I have been interested in the idea of a Solar Heat Collector. The problem is I have two large trees right to the south of my house and one tree to the east of the south end of my place.
All of the plans I have seen always has the Collector connected to the house and being only piped a few feet at the most. In my situation I would be looking at 20-30 feet and have it off the south east corner of my house.
I have had only two idea to connect the panel to the house. Either a above ground piping with 5" PVC pipe in the middle of a long box that runs from my house to the panel.
Or I would have to dig a trench 4 feet deep to get below the frost line(not sure what the frost line here is) and place the PVC pipe in the bottom.
If I did the above ground I would make it removeable in section for the warmer months.
So my question is has anyone seen a Collector placed away from the building that it heats and how did it move the heated/cool air.
Went though my bookmarks and found this.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Ho ... spx?page=3
Solar Collector away from building
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DigitalDreams
Yes I have seen a large one built on the side of a building 100 feet from the house but they used a liquid solar panel.
They used the same insulated tubing they use for external corn furnaces which is spend y but excellent.
Built thermal storage into the shed the panel was on and were able to use it for days at a time even when sun did not shine.
Here is a link to it http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Sp ... arshed.htm
the only change you would need to make is do a heat exchange design so or fan coil if you use forced air.
They used the same insulated tubing they use for external corn furnaces which is spend y but excellent.
Built thermal storage into the shed the panel was on and were able to use it for days at a time even when sun did not shine.
Here is a link to it http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Sp ... arshed.htm
the only change you would need to make is do a heat exchange design so or fan coil if you use forced air.