mobilehomerepair.com

It's a sunny day after a blizzard. First job is to dig-out the solar heating panel!



Mark

gee, sounds like you got stuck with a good 4-5 feet of snow in there, (although i am not sure as of how high on your wall you screwed the thing on).

After burning 250 gallons of propane in just 3 months idecided to try a solar heater. So I built a 4'x6' heater yesterday. After 30 min. in the sun it was putting out good heat. Will pick up some 6" alum. flex duct and will be mounting this baby soon. If needed I have enough materials on hand for another.
Do you guys face your heater south or southeast? With the flex duct, I was thinking to mount my heater on a steel tubing frame that would allow me to turn east and west and a pivot for up and down for maxamum exposure.
What do you use for the flapper?

so what happens at night? does the panel store the heat up? or is this just to capture the heat during the day?

Just curios Mark I have seen the two panels you show here on the site the one mounted up on wall of home and this one buried in snow and have both at 90 if you are at Aberdeen isn't prime angle there 43 to 45 I have mine mounted at 45 in southern Minnesota and length wise like the one in the picture and get amazing return from my building costs.Though I did use a aluminum tube design in my heater versus the flat surface like the one you have mounted cost me a little more but the return is worth it savings in fuel oil has paid for the heaters.

DigitalDreams wrote:Just curios Mark I have seen the two panels you show here on the site the one mounted up on wall of home and this one buried in snow and have both at 90 if you are at Aberdeen isn't prime angle there 43 to 45 I have mine mounted at 45 in southern Minnesota and length wise like the one in the picture and get amazing return from my building costs.

My 2 solar collectors are also vertically mounted.

That angle is actually for PVC panels which are aimed for year round best angle. As our solar collectors are generally used from Oct. to May, they are aimed at a lower sun. As a matter of fact Mar, and Oct. are the best times for my collectors.
As the sun climbs in April and May the temps actually go down as the higher angle reflects more radiation.

I start to cover them around late April so they don't warp form overheating.

Now if we could collect that summer heat.............

Further to the sun angles here is a comparison for Mark's home in Aberdeen SD @ N. Lat. 45.5

If you notice the angles are almost the same for Mar-Sept and Feb-Oct.
Planetary movements. LOL