the piecesmore manageable. The free glassI get is not perfect. Manytimes, the glass is slightly foggeddue to moisture getting in be-tween the glass sheets because ofa seal failure. That doesntbother us in a solar heating sys-tem. The solar heat will quicklydrive off any water in the glass,and a little silicone will plug anyholes after the water is drivenout. Right now, I have enoughfree glass to cover my entire roofif I so desired. Further chaptersin this book will show the glassbeing used for passive solar heat-ing and for a solar oven.

FREE MIRRORI got all the free mirror I needed

from one glass supplier. Themirror was to be used for brandnew condos and the sheets had afew very, very faint scratches inthe surface. This was unaccept-able for a $300,000 condo, but asa reflection surface for a passiveheater, this is great. I got 1/4"plate mirror, but all kinds can befound for free. I would suggestusing a thinner glass mirror, as

the 1/4" stuff is heavy, and isNOT safety glass. You can eas-ily get cut if it breaks. I got over200 square feet of mirror for freefrom one glass supplier.

Wear SAFETY GLASSES andUSE GLOVES. Don't be afraidto ask the glass guys EXACTLY

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These doors will beturned into outstandingsolar ovens for baking

bread and cooking otheritems. The glass will beat a forty-five degree an-gle to the sun, reflectorswill be off the top and thebottom, and the walls willbe made up of the freefoam core doors andfoam core door knockoutspictured in this book.

These glass doors canalso be used in a flatbox type solar oven asdocumented further inthis book. Again, thewood around the glass

makes it very easy to at-tach a reflector on hingesor the wood of an insu-

lated solar oven.

Other framed, doublepane, insulated windowglass is seen on the bot-tom left of this photo.The doors are double-sheet, tempered safetyglass. These doors wouldcost over $200 each. Theglass is over $100 if

bought new (if not more).These six doors wereFREE and will makegreat solar heaters or ov-ens.

I got all this glass in one day. Ittook less than thirty minutes todrive to the glass shop, load the

glass, drive home, and unload it.This is not the same glass pic-tured on preceding pages. Thisis additional glass, and there wasmuch more on the way at thetime I was writing this book. Icurrently have enough glass tocover my entire roof with solarheating. This glass is beingused to make the greenhouseenclosure for the front porch

documented in this book.

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...and its available for

freeif you go at night.This is the punch line to the oldjoke, but this is no joke. I got

everything you see loaded onthe back of my pickup truck allfor free, just for the asking (notgoing at night). I got all this inone day and it took less thanthirty minutes of effort. In-cluded in the haul of treasuresare two 1800-psi CO2 tanks. Ican use these for storing naturalgas, hydrogen, air, or any othergaseous products. The next

most inexpensive brand newtanks would be SCUBA divingtanks that are about the samesize but can be rated up to 3000or 3600 psi.

The satellite dishes came from acompany that installs DIRECTTV. Ask your local Circuit Cityand Radio Shack what companyinstalls the dishes they sell. Ap-

proach that company and ask forjunk dishes. I got the CO2 tanksfrom someone who moved intoa new building and discoveredthe old tanks in there. They

threw the tanks out.

I have six broken solar panelsthat will output half their en-ergy. This was from the roadsign rental company that rentssigns to road construction crews(see previous chapters). I have

six 18" satellite dishes with themetal dish and the supports forthe LNB and the roof mounts.The dishes will be coated with areflective surface (aluminum

foil works) and used for solarconcentration. The mountsmake it easy to mount the dish,a solar panel, a passive solarheater, or solar oven on a wallor a flat surface. This makes iteasy to point the solar collectorup and down or side-to-side di-

recting it towards the sun. Ihave three large pieces of insu-lated safety glass for solar ovensor solar heaters, and I haveabout five smaller pieces of thesame type of glass. This glasswas removed from houses whena local glass company installednew glass. The wood framearound the glass actually makesit easy to attach and mount the

window to whatever solar ex-periment or invention I amworking with. The glass had athin film tint on it, but a sharpknife and a can of $1 carburetorcleaner took the film and its ad-hesive off the glass in just a fewminutes.

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WHAT TO DO WITH

ALL THAT GLASS

This is a marked up photographof the front and side of my sim-ple little house. I have insertedlines to show where I am goingto build a greenhouse type ofappendage onto the house. I willstart by enclosing in about threefourths of the front porch withglass. For this I am going to usethe sliding glass door glass I gotfor free. Ill make a simple cus-tom frame for the front porchwith two by fours and one by

twos to hold in the glass. Thesystem will be modular and bolttogether such that I can take itdown with about 30 minutesworth of work in the late spring.I am NOT doing this as a perma-nent addition for several reasons.I dont want to have to go get

permits and such and this is anEXPERIMENT. I will havetemperature probes and data re-cording devices monitoring theweather, the sun shine and the

temperature in the green house.This will allow me to make im-provements and additions to thefront greenhouse. The concreteporch will server as a crude heatsink and Ill use a blower tomove air from the house into thegreenhouse on the porch, the hotair will then enter the front win-dow and move into the house. Ihave lines drawn on the front of

the house (the part that is not theporch) and I could put a simplegreen house there, however Idont think Ill make somethingthat large. I might make two orthree solar hot air heaters fromtwo or thee sheets of glass, butthese will be below the windows

and above the bushes.

The shingles on the southern partof the roof need replacementsoon. Right now half the bad

area is covered with PV panels Igot for free and the other halfwill be covered with glass aspart of a solar hot air heater. Ithink glass will make a betterroofing material than the shin-gles. Also, the tempered slidingglass door glass can take oneheck of an impact so it should beVERY resistant to hail. Wehave taken a hammer and beat

the middle of the tempered glasssheets. It took 6 hard hits beforethe glass shattered. ONLYTEMPERED glass will behavethis way. Regular glass willbreak with a very small impact,be careful!

A solar oven and air heater willgo into the win-dow where the

air conditioneris just above andto the right ofmy pickuptruck.

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I ended up making a simple hotair heater for the front southernwindow. The photos show theheater without the insulationon the in and out air ducts.The air ducts are the aluminumtubes used for cloths dryer

venting. The glass is free. Theback of the heater is 1/2" ply-wood painted black, and thereis a piece of two-inch foambehind it attached with liquidnails. A frame of 2x4's keepsthe glass off the black wood,and a 2x4 runs down the center

from the top to abouttwelve inches from thebottom. The air enters at

the top, is blown down theair heater, and comes backup the other side (becauseof the 2x4 divider in themiddle), and then exits thetop as it goes into thehouse. This very crudesetup would blow 105Fair into the house anytimethe sun was shining. There

are two reflectors on each sideto add more sunshine to theheater. There is a thermostatfrom Grandier in the middle ofthe heater. When the air is100F, it turns on a six inch$20 heating duct blower from

Home Depot that moves thehot air into the house. I forgotto plug in the blower one dayand the heater quickly got over200F and melted the plasticon the thermostat .There are better ways of mak-ing a solar heater but this is agreat start and learning exer-cise.

If you live in a glass house,don't throw rocks. I amglassing in part of the frontporch, making it a small

greenhouse. With the doublewall insulated glass, it gotwarm quickly allowing hotair to enter the house. I wasunable to complete this theway I wanted to because thecity wanted a permit for theconstruction. The permitprice was based on the cost ofthe construction, which was$18 for new 2x4's. The in-

spector could not believe Igot all of the glass for free

and how low the whole thingcost. I decided this was moreof a headache than I neededat the moment in my

neighborhood, so I elected totake down the glass porch. Ittook less than 30 minuteswith a power screwdriver.Less than an hour later, it wasas if it were never there. As Imentioned before, it wasmodular and intended to beput up and taken down withease and not as a permanentaddition to the house.

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Inside View

Vertical blinds UP

Air gap between thebottom of the plasticand the window sill,only one to two inches

Black plastic taped to acurtain rod over awindow

77F air OUT of thetop with Februarysunshine inMichigan

3-Mil black plasticfrom Home Depot,costing a few dollarsper roll

67F Room Air INthe bottom air gap

Sides of plastic are open.Its just a hanging sheetof black plastic

Outside View

A Twenty-five Cent Window Solar Energy Heater That

Workswww.KnowledgePublications.com www.SunshinetoDollars.com

Steven Harris [email protected]

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WHY IS THIS DIFFERENT?What is different about this and sunshine

just falling into a room? In Thermal Sci-ence, it is called QUALITY. Simply put,heat quality is the temperature of the en-ergy. When sunshine normally falls into aroom, it will hit the carpet, a desk, a paper,a wall, or a sleeping dog. All of these itemsreflect, absorb, and bounce the light in adifferent fashion. Some light gets bouncedonto the ceiling where part of the energygets absorbed and reradiated as heat, whilesome of it gets reflected to other parts of the

room. The black plastic sheet is VERY re-ceptive in the absorption of sunlight, andabsorbs most of the sunlight in one limitedspot of air between the plastic and the glass.This reduces how fast the heat can get awayand allows the air to get hotter (have ahigher quality). The black plastic absorbs

the ultraviolet (visible and infrared wave-lengths of sunlight) that make it through the

glass, and re-radiates the energy as longwavelength infrared light. You can mildlyfeel this on your face when standing closeto the plastic. Cool air thermally siphonsfrom the bottom of the plastic, warms up,and moves out the top of the plastic/windowair gap. This simple trick noticeably warmsthe room up, making it feel much morepleasant. The whole window can beblocked with plastic, or only part of it canbe blocked to save some of the view.

I used a three Mil, black piece of plastic Igot from Home Depot, but a black trash bagwill work almost as well.

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MORE SUNSHINE = MORE HEATWith a Word of *Caution*

I added a reflector outside the window to

bounce more sunshine into the window. Thisactually puts TWO Suns onto the window,the sun that normally falls through the windowand the reflected sunlight. This is called TWOSUNS. If I had a second reflector, this wouldbe a total of Three Suns (DO NOT DOTHIS). Before the sunshine hid behind theclouds last four days here in Michigan, this re-flector quickly got my air out temperaturesabove 85F, and the sunshine was a little hazy.With my solar oven experience, I think this

would of easily gotten over 100F with a Feb-ruary sunshine in Michigan. The reflector isaluminum foil with Elmer's glue on cardboard.I am going to re-do this with flat masonite.Adding a hinge or two allows for easier adjust-ments (rather than using the displayed brickmethod.) DO NOT add more than ONE reflec-tor to your unit. When it gets warmer and thesun gets stronger, multiple reflectors *WILL*actually get the plastic so hot that it WILL lit-erally go POOF and up in flames. ONE reflec-

tor with REGULAR aluminum foil is morethan enough.

It is true that in areas like Michigan, wehave a limited number of sunny days in De-cember. However, we have more sunnydays in January, February and March, but itcan EASILY be well below freezing duringthese months. Even during April and May,it can be in the forties, fiftys and sixties. I

LIKE my house 70F+, and on these daysduring half the year, this little solar airheater will add gentle warmth that my fur-nace or wood stove does not have to add. Itdoes it all by itself. I dont have to turn iton. The project can be done in ten minutes,

and I can take it down and put it up in sec-onds. This project can also be done by any-one in an apartment.

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18/76

Making a 350F+, Twenty Loaf of Bread, Solar Oven for $9

This is the metal liner inside anupright freezer. I took the out-side walls, mechanical refrigera-tion and other components offfor experiments and was leftwith just the metal liner.

This is the FREE 34x76 inch piece ofsliding glass door glass coming homefrom the Glass and Mirror company.It is slightly fogged but will workgreat.

Glass and metal liner forsize comparison. It willwork.

Paint it black with a $1can of flat black spraypaint from Home Depot.

Finish painting it black. It tookfour cans at $1 each to paint thewhole INSIDE flat black. You donot need to paint the outside. Ittook about 45 minutes to do thejob, and could have been done aswell with a brush and black paintfrom a can.

I put the metal liner on top ofthe door from the old freezer forinsulation. I actually addedMORE pink home insulationbetween the liner and the oldfreezer door (not shown), as itneeded more insulation. Styro-foam from Home Depot/Lowes

is inexpensive and will work.Using a few inches of free card-board will also work. A variantof a layer of cardboard and alayer of Styrofoam will work.Straw bales and shredded news-paper will also work. The pinkinsulation I used was free be-cause the bag was ripped and thestore could not sell it.

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19/76

Wanting to see howwell the unit mightwork, I wrapped it inpink insulation and

propped it up withsome wood and chairsto keep it from fallingover. I then starteddoing temperature

measurements to seehow hot it would get.Verifying the projectas it goes along like

this is called gooddevelopment work.

FREE CARDBOARD,free walls, free insulation.The local appliance storewas happy to give me a

box of boxes. I couldnttake just one or two...I hadto take a whole load. Theynormally sell things forrecycling, but were happyto give a load to me for myexperiments. All of theinsulation you see in thisproject can be replacedwith cardboard and airspaces. Id use three or

four layers of cardboardwith one or more inches ofair gaps between the layersto replace the eight inchesof double-wrapped pinkinsulation I used. Solarovens can be as small asone cubic foot. They donthave to be this big. Thefree cardboard can be usedfor making any size solar

cooker or solar heater. Justwaterproof it with glue and

plastic.

Next, I made a one-piece,three-sided wall from the

cardboard, covered with areflective layer. This canbe normal aluminum foilor it can be mirror sheet-ing. The mirror sheetingwill give a little better re-sult. I paid eleven cents asquare foot for mine fromhttp://www.mirrorsheeting.com.I used 3M spray adhesiveto glue the sheeting to the

cardboard. Elmers gluewill also work but does notdry as fast. Spread theglue on, brush it out with abrush, and then lay on thealuminum foil or sheetingmaterial. I could use myfree, one-quarter inch plateglass mirror, but it wouldhave been a little heavierand harder to handle.

I also put a wrapping of cardboard around the insulation tokeep it from falling.

Nielsen Enterprises:Hydroponic Gardening/Reflective Films, Mirror Sheeting.3019 S 256th Street, Kent, WA. 98032(253) 941-74259AM to 9PM (Pacific Standard Time)

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20/76

The FIRST TEST CAKE (topleft). Cake from a box mix readyto go into the oven, and a type Kthermocouple meter reading a

temperature of 295F. Get a four-dollar oven thermometer from thehardware or grocery store.

Right Photo: The finished cake,forty-five minutes later. The cakenormally bakes at 325F. Duringthe first part of the baking, the

temperature fell to 240F butcame back up. The cake tookonly a few minutes longer to

cook. Solar ovens can take moretime to cook than a conventionaloven. The positive side is that itis almost impossible to burn

something in a solar oven. Youhardly have to worry about overcooking.

After the first test cake, I bakedfive loaves of bread and twocakes at the same time. This

time, the baking temperature wasabout 275F because I added alot of dough, which containsmoisture. Driving off the mois-ture during the baking processwill lower the temperature.However, it only took an hour

and a half in Michigan June sun-shine to bake these. All werebaked at the same time. I esti-

mate I could bake twenty loavesat once in the solar oven, and Icould do four or five suchbatches during one solar day.That means this oven could bakeeighty to one hundred loaves ofbread in one full sunshine day. I

imagine that if I cook two layersof loaves, I could bake almosttwice as much. The baking time

might extend just a bit and bringmy over all numbers down fromless than a doubling. Still, a hun-dred loaves a day, and $10 forthe oven is not a bad investment.Start a Solar Bakery.

Complete photo documentation can be found at http://www.StevenHarris.net/solaroven.html(~34 high resolution photos)

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21/76

We started with a piece of freeglass with a wood frame aroundit. The frame was 24x24 inches,so we cut out a box with halfinch plywood. The base of theplywood box is 24x24 inches,and the sides are 24x12 incheshigh. The oven will be twelveinches deep. At the same time,

we cut two inches of foam tomatch the same sizes as thepieces of wood. This is the insu-lation. A wood box was madeby screwing the sides and bot-tom together using metal cornerbrackets for 2x4s used in con-struction (about fifty cents eachat Home Depot). We used six-teen metal corners.

A Solar Oven with FREE GLASS, and Plywood and Foam from Home Depot.The Wood, Foam, Screws, Adhesive and Metal Brackets cost about $15 in 2002.

Using a caulk gun and liquid nailadhesive, we glued the foam tothe outside of the wood box.The foam sticks very quickly

and only needs to be held inplace for a few seconds. Thefoam is the outside of the solaroven. We did not add an addi-tional protective layer. If theoven was going to be moved andtransported, I might suggest glu-ing a layer of one-quarter inchplywood or some other laminateto the outside of the foam as an

impact barrier and a layer of pro-tection. Using our oven dimen-sions, we could build two com-plete ovens from one sheet of

plywood and foam. However,because of this sizing, we couldnot make the foam larger tomake a perfectly covered corner.But since there is so little ex-posed surface area in the cornerof the oven, this will not repre-sent a significant heat loss.Making a solar oven is NOTrocket science, and it is hard to

goof. A solar oven is nothingmore than a black box with insu-lation, two layers of glass on thetop, and shiny reflectors. That's

it. Just make sure to silicon allof the cracks and holes. A solaroven or heater will NOT workvery well if there are air leaks.

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22/76

The wood framed glass was at-tached to the plywood part of thebox with a pair of $2 hingesfrom the hardware store. Thisenables the top to hinge back-wards, but it is not necessary.The solar oven will work justfine if the glass is placed on thetop and simply removed whendesired.

The reflector operates differentlyfrom the oven. The wood for thereflector is not attached orhinged to the solar oven. Thereflector just sits on the top ofthe solar oven and either the en-tire oven is rotated to track thesunshine, or the reflector is ro-tated by itself. This needs to bedone every thirty to sixty min-utes with a solar oven of this

style.

The reflector IS hinged, so theshape of it can be changed. Theidea is to concentrate the sun-shine into the oven from two orthree different locations. Thisincreases the concentration ofthe sunshine and the maximumtemperature of the oven.

To stick the aluminum foil orMylar film to the reflectors, aglue was made from two partsElmer's glue and one part water.Pure glue or 3M spray adhesivecan also be used. When the glueis dry, the solar oven is ready foruse. Don't forget to paint theinside of the oven flat black. A$1 can of flat black spray paintwill work just fine. Both are

available at Home Depot orLowes.

For a simple and quick cookingexperiment, get a can of biscuitsor a load of frozen bread doughfrom the grocery store. To cookthe biscuits, just unwrap them,put on a cooking sheet, and stickit in the solar oven. Remove thebiscuits when they reach a nice

golden brown color.

Too cook the frozen breaddough, let the frozen dough thawand rise in a bread loaf pan.Then simply put the bread andpan into the oven and watch itbake. This could take twentyminutes to a few hours, depend-ing on your sunshine. I usually

bake a loaf in about an hour.Don't fear if the bread is left fortoo long in the oven. Solar ov-ens generally will NOT burnwhat is being baked. Bread isusually baked at about 350Fand biscuits are baked at about425F. Even if the oven is at250F, both of these will bakejust fine.

To make soups and such, just puta dark pot (with no plastic han-dles) into the oven and put theingredients in. This will heat upand cook pretty quickly. It iseasier to bake soups than it isbread.

Yes, you can even bake a turkeyin here if you so desire. Any-thing that will bake in a regular

oven can be baked in a solaroven. Bread, biscuits and cakesare my personal favorites.

Aluminum foil onthe reflector.

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23/76

USES FOR A SOLAR OVEN.

I have to admit that I think cook-ing with a solar oven is just plainneat. There is something magicalabout putting bread out in the sun-shine and coming back an hourlater and it is all done. No elec-tronics, no controls, and no on oroff button...it just works. It is likea magic box, but it is not magic. Itis plain and simple science.

TIME SAVER

There are some solar ovens thatare built into the side of a house,either on the east or west sides fac-

ing south or in a southern wall (inthe northern hemisphere ofcourse). But most of us will use asolar oven sitting outside on a ta-ble or on the ground. The solaroven can be a time saver becauseof its "non-automation automa-tion." Since it is very hard to burnanything in a solar oven, it is hardto cook something for too long. Ifyou leave biscuits in the gas or

electric oven in your house forthree minutes too long, the biscuitsget burned. If you leave biscuitsfor thirty minutes too long in a so-lar oven, they are just kept warm.It is easy to make up a pot of stewand some pans of cake or breadand simply put all of the items in asolar oven at once. Then, you cango about your business or errandsfor a few hours and come home to

a fully cooked meal (assuming itdid not get cloudy).

THIRD WORLD

This is where most of us Ameri-cans would say, "Boy, that'd begood in the third world." Well,Ive done a lot of work with peo-ple in the third world, and they'dbe happy just to have something to

eat rather than something to cookit in. Most places that need thesolar oven the most don't have theresources available to make anoven. Glass can be quite expen-sive, and often time is just notavailable. Glass can be heavy andobscure in size, and this makes ithard for people such as missionar-ies to transport it to a far awayplace. COOKIT is a great solaroven made out of nothing but card-board, aluminum foil and a hightemperature oven bag. You cansee it at http://www.solarcooking.org/cookit.htm.

CIVIL DEFENSE in America.

As I sit here writing this updatedpage for the revised Sunshine toDollars, Homeland Security Direc-tor Tom Ridge is telling us abouthome preparedness and theready.gov website. I've worked inthe civil defense field for nineteenyears, and have helped and taughtmany people and families about

home preparedness. There is NOsubstitute for preparedness...none.A little bit goes such a long waywhen things go bad.

WHAT KILLS PEOPLE, WHY

ARE WE ALIVE TODAY?

Why is our world blessed withover six billion living souls todayand growing? This is an easy an-swer...antibiotics and clean water.

Antibiotics are part of the modernmedicine that keeps us alive.Imagine dieing of a small scratchfrom a rose bush or the bacterialinfection after a viral infectionsuch as a cold. Presidents Wash-ington, Harrison, and Garfield alldied of one type of infection oranother. Antibiotics and modern

medicine, the tools of research andproduction, all run on energy.Dow Chemical would not be pro-ducing much salicylic acid(aspirin) without energy.

Fresh water. It takes a significantamount of energy to move water.Whether it is up from a depth ofone hundred feet down in LakeHuron, or one thousand feet downin the desert, or from twenty feetdown the earth, it requires energyfor pumping. Without fresh waterthat has been filtered through thesoil, we are forced to drink surface

water. Surface water with accessto sunlight and oxygen is a goodplace for the growth of bacteria,viruses (in bacterial), parasites andother forms of contamination fromfecal matter and other organicwaste materials.

Energy for fresh water also impliesenergy to pump sewage OUT of ahigh-density population area. A

modern city could not exist if therewas not energy to pipe waterINTO the city and energy to movethe human excrement (piss andcrap) OUT of the city. We alsoneed energy to pick up our garbageand haul it out. All of these wasteproducts are breeding grounds forbacteria and disease that hasplagued and killed man.

What kills most of the people in alarge hurricane, a flood, a nucleardetonation is the loss of infrastruc-ture after the event. No power, nolights, no refrigeration, no heating,no water, no sewage, no banks, noATM's, no delivery trucks, nogasoline, no natural gas, no tele-phones, no Internet, no cellphones...all this and more kill.

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24/76

How Does A Solar Oven Help

My Family in a Disaster?

It supplies a little bit of the energythat kept you alive but is nowgone.

Thirsty? Did you get some waterfrom a lake and don't know if thereare little buggies floating in therethat will cause stomach problemsor an infection? Put the water inthe solar oven and get the water to160F+ for at least six minutes.This will pasteurize the water andkill all but the most hearty of mi-crobes (like what might be

growing in a swamp). Boiling thewater (at 212F) in a solar oven forfive to ten minutes will kill every-thing. You can install a distillationcolumn (see elsewhere in thebook) by attaching it to the solaroven (like what's on top of amoonshine still), and you can dis-till off the water vapor, condenseit, and the water will be about aspure as fresh rain. You could even

distill your own urine. Put abucket of urine in a solar oven,boil the liquid, distill off the water,and drinkable water is produced.The only thing left will be heavysalt water. Fresh urine is sterile,with no bacteria. The nitrates andminerals in our urine are food forbacterial growth. A bacteriam thatgets in there from the air or thecontainer grows at a rapid rate.

What happens to a pail of day old,stinky urine (the stink is from bac-terial growth) in a solar oven?Well, it will heat up to about 212F, killing all of the bacteria. Thewater then boils off, is condensed,and used. I should note that thismethod is also a very excellentmethod of doing desalination(removing salt) from seawater.

Human urine is little more thansalt water with minerals. Do youthink whales dont piss in theocean?

Hungry? Baking is a very energyintensive activity, usually becauseof the amount of time involved.Dutch ovens use a large amount ofwood for baking. A campingoven on a burner takes a largeamount of energy. Boiling waterfor soup can take five minutes,while baking bread takes thirty tosixty minutes. Every minute aburner is running amounts to one

less minute worth of fuel you haveto run a stove.

Corn bread (add water only mix),biscuits, cake and other bakedgoods are very inexpensive andvery easy to bake, but only withelectricity for lights and power forthe oven. Without a modern oven,baking uses a lot of precious fueland energy. Mixing up a batch of

(add water only) biscuits using aColeman oven stove can easily usea half pint to a pint of fuel, that is,if you have the $28 oven, $35stove, and Coleman fuel at $3 pergallon, or gasoline at $1.50 to$2.00 a gallon and $1 gallon con-tainer to hold the fuel.

Fast, Cheap Emergency Food.

Take a small box of corn bread

mix, add water, mix it up, pour itin a cake or bread pan and put it ina solar oven. When it is goldenbrown, remove it, let cool, and eat.For biscuits, just add water, rollout about one quarter to one thirdinch thick, cut it with an upturnedcup, place the biscuits in the solaroven, and bake until goldenbrown. Add peanut butter, jelly,

honey or anything else desired.BISCUITS FROM SCRATCH?Two cups flourLess than one cup of waterOne half to one teaspoon salt

One tablespoon baking powderZero to one half cup sugar

This is really hard tack (which isnot hard when fresh). The easyway to remember this recipe istwo, one, and one half. That is,two cups flour, one cup water, anda half teaspoon salt. The bakingpowder makes it puff up (like abiscuit), and the sugar adds calo-ries and is optional. Mix this up,

roll it out on a flat surface with asoda or wine bottle, cut it with thetop of a cup, and put the biscuits ina solar oven (or regular oven). Eatfresh or let the biscuits dry out.They will keep for years. I have2+ year old biscuits that are 100%edible. What spoils in food is theoils, butter, and milk products.However, adding oil, milk, pow-dered milk, or butter to the above

recipe GREATLY improves thetaste, but you need to eat themwithin a week of baking the bis-cuits. Breads with yeast, quickbreads, unleavened breads, bis-cuits, drying meeting, dehydratingfruits, cooking beans, rice andmany more items can be cookedwith a solar oven. A completeclass in preparedness is beyond thescope of this book but we felt that

the subject was so important, andthat solar ovens are so beneficialthat we added this subject into thebook.

Lack of energy kills people. En-ergy is life. Restricting, legislatingregulating, or removing energywhether by government, man, ornature, kills humans.

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25/76

A Solar Hot Water Heater Made from a Door, 2x4's, Plastic Sheeting, and Glass.

This is very easy. Take one doorand put a 2x4 inch frame around

the edge ON TOP of the door.Lay down a layer of plastic andpour in fifteen to thirty gallonsof water. Cover it with a layerof double-sheet glass, like theglass from a thirty by seventy-two inch sliding glass door.

Make sure the 2x4 frame is thesame size as the glass. The door

under it can be bigger. In thephotos above, I painted the doorblack and used clear plastic sothe frame and constructionmethod would be easy to see.However, I suggest NOT paint-ing the door and just using black

plastic sheeting. This is four-Mil, black plastic sheeting from

Home Depot. There is about $2in plastic used in this heater.The corners of the 2x4 inchframe are just screwed togetherwith two three-inch, deck stylewood screws. That's it.

Simply lay the sliding glass doorover the frame. It seals nicelywith the plastic. As the photo onthe right shows, this water got to157F. I routinely get my hotwater heaters to 185F in thesummertime, and easily get to140F to 155F in the winter-time. This is done with NO RE-FLECTORS. If reflectors are

added similar to the ones on thesolar oven, the water will EAS-ILY reach 212F and boil away.This can be a good thing. Usinga reflector is also a great way tocatch more low angle wintersunshine to make more hot wa-ter. Heating a house with hotwater is not as efficient as hotair. It takes about three times as

many solar water collectors toheat a house than it does withsolar hot air. BUT, in manycases, water is easier to workwith and move. When your ma-terials are FREE or cheap, thehot water method can be afford-able. Don't try this with NEWmaterials. You will never getyour money back.

WARNING.

This water is

HOT and

WILL SCALDAND BURN

YOU

INSTANTLY.

SEVERE

BURNS ARE

POSSIBLE

157.6F Shown

on Meter

[ 19 ]


26/76

These two top photos show someimprovements on the hot waterheater. I used the free doorknockouts as additional insula-tion under the door. The photosclearly show the wood frame andhow it was made to fit the glassgoing on top of it rather than thedoor under it. Notice the door

on the right is NOT black, butwhite. It does NOT need to bepainted if black plastic is used.The right photo shows the twosolar water heaters that ran inmy backyard for almost a year.Everyday, the water would get to

about 180F in thesummer andaround 150F to160F in the win-ter, except when itwas cloudy. I putabout fifteen gal-lons of water ineach one of these,

but each one couldhold thirty gal-lons. To haveeach one holdmore water, just use 2x6 or 2x8inch material for the wood frameinstead of the 2x4's I used.

Modify, experiment, and writeme. Send photos!

Heating water up to 160F for eight minutes or longer will kill most of the bacteria, spores

and parasites in water. Please see the article in this book on the "Solar Puddle," and thesection on Civil Defense. Not only can this make hot water, but it can also make water thatis safe to drink. This is important for third world applications as well as disaster situationsin the USA. Parasites and contaminated water kill more people around the world than any-thing else. Clean water, septic systems, antibiotics, and plentiful energy are the reasons wehave over six billion people on the planet today. Eliminate any one of these items and peo-ple die.

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27/76

DESALINATION - Salt Water to Fresh Water

Build it...I dare you. The solar hotwater heater on the previous pageis about as simple as it gets. Callsome glass companies in the phonebook and ask for some 34x72 inchdoor wall glass they have re-moved from a house when theyinstalled a new sliding glass door.Go to the Habitat for Humanitystore and get a door for $1. Findone on the curb, buy a used one, orask the glass company if they haveany old doors they removed. Getthree 2x4's from Home Depot forabout $2 each, and make the solarhot water heater I described. Ifyou do this, and put fifteen gallonsof water or more in it, it will beobvious to the person who actuallydoes this experiment that eventhough the water might only be at180F, a great deal of water vapor(steam) escapes when the door islifted a bit. It just shoots right out.It almost burns your hands some-times (wear a pair of gloves whenlifting the glass). To everyone elsewho just reads this book and doesnone of the experiments, the rapidsteam generation will not be ap-parent.

ONE SUN. On a good and hotsummer day with full sunshine inMichigan, the water will get to beabout 180F. It is hard to get

much higher with just the sun fal-ling on the glass. When the sun isfalling on an object, this is calledONE SUN. When the sun falls onan object and a reflector (like amirror or something shiny), thereflector reflects the sun onto thesame object. This is called TWOSUNS. With two suns on the wa-ter, the energy input is almost dou-

bled, and the water will BOIL.Yes, it will boil with stream bub-bles and everything. This will pro-duce much more water vapor to bedistilled and turned into purewater. This is the same wayMother Nature pro-duces rain. Evapora-tion of lake, river andocean water occurs,then the condensationof the vapor falls asrain, snow, dew, fogor hail (thunk!). Thereflector is also agreat way to increasethe output of the hotwater heater, and togive it much betterperformance in thewinter, especiallywith the low angle ofsunshine.

Drill a hole and pusha pipe of some sortthrough the top of the2x4 and over andaround the plastic soit still holds water.Be sure to use siliconcaulk to seal the pipeand hole. Otherwise, the watervapor will leak out and not go intoyour condenser tubing. This out-put tube can be PVC, copper, iron

and even some other types of flexi-ble tubing (garden hose). The con-denser would work best if it wascopper, but even plastic tubing willwork. The job of the tubing is togive up the heat of the water vaporand thus condense the water. Ifplastic is used, more of it will beneeded. If a water cooler is notused, then more tubing in the open

air will be needed. This page isnot a how to, but illustrates theprinciples to follow for making adesalination unit. Get the waterhot, get the vapor out, cool the va-por, and drink the water.

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28/76

http://www.solarcooking.org

Solar Cooking International is really an outstanding organization devoted to helping promote solar cookingaround the world. This wonderful organization seems to be free from political and environmental motiva-

tions, and simply dedicated to helping of people. Their website is a wealth of plans, drawings, photos, anddescriptions of solar cookers people have made around the world. This is an excellent place to get free in-formation on solar cooking (which is a close cousin to solar heating). With the free glass, mirror and card-board sources we have outlined in this book combined with the documentation on this website, there is noend to the number of projects and experiments that can be done for education, experimentation and even tothe extent of starting very valid businesses. Make sure you look at the Cook It solar oven. It is 100%card board and aluminum foil, and can be made in an hour.

http://www.solarcooking.org/cookit.htm

http://www.ece.vill.edu/~nickSince about 1995, Nick Pine has been answering any and all questions regarding heating, cooling, energy,and especially solar energy for heating and cooling through his Nick Pine web page and Usenet postings.His form and style of writing, and his explanations of mathematics, are nothing short of role model in quality.His archive of Usenet (newsgroup) postings on his website is a treasure trove of solar energy advice. Solar-cooking.org will help you make a box that gets hot. Nick Pines info will help you take a box that gets hotand use it to heat your house. Anyone who really wants to learn solar energy/energy/thermodynamics andmore would be a lazy fool not to read everything Nick writes on a regular basis.

Nick Pines email tagline describes himself as: Computer simulation and modeling. High performance, lowcost, solar heating and cogeneration system design. BSEE, MSEE. Senior Member, IEEE. RegisteredUS Patent Agent. Web site: http://www.ece.vill.edu/~nick

For all of you kids in school, college, or out of college, your learning JUST BEGINS when youleave school. It is not the end of learning; it is just the start. Learning is a personal exercise thatis to done DAILY by the individual. It is up to YOU to teach yourself, to BUY your books, totake classes, to try experiments. This is on YOUR TIME. It is NOT the duty of your company tofund your education or books. It is YOUR DUTY to YOURSELF to do this. Everyday the ga-zelle must wake up and run a little faster to keep ahead of the lion. Every day the lion must wakeup and run a little faster to catch the gazelle. One of these animals is either going to get eaten or isgoing to starve. Education, industry, and science are the same way for YOUR position. Evolve ordie. Learn, or get replaced by someone better.

Wisdom that Clemente Mesa taught myself and many others.

http://www.redrok.comA great website run by a great and crazy guy who loves high temperature solar energy and many things asso-ciated with it. Duane's site is a large database of subjects with a large list of links to every energy subject youcan think of on the web. The links are well maintained, and removed and updated on a regular basis. I onlyhave THREE links to anyone else in this entire book on the subject of solar energy. Do you know why?They are the only ones that are really worth a darn. Theyre here because of their extreme EXCELLENCE.

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The Solar PuddleA new water pasteuriza-tion technique for largeamounts of water.By Dr.Dale Andreatta, Derek Yegian

The lack of clean drinking wateris a major health problem in thedeveloping world. To reducethis health risk, ways of produc-ing clean water at an affordablecost are needed. People need tobe educated about germs andsanitation, lest they accidentallyre-contaminate their clean drink-

ing water. Recently, several ofus at the University of Californiaat Berkeley have attacked thefirst of these requirements. Pre-vious issues of this newsletterhave included stories about ourwater pasteurization indicatorand our flow-through water pas-teurizers based on a design byPAX World Service. In this arti-cle, we describe a new low-cost

device that pasteurizes water.For those not familiar with thepasteurization process, if wateris heated to 149F (65C) forabout six minutes, all the germs,viruses, and parasites that causedisease in humans are killed, in-cluding cholera and hepatitis Aand B. This is similar to what isdone with milk and other bever-ages. It is not necessary to boil

the water as many people be-lieve. Pasteurization is not theonly way to decontaminatedrinking water, but pasteuriza-tion is particularly easy to scaledown so the initial cost is low.The new device is called a solarpuddle, and it is essentially apuddle in a greenhouse. Oneform of the solar puddle is

sketched in the figure on the fol-lowing page, though many varia-tions are possible.

One begins by digging a shallowpit about four inches deep. Thetest device was a "family-size"unit, about 3.5 by 3.5 feet, butthe puddle could be made largeror smaller. If the puddle is madelarger, there is more water topasteurize, but there is also pro-portionately more sunshine col-lected. The pit is filled with twoto four inches of solid insulation.We used wadded paper, but

straw, grass, leaves, or twigscould be used. This layer of in-sulation should be made flat, ex-cept for a low spot in one cornerof the puddle. Put a layer ofclear plastic and then a layer ofblack plastic over the insulationwith the edges of the plastic ex-tending up and out of the pit.Two layers are used in case onedevelops a small leak. We used

inexpensive polyethylene from ahardware store, though specialUV stabilized plastic would lastlonger. Put in some water andflatten out the insulation so thatthe water depth is even to withinabout a half inch throughout thepuddle, except in the troughwhich should be about one inchdeeper than the rest. Put in morewater so that the average depth

is one to three inches, dependingon how much sunshine is ex-pected. A pasteurization indica-tor (available from Solar Cook-ers International at 916/455-4499) should go in this troughsince this is where the coolestwater will collect. Put a layer ofclear plastic over the water,again with the edges extending

beyond the edges extending be-yond the edges of the pit. Forman insulating air gap by puttingone or more spacers on top ofthe third layer of plastic (largewads of paper will do) and put-ting down a fourth layer of plas-tic, which must also be clear.The thickness of the air gapshould be two inches or more.Pile dirt or rocks on the edges ofthe plastic sheets to hold themdown. The puddle is drained bysiphoning the water out, placingthe siphon in the trough andholding it down by a rock or

weight. If the bottom of thepuddle is flat, well over ninetypercent of the water can be si-phoned out.Once the puddle is built, itwould be used by adding watereach day, either by folding backthe top two layers of plastic inone corner and adding water bybucket, or by using a fill siphon.The fill siphon should NOT be

the same siphon that is used todrain the puddle, as the fill si-phon is re-contaminated eachday, while the drain siphonMUST REMAIN CLEAN.Once in place, the drain siphonshould be left in place for the lifeof the puddle.The only expensive materialsused to make the puddle are apasteurization indicator (about

$2 for the size tested). All ofthese items are easily transport-able, so the solar puddle mightbe an excellent option for a refu-gee camp if the expertise wereavailable for setting them up.Many tests were done in thespring and summer of this yearin Berkeley, California. On dayswith good sunshine, the required

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FREE FRESNEL

LENSES (big ones)(pronounced franel)The fresnel lens in modernmanufacturing is a piece of clear

plastic sheet with very finegrooves in the surface. It hasthe effect of magnification, andthus the concentration of light.These lenses are widely used inthe front screens of big screenTV sets, usually with two sheetsin the front. One lens has fres-nel grooves in it while the othermay have vertical grooves. Youwant the one with the fresnel or

circular grooves. In the photobelow, you see one picturednext to a bike tire for size refer-ence. It actually has a piece cutout of it on its bottom left, but itstill works great. The photo tothe upper right shows a piece ofwood in flames instantly afterthe Michigan summer sunshineis focused on the wood with thelens pictured below. Many

times, a distinctive POP canbe heard as the light is put on

the wood in maxi-mum focus. This isactually the hydro-gen molecule thatwas part of the or-

ganic cellulose mole-cule (roughlyC6H10O5) being ther-mally disassociatedand instantly ignitedas the 3000F+ sun-shine is put on thewood.

I get my lenses forFREE from TV re-

pair shops. Look inthe yellow pages andfind ones that repairbig screen TVs.Ask for screens that arescratched, marred, or damaged.These are normally thrownaway. Good ones from brokenTVs are saved for replacementparts for other TVs that are be-ing fixed. The scratched ones

are thrown in the dumpster.One shop saves three or four amonth for me.

Sunshine is a verydiffuse energy, mean-ing it is spread out. Theconcentration of the sun-shine raises the thermalquality of the heat.Higher temperature

means higher qualityheat. The temperaturesreached with a fresnellens can be used to meltmetal, especially alumi-num and zinc. A welldesigned furnace withexcellent insulation,good solar tracking, andfocus will melt iron. Itcan be used to do bio-

mass gasification, heat water,heat other gasses to make en-ergy from the expansion of thegases (Sterling Engines). Thefresnel lens works kind of oppo-site of parabolic dish. Bothachieve the same result, but the

fresnel focuses behind the lensand a parabolic system focusesin front of the dish. A fresnellens is a tool not to be overlooked in a persons experimen-tation and education in solar en-ergy. The high temperaturecomes at a price. Precise track-ing and focus must be done, butthe resulting free high tempera-ture heat is worth the effort.

These lenses are commonly soldthrough Edmond Scientific andother catalogs for between $75and $150 each (brand new, notscratched). I prefer thescratched ones that I get forfree.

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CHEAP FRESNEL

LENES (small ones)One of my favorite sheet magni-fiers is a seven by ten inch, very

thin sheet magnifier that I got atOffice Max or Office Depot.They cost about $8 each.Friends and visitors taking a tourof my labs always marvel at howfast a fire can be started with oneof these small sheet magnifiers(fresnel lens). Most of the time,the fire starts instantly, espe-cially on newspaper. It willmake flames leap off of wood as

well, just like the larger fresnellenses described in this book.

Missionary friends of mine areinterested in practicality of thesesheet magnifiers. In many partsof the world, matches are soscarce or comparatively expen-sive that people will take ONEmatch from a small book ofmatches and rip it into six differ-

ent pieces. One match is nowsix and can now start six differ-ent fires. (Try this yourself:separate the paper of the matchin half, then rip the halves intothree pieces each).

These sheet magnifiers can befound at most office supplystores such as Staples, OfficeMax and Office Depot. Themagnifiers available in thesestores are usually seven by teninches, and are made of hardplastic. The lenses we supplyare a very thin and flexible plas-

tic that can be bent and rolledwithout damaging the lens.These will not break like thehard plastic ones in the officestores. In the year 2002, thesebecame available at http://www.KnowledgePubications.com at a costof $4.95 each. Quantity dis-counts are available.

I highly suggest obtaining some

of these lenses and do-ing experiments. Theseare NOT like the littlemagnifying lens youplayed with as a child.Most newspaper willburst into flames(especially the darkareas of the paper).This will happen evenin winter sunshine in

Michigan. Make surethe lens is held PER-PENDICULAR to thesunshine, and make avery fine focus. Ittakes about one minuteof practice but it isreally easy. BECAREFUL!! One cus-tomer was reading the

writing on the clear wrappingaround the lens while driving hiscar down the road. His car had asun roof, and the sun was at theright angle. The lens was theright distance from his leg, andhe set his pants on fire! This is atrue story. With proper focus-

ing, this lens will create tem-peratures in excess of 3000F.

A small fresnel lens startingnewspaper on fire on February2nd, 2002, in Michigan.

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FREE INSULATION

AND MOREMetal surfaced, 1 3/4 inch foamcore doors, FREE. Pictured hereare a total of ten foam core doors

that I got for free. Seven areleaning up against my DodgeDakota and three more are in thebed of the truck. I got all thesefor FREE, and more are on theway. They did not come from adoor manufacturer, but from acompany that buys the brandnew doors by the truck load eve-ryday, and then cuts knockouts(sections) from the door in orderto insert decorative glass, shinybrass handles and other accou-terments. The doors I got areslightly marred or damaged,but do not affect its insulationvalue for me. I was hard pressedto even find the defects. I calleddoor manufacturers and in-stallers, but the best type of busi-ness I found was the door

wholesaler. Again, they mod-ify the base door and sell theseto other wholesale and construc-tion companies. These littlepanels are the knockouts from new

doors. A large routercuts through themetal skin and foam,and then the glass isinserted. The knock-out can be as big asseventy-five percentof the door if thatdoor is going to havea large piece of glassin its center. Earlier

photos of doors withmostly glass areUSED, removeddoors that I got fromthe glass company,which I also got thenormal sliding glassdoor glass from. Forfree doors, knockoutsand doors with glass

in them, check with glass andmirror shops, door manufactur-ers, door wholesalers, and doorsales companies. It takes somephone calls, but it did not takeme long to start getting moredoors, knockouts, and glassthan I could handle. And, itwas all for FREE. Smallerknockouts go in my attic foradded insulation. A friend inTexas built an entire little caffrom nothing but door knock-outs...floors, walls and roof.Hey, go to Congers Caf inHereford, Texas, for some

great food!

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restaurant supply stores(Gordon Food Service GFS) forabout $3 for twenty-five pounds.Use a paint mixer on the end of adrill to mix the salt into the wa-ter. Stop adding salt when thewater will not hold any more salt(you'll set it on the bottom and itwon't dissolve). This is called asaturated salt solution.

When the brine is this cold, in-sert a container of fresh water tobe frozen. Make sure the brinedoes not get in the bucket hold-ing the fresh water. A plastic or

a metal pail can be used. Mostpeople don't know that reallythin plastics conduct heat aboutas well as metal does. Plasticbags of fresh water, plastic pails,five gallon pails, and plastictubs can all be used. Thesecan have open tops or be sealed.A bucket of fresh water willfloat in salt water or brine.Brine has a higher density than

the fresh water. This is the samereason that oil and other thingsfloat on top of water. Just don'tlet the brine get in the fresh wa-ter to be frozen if this is going tobe used for ice cubes. Why usesalt water? Why not just makeice cubes like one does in theirhome freezer? Air is an insula-tor, and it does NOT conductheat very well. The object here

is to freeze a bunch of water intoice with the lowest amount ofenergy. Someone trying to dothis with solar panels does nothave a surplus of energy. Coldrefrigerant to metal (the evapora-tor), to brine, to plastic (thebucket), to fresh water, transfersheat MUCH better than metal toair, to plastic, and to water. If

you don't believe me, put yourhand in a freezer and see howlong you can keep it there. Next,put your hand in the -5F brine.You'll know the meaning ofPAIN in the -5F brine. In thephoto, Kim is holding ice thatwas made in a $1, three gallonplastic pail. Samantha is holdingthe pail, although you can onlysee the top of it. Three gallons

of ice weighs about twenty-fourpounds, and it took about twohours to freeze solid. Freezingbags of flat water works fasterbecause ice is a less thermallyconductive than water. It takesmore time to freeze the ice in thecenter of the bucket. Flat andnarrow is the best shape tofreeze something in. Using apump or agitator to move the

brine around will also decreasethe needed freezing time.

Other parts of this book willcover chemical cooling andice making. However, themethod above is the smallest andlightest way of making ice. Itrequires electricity or rotaryhorsepower of some kind to

move the compressor, but thismethod cant be beat for its effi-ciency, size, and cost...IF youhave the electricity.Other parts of this book will talkabout microclimating for thepurposes of cooling a sleepingarea or person. The cold brineor fresh water made by thismethod can be circulated by asmall pump through a heat ex-changer (such as an automotiveheater core from the dash of acar), while air is blown throughthe heater core for the purpose ofcooling a tent, room, or person.

Can you have ICE and Hot Wa-ter at the same time? Yes! Thisis easy, and you can make twicethe amount of ice at the sametime. Remember that we saidthat air is an insulator and a poorconductor of heat? While theevaporator is in the liquid brine,the condenser is in the air. Themore efficient the heat is trans-

ferred, the more efficient theunit. Putting the condenser in apool of water that can give up itsheat to the atmosphere will in-crease the COP, or CoefficientOf Performance. COP is ameasurement of how muchcold a unit makes (or pumps)for X amount of energy. In-creasing the heat transfer willnot lower the pump load, but can

DOUBLE the amount of ice thatis made with the 93 watts ofelectric power my pump uses.You'll make the same amount ofice twice as fast AND have extraHOT water. Don't let the hotwater get much above 110F, oryou'll start lowering your COP.That is still nice bath water or asource of heat when it is cold.

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Make Energy, Make Ice,

Make Money.The economics of energy are suchthat the last thing you would wantto do is to sell the energy to the

grid. The grid is the lowest pricethere is. The best thing is to useyour own energy to make a prod-uct of higher value. Only whenthere is a surplus of energy wouldyou dump it to the grid. Keepin mind that I am NOT talkingphotovoltaic panels in this exam-ple. There is no economics in PVpanels except for the economicsof you paying too much for a

product.

I have an excellent example of theeconomics of energy. A goodfriend of mine in Haiti has takenit upon himself to feed manythousands of people a day. Hesets up and runs churches and or-phanages, and will help anyone.Haiti is a very poor country withlittle or no resources. There is

nothing to manufacture, and noth-ing to export. It does have anabundance of sunshine, but we'llget to that in a bit.

The capital city of Haiti has elec-tricity for MAYBE two hours aday, sometime around two AM, ifthat. It is generally hot in Port-Au-Prince and there is always ademand for ice. Not much ice is

made in Haiti. I sat down withStenyo and did the economics.By STARTING him with a sur-plus, very efficient diesel engine/electricity generation system. Byusing cheap or free refrigerationcomponents, we could help himmake ice and make money to helpfeed people. The economics of itare such that $1.50 to $2.50 in

diesel fuelwould makethirty tothirty-fivedollars of ice.

After gettinghim up andrunning usingdiesel fuel(which ISavailable on aregular ba-sis), eventu-ally we couldmove himover to solar

ice making. Solar ultimately hasbetter economics but is muchmore complicated, physicallylarge with weights in the tons.The $300 diesel engine we gotwas a 3HP Lister (runs 20,000+hours), a pair of deep cycle bat-teries as a load leveling filter($200), a large diesel truck alter-nator optimized for max output atlow RPM ($250), and a 1500-watt

inverter ($225). The refrigerationcomponents would be similar tothose on the previous page. Ofcourse, we would build our owncontainers from plywood, plastic,and foam to hold the brine, andcool the condenser with water toincrease the ice making effi-ciency. To make an even higherdollar item, all you need to do isto take the ice, turn it into a snow

cone, put flavor on it, and sell it ata fair. They arent going to sellsnow cones in Haiti, but this is anexample of the economics of en-ergy and how it relates to manu-facturing.

The generator you see pictured isa " Dual Series Hybrid Diesel/Gasoline Electric Generator." Itis very similar in concept to a hy-

brid electric vehicle (which I amNOT a fan of). The inverter cangenerate 120V AC from either thebatteries or the generator loadleveled through the batteries. Thebatteries can be recharged by thegenerator and by the truck alter-nator and electrical system. Thetruck can also power the inverter.This unit has traveled with me forabout 30,000 miles. It was on a

10,000-mile trip around the USA,and it ran my 600-watt air condi-tioner every night. It used aboutone gallon of diesel for every sixhours of air conditioner operation.The air conditioner was keepingthe trailer cool in a 100F+ ambi-ent environment in the hot, aridsouthwest of the United States.

Diesel engines hold the world re-

cord for efficiency for a mass-produced chemical combustion torotary horsepower device. Manyof the newer diesel engines (DIDiesels) run at a higher brakethermal efficiency than most fuelcells. Want a vehicle MORE effi-cient than a fuel cell vehicle?Buy a new VW with a Turbo Die-sel.

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Water to Air

Heat Exchange

Hot Water for Heating

Cold Water for Cooling.

In this book, we talk about waysof making materials HOT andCOLD. One of those materialsis WATER, H2O. We are cool-ing, chilling, or freezing waterand heating or boiling water.Many times, we want to use ourhot or cold water for heating orcooling. Although solar energyis usually best used in heating a

house by heating and movingair, many times heat for the nightwill be stored in water. Gettingheat from the water into thehouse or sleeping area is alsoone of the best ways for storingcold for cooling during theday. Many times, we'll makecold at night and use it duringthe day the same we make hotduring the day and use it at

night.

I'm going to start this sectionwith an example of using a heatexchanger for cooling the house.

How can you cool the house bywatering your grass with warmwater? It is easily done by put-ting heat into the water before itgoes on the grass. I soldered

two garden hose spigots (withvalves) and a regular on/offvalve into the 3/4 inch copperwater line in my house. This isthe line that comes from themain and feeds the rest of thehouse. The city or well waterthat comes into your house isgenerally near the Earth averagetemperature (eight to fifty feet

down) of about55F. Thiswill vary byhow deep yourwater line is,and how far itruns near thesurface of theground to yourhouse. InMichigan, mywater temp is55F in thewinter andabout 62F (atmost) in the summer. I

really like blowing 63Fair into my house on a hot85, 90, or 95F degree day.

Normal Mode:In normal operation, bothof the hose valves areCLOSED and the centervalve is OPEN. This al-lows water to flow throughthe house normally with

no cooling.

Cooling Mode:If you have well water,you can do this more eco-nomically all day long bymoving water UP one welland then DOWN anotherwell. If I tried to run my unit allday long for every room in thehouse, I'd have a water bill that

would be a little expensive.However, there is no reason forme to put perfectly good coldwater on the grass when it willtake warm water just as easily.

When I go to water my lawn inthe summertime, I turn OFF thecenter valve (which actuallywould stop all of the water going

to the house), and open up thevalves that bypass the centervalve, sending water through a

hose. This goes through a heatexchanger blowing cold air intothe room, while the warmerwater goes back into the housewater pipe through the secondhose and valve.

The heat exchanger you see isone from a large van. It is theauxiliary heater used to keep

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people warm in the back of thevehicle. It is just a heat ex-changer, and heat exchangerscan heat and cool. In this case,we are moving cold waterthrough it while moving warmair in one side and cooler air outthe other side. You can find oneof these at a junkyard prettycheap. This one already has anice blower built into it, and itreally blows a lot of air. I use a12-volt power supply to run theblower (or you can use solarpanels and/or batteries). Some-times, I have my free solar pan-

els (covered elsewhere in thisbook) power the blower directlyas the water flows through theunit. It blows cool air in mywork area. If a cloud passesover, I can hear the blower go upand down (but I need less cool-ing anyway when it gets cloudy).Yes, I've used this for many hun-dreds of hours (summer of 2002)before I put it in this book.

How effective is this unit? Howmuch cooling can it do? Itdumps over 40,000BTU's per hour ofheat into the rear of avehicle. In a coolingmode, we won't dothat much. But,Trevor Babcock dida series of experi-

ments on this for me,and it did over 3800BTU's per hour ofcooling. This wasNOT optimized, butwas just runningquick and dirty. We had WAYtoo much water flow, over sixgallons per minute. This unitreally wants to run at a lower

water flow rate (two gallons perminute), and a high airflow rate.If it runs at two gallons per min-ute, and there are 8.3 lbs of wa-ter in a gallon, and sixty minutesin an hour, and we raise the tem-perature of the water from 60Fto 65F, then this will do:8.3lbs/gal x 2gal/min = 16.6 lbs/min and 16.6lbs/min x 60min/hr= 996lbs/hr.

It takes one BTU to raise onepound of water one degree Fahr-enheit, so if we raise 996 poundsof water five

degrees Fahren-heit, then996lbs/hr x 5degrees F =4980 BTU's/HRof cooling.This is the sameas a 5000 BTU,$120 window airconditioner, andyou get this

cooling forFREE. Youwere going to

water the grass anyway, so whynot cool the room at the sametime? With this system any wa-ter use can help you cool your

home. Now imagine if you useeight gallons per minute insteadof two gallons per minute.That's 20,000 BTU's of cooling,FREE. The air coming out ofthe unit will be near the warmesttemperature of your water leav-ing the unit. In this example theunit would be flowing 65F airinto the room.

If the larger heat exchanger Iwas showing is hard to find,you'll have an easier time findingthis smaller one that goes in the

dash of a car. This unit is aboutthe size of a cigar box and ismore suited for blowing cold aironto a person while sleeping us-ing small fans and blowers.Don't underestimate this unit.By blowing 250CFM (cubic feetper minute) of air through it, you

can cool an entire room veryquickly. I cooled my 12 x 12foot bedroom from 85F to 72Fin about forty-five minutes withthis very heater core, but I had abigger blower. This does nothave to operate with a large,power hungry blower. We'll beshowing how to do microclimat-ing work in the book. For this,

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you can use a much lower waterflow rate through the unit (onetenth to one half gallon per min-ute), and a small blower at 10, 20,or 30CFM. This is actually a

muffin fan from a computerpower supply. It runs on 120VAC, and you can use a light dim-mer to control its speed. To makethe little blower more effective,

separate the two units using card-board, plastic, and duct tape orliquid nails to form a shroud be-tween the blower and the heatercore. This moves air through theentire heater core. Muffin fansvary greatly in their output. Theones that are quieter are down

around 10-30CFM, while thenoisier ones are around 100CFM.Of course, this rating is in theopen with little restriction. Theheater core provides a restriction,depending on which one youhave, what the tube and fins spac-ing is used, etc. I'd rather have a100CFM muffin fan and put a120-volt light dimmer control onit to adjust the speed than to have

one that is too small. It does notmatter how much cold water thereis flowing through the heater coreif you don't have enough airflow.It will not cool your room or

space. In technical terms, it isstated as the Q of the air beingequal to the Q of the water. Thismeans that the cooling absorbedinto the air must equal the heat

that went intothe water. Ifyou want tounderstandhow every-thing works

around you,people, trees,cars, the sun,etc., then studythermodynam-ics and heattransfer. Yourlife will neverbe boring.

GETTING ABSURD

(but interesting)

WITH USING THE WATER.

I did a crazy experiment with thecooling water on the previouspage. I took the cold water fromthe water line (to water the lawn)

and used the water to cool thehouse.

sunshine to dollars and blackout

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