How do I get the heat OUTSIDE to come INSIDE?!?!?

[Nifty]

This drives me CRAZY! Inside our house in the morning it is 60 degrees. Outside in the sun it is like 75!

How do I get that sunny heat into my house?

Some ideas I see online are interesting:

Solar Can Heaters:
https://sites.google.com/site/brianshomebrewsolar/
http://www.treehugger.com/solar-technology/how-build-diy-solar-air-heater-old-soda-cans.html
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9bBnRQWRro

I'm not ready to drill two big air holes into my walls just yet... but I had another idea:

When I was a weeeee lad I use to be amazed at how hot the water would be coming out of a hose sitting in the sun. What if I could use that process to get hot water into the house, then use some kind of heat exchanger to release the heat into the house, and have the whole system in a loop?

Some hot water videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBAi_TVNaiM

I just found some interesting ideas that mirrored what I was envisioning in this blog post using the metal tube array from a refrigerator to collect the heat: http://www.thesietch.org/projects/solarthermalpanel2/index.htm

My idea: A lot of black hose / tubing wound in a very large coil outside / on the roof, then reduce the size of the hose to something like 1/4 inch and feed that into the house and have it go through a heat exchanger to get the heat out of the water and into the air... perhaps the metal array from a fridge, or some kind of metal finned setup like a car radiator, hot water baseboard line, etc.

I'd maybe also use a small pump to circulate the water.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Wannabefree]

Install some south facing windows, and leave them open in the mornings. OR build a sunroom on that side of the house.

I like the hot water idea, but dunno how much you'd get out of it really.

 

[moolie]

I'd think the pop can solar heater would be far more efficient than a hose.

Funny problem to have, when it's hot here we do everything to keep the heat out of the house, and when it's cold out we do everything to keep the heat in.

 

[Denim Deb]

You could just wrap a thin, black hose around your house several times.

 

[moolie]

Lol Deb!

 

[Nifty]

Deb, give it a try and let me know how it works!!


I think our problem is that the actual air temp outside is probably close to what we feel inside, but the difference is that the sun is shining super bright and hot and you can really feel the heat difference.

We unfortunately can't really do anything structurally, so we need to think of creative ways to get the heat from the sun inside the house. I really like the black hose idea since it would be the least invasive (just a pair of small holes vs. large vent holes) and would be relatively easy to install.... just a bunch of black hose coiled up.

 

[~gd]

Or you could just use a heat pump? or do you want to reinvent the wheel. Here in NC I haven't used any propane yet and the little electric for the small pump that moves the liquid is very low too. In the hot summer I need to run the compresser to pump heat out of the house. this is an uphill operation, what you are dealing with is a downhill flow, enjoy it!

 

[Nifty]

Hmm... I've definitely heard of heat pumps, but I really was hoping to just jerry-rig something.

 

[Daffodils At The Sea]

Nifty, I have a passive solar house, and the key parts seem to be longest wall on south-facing side (Northern hemisphere), and west-facing windows, very small eaves, large windows that are not E rated, no large trees in the way, floors and ceilings insulated, house walls all the way down to the ground (not up on posts with airflow underneath) to take advantage of the Earth's 50 degree temperature all year.

Most houses have large enough eaves that the sun can't really get to the windows. There is a leaning solar heat grabber box that can be made to lean into the bottom of an open window. Scroll down to the heat grabber description. These are on YouTube as well.

http://greenterrafirma.com/solar-air-heating.html

 

[Nifty]

Wow, there are some great ideas on that page, thanks!

I especially like that the "heat grabber" shows an installation that doesn't require that I punch new holes into my walls and simply uses an existing window!