Low capital solar for low temperature space heating?

Anyone got useful experience or recommendations for links / books reading on _very_ low capital cost solar heating for space-heating of workshops? I'm looking at the real "Scrapyard Challenge" end of the problem, with almost everything being built from recycled radiators etc. The intended result is to raise the Winter temperature of an otherwise unheated non-commercial workshop to "habitable" (for hairy- arsed chippies wearing check lumberjack shirts).

Capital costs should be lower than installing other sorts of heating (i.e. not much), because not much is going to happen otherwise.

Performance should be sufficient to avoid one's brew freezing over. I'm not aiming for living room comfort, or for hot water supply, here. A few (?) degrees would count as success.

Areas are about 1,000 sq ft of workshop and a 12' wide roof to sit it on (the ridge faces South, so the panel would sit above this, against a South-facing wall). If that's impractical, it might still be useful to heat a 12' square area of the workshop alone.

Any advice on building a simulation model (probably Excel, nothing clever) ?

Reply to
Andy Dingley
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I wouldn't call you that!

I'm also surprised that you're asking - that's a compliment by the way.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Probably the best thing is to get scrap radiators and spray them black, and mount under glass in the roof.

Your most effective method of doing this is first of all to insulate to the HILT.

otherwise teh paltry few dgerees you get from solar wont actually help.

No 2 is to build plenty of thermal mass into the place: that at least allows you to operate it like a bloody great storage rad when the sun IS there.

Your best bet there is to create an insulated igloo inside that space.

Raised floor and false walls made of celotex covered panels. Or shitloads of rockwool.

That will only take a few hundred watts to heat. You may find that ultimately its cheaper to have a fan blower in there.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Swimming pool solar panels - which presumably have to generate large amounts of heat but at a low temperature rise - use black twinwall polycarb sheet, with water running through the channels in the sheet. There's an arrangement of a sort of slit pipe enclosing the top and bottom edges for feeding water in and out. DIYable if you get ornery twinwall and paint, I guess, or the material might be cheap enough from whoever makes it for pool heaters.

I presume you're going for underfloor heating to make best use of low temperature heat and avoid trying to heat the air as well as the H-A-Cs.

Reply to
John Stumbles

Old radiators/hosepipe pancakes/twinwall and pipes on the roof, feeding a plant-watering system manifold to lots of long nylon tubes, one to each chippy, through a mesh of pipes sewn into the aforementioned check shirts then back to the roof.

Should work a treat, if they are careful not to move around too much.

If they're like the chippies I see working on the building site across the road, shouldn't be an issue.

Also has the advantage of looking like a Thunderbirds rehearsal...

HTH ;-)

Reply to
PCPaul

The Build it Solar site is well worth looking at for this sort of thing.

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like a possible option and it doesn't use water.

Reply to
Bill Taylor

C.A.T. in Wales (Machynlleth SP?) has just that info. A source of a couple of radiators which are continent and free to use is key.

Reply to
Ed Sirett

Think this is what youre looking for:

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are ways to trim cost further

NT

Reply to
meow2222

I was up there last week. No bloody use whatsoever. I went there with three questions and didn't get an answer to one of them! I didn't even buy anything in the bookshop (which is almost unheard of).

  • What's the SotA in greywater toilet flush? You don't. We don't, therefore you don't.
  • Can I do a thin-layer sedum green roof on corrugated cement? No idea. Try it. If it doesn't either collapse or the soil slips into the gulleys, let us know.
  • Solar - got any numbers? Numbers? Real quantitative stuff? Devilry!

Eco-disney there these days. Cute funicular, but it's more about showing urban kids how We Plant the Seed..., Nature Grows the Seed... than it is about beardies with pipe wrenches any more.

I shall enquire Wookiewards...

Reply to
Andy Dingley

You should thank your lucky stars they let you go. You could have been detained until you passed Ecobabble (Advanced) and How to play cu-by-yar on a whistle made from a recycled straw.

Reply to
EricP

I have been thinking of working in my garage during the winter, but it is very, very cold. The main reason for the heat loss is the very "leaky" garage door. This is a four-year-old, well-built property, but garage doors are not designed to be airtight. The main door to the house (from the garage) is well insulated, so the cold air does not permeate from garage to dwelling.

So, in order to keep any heat generated within the garage, e.g. from a fan heater or oil-filled electric radiator, I am considering the construction of a removable wall 6" in from the garage door. This sectional wall will be removed in the spring. The sections will be light enough and narrow enough to store in the loft during the summer. I envisage a 2" x 1" pine frame covered with hardboard both sides and filled with loft insulation. The important thing will be to ensure a snug fit around the outside of the wall (between wall, floor and ceiling).

MM

Reply to
MM

Wouldn't it be easier to do some rudimentary draught proofing on the garage door and cover the inside of the opening with a piece of old carpet fixed at the top and sides? You'll get 70-80% of the insulating effect at almost zero cost and effort

Reply to
Bob Mannix

They were interviewed on the Today program a month or two back. I was amazed how clueless they were when asked things like what the payback period was on a house wind turbine. The guy said they didn't know and were starting to look into it. It's been known for ages how useless the things are and that they are never likely to come close to paying back in their lifetime.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

I agree. We were very disappointed in several ways.

I wrote to them, offering advice and a source of local human help with their dreadful observation hive amd had no reply. The local beekeeper didn't hear anything either.

The worst thing was the polytunnel and other plots full of over-ripe vegetables, beans hadn't been picked at all etc. Yet in the restaurant there were packs and tins of imported foods.

Some displays weren't working. Staff were few and far between - except in the tat shop.

Sorry to drift but it certainly wasn't a good advert for anything :-(

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Before getting hypothermia waiting for a train at Dovey Jn.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

That statement applies to most dumbed down greenwash, sadly.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

No, because the gaps aren't regular. They appear as part of the garage door fixing and roller mechanism. This is not this particular garage door since garage doors aren't designed to be air tight. Sticking on old bits of carpet to plug the gaps would look very untidy.

MM

Reply to
MM

In reality most of the DIY solar stuff don't work that well in the depths of winter when ther is little sun and its freezing outside, just when you need the heat in the workshop.

Build a waste oil heater instead

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Reply to
Mark

yeah..like my sister enthuisng that she doesn't neeed to run an immersion heater at all in summer. She lives in the pelopennese, with regular daytime temps in the 40's ;-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Somewhere I've got a book from the olden days. It is all about diy including making the comparator unit.

Reply to
Ed Sirett

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