# Solar radiant heater questions



## kerriella (Mar 24, 2013)

My first post! I need advice and was hoping to pick some brains. I bought some land and am planning on building a house on it. I want it completely off grid so I am researching ways to make it as eco friendly and energy effecient as possible. I am combining solar and wind power for my electric. The land already has a well on it for my water. My A/C is going to be buried vent tubes. 

For my heat I am planning on a wood stove as my primary but I have been looking at making a solar radiant heater and using PEX tubing for radiant heat as a secondary. However, I don't want to do radiant floor heat because if at some point it needs replaced I don't want to have to dig up my floor to do it. I am thinking of running it along my baseboards and up near my ceiling through out the house. The thing is, we haven't had much sun for the last 4 days and that got me thinking, can I also run the PEX up along the wall behind my wood stove to help keep it running hot?

Also I am thinking of having my radiant heat seperate from my solar water heater for reasons I will explain in my next help me! post. So if they are seperate can I make the radiant heating a closed system where it constantly loops?

Any ideas or thoughts on how to make this work would be gratefully accepted. Thanks so much!


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## justin_time (Dec 2, 2012)

You are all over the place in your thinking, and my head hurts reading your post, maybe I just need more coffee......If you are going to be going off grid,a wood stove is your best bet (blazeking, princess model is my suggestion) I would stay away from solar radiant heating, not because its a bad thing, rather a unneeded complication that will reguire pumps, zone control valves and such that inturn requires more batteries, more panels.... K.I.S.S.

(keep it simple silly)


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## kerriella (Mar 24, 2013)

Justin, my plan is to have the wood stove as the primary, however, I was thinking I could have the solar radiant as a secondary focused mainly on the bedrooms and along the wall where my pipes will run. I have a teenage son who isn't keen on keeping the bedroom door open at night. I thought having radiant heat in the bedroom would solve that problem.

Another reason I am considering this or the other option of a solar heater using aluminum cans (http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-a-Soda-Can-Heater/) is the conservation of wood during the day. 

I really am interested in setting my place up in a way that I leave as tiny an ecological footprint as possible. Well, and the fact that I find so many of these idea's intriguing and would love to see them in practice.


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## tentance (Aug 16, 2012)

there's a lot of people building rocket mass stoves to heat their (very) small living spaces. i think they are using concepts like thermal mass (like using rock in the walls to store heat) in order to make the heat stick around longer.
there's also those soda can solar heaters, those are so neat! i would love to actually see one working in real life.
oh, you already know about the cans, hehe! i didn't see that until now. i think the key is positioning of your house to keep you warm, you will need to be out of the cold wind if you have any where you live.
if i had a teenage son...well i can just say that when we were teenagers we smoked a lot of dope and had sex behind closed doors... 

you know, if i was going to build a place up north i would clear away the trees, and build my place, and then build a greenhouse wrapping around the east, south, and west sides of the house. even if it wasn't full of plants, most of the year it's pretty chilly and it would grab heat like a car does. then in the summer i would open the greenhouse windows.


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## haley1 (Aug 15, 2012)

Kerriella
Solar heat is an effective and easy and satisfying way to heat, I heat my house with solar hot water and many others do too. I am going to direct you to a great site gary has set up with lots of info

http://www.builditsolar.com/

Here are a few good forums on yahoo

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SolarHeat/

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SimplySolar/

Take care


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## justin_time (Dec 2, 2012)

kerriella said:


> I really am interested in setting my place up in a way that I leave as tiny an ecological footprint as possible. Well, and the fact that I find so many of these idea's intriguing and would love to see them in practice.


I understand your intent, all for it, doing it myself thats why I know simple works. Put your resources in the envelope, eg. 1 foot thick r40 walls and you wont need a second heat source, should someone want a little extra heat at night just slip two of these under the sheets, at a gallon+ these stay hot all night, hell they will still be hot all through the next day, its just that easy...


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

kerriella said:


> Justin, my plan is to have the wood stove as the primary, however, I was thinking I could have the solar radiant as a secondary focused mainly on the bedrooms and along the wall where my pipes will run. I have a teenage son who isn't keen on keeping the bedroom door open at night. I thought having radiant heat in the bedroom would solve that problem.
> 
> Another reason I am considering this or the other option of a solar heater using aluminum cans (http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-a-Soda-Can-Heater/) is the conservation of wood during the day.
> 
> I really am interested in setting my place up in a way that I leave as tiny an ecological footprint as possible. Well, and the fact that I find so many of these idea's intriguing and would love to see them in practice.



Hi,
If you are going to build a solar air heating collector (a good idea I think), I would consider doing a collector that uses 2 layers of black screen for the absorber. We did some testing on several types of air heating collectors 2 years ago, and the screen absorber collector was the most efficient of the bunch and it is also much easier and faster to build than the can collectors.

Results are here: http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/AirColTesting/Index.htm

The collector shown in your link is too small to do much. Bigger is better with solar collectors. I would go with at least a 4 by 8 ft collector.

Gary


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## GregYohn (Jan 24, 2013)

Check out HomePower. Their next to last edition covered heating a home with Pex tubing with solar at using 120F water from solar heater. Basically can use baseboards with double tubes to get the heat you need. Water beats air for comfort.

Get a HomePower subscription to get the info you need and insulate to the max to reduce energy to the least.


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