# Portable solar heater question



## obleo+6 (Jul 21, 2008)

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*[FONT=Verdana,Arial]I need to find a set up in solar to heat my well house instead of the light bulbs we now have in there. Didn't put the oil heater in because we figured that the light bulbs would handle the temp last night, which they normally do. Well, by dingy, both bulbs burned out lat night and had half frozen pipes this morning, only for a short while, but I'm tired of dealing with this.
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Anybody got a place to buy a small solar heater to put in the pump house to keep just enough heat in there to keep this from happening?

I'm "solar-impared" so any help would be greatly appreciated.​ 
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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
If you want to use a solar thermal collector to keep the well house above freezing, this can probably be done if the well house gets some sun.

It will likely take a combination of some insulation and sealing of the well house to reduce night heat loss (you may have done this already), some thermal mass in the well house that will heat up during the day and give back some heat at night. And, of course, the solar collector.

If that sounds like something you would be interested in building, I can point you to some designs to that might work.

Gary


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## Gray Wolf (Jan 25, 2013)

You may be in an area where this would work all the time, but winter ususlly comes with several cloudy days in a row where nothing solar will work once you have used your stored heat/energy. 

Just like us off-grid folks, you should not count on the sun providing everything and have a backup source to serve your needs. For us it is generators and for you, I'd put in an oil heater in addition to whatever solar thing you come up with. 

Actually, in addition to insulation, if your electricty is pretty reliable, I would just go with an oil heater, or two if you want a backup. Oil heaters are pretty reliable but even two of them will likely cost less than a solar setup and can be installed in just a minute.

Almost forgot. If you have some sort of solar heat in a small pumphouse, it may work fine in the winter but will seriously overheat the shed in the summer. Figure out how to "turn it off" once the heating season has passed.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Why are you not using heat tapes on the pipes if you have 115v in there all ready . .?? 
quite reliable . . puts the warmth right on the pipes . . . .thermostat to turn it on and off .
solar stuff will not help out in the middle of the night..


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

How about using some water from the well to get some warmth? Allow some water to go through a radiator, regulated by a valve and free flow back into the well.(or outside) A small fan behind the radiator to move some air. Super insulate the well area to keep outside air from getting in..

Depending where you are at, the well water should be at least 45 degrees and you shouldn't need a large flow of water through the radiator, just a trickle..

Just a thought..


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## obleo+6 (Jul 21, 2008)

Thanks for all the thoughts on how to handle this...this is our first year with a well and pump house so it's all new to us especially with this weird winter here. Very unusual, I'm guessing, for everyone else also.

I'll pass this on to dh and let him be "the man" in all this...lol.

And yes, SolarGary, send me a pm and I'll have dh take a look at it. "Couldn't hurt and we may learn something...thank you.


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## Gray Wolf (Jan 25, 2013)

Let us know what you finally decide to do.

Good luck !


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

SolarGary said:


> Hi,
> If you want to use a solar thermal collector to keep the well house above freezing, this can probably be done if the well house gets some sun.
> 
> It will likely take a combination of some insulation and sealing of the well house to reduce night heat loss (you may have done this already), some thermal mass in the well house that will heat up during the day and give back some heat at night. And, of course, the solar collector.
> ...


Hi,
So here are a couple thoughts on a solar collector setup you might use for the well house. I tried to stick to very simple systems with little to no maintenance.

Scheme 1: You would add some glazing to the south wall of your pump house, and just inside the glazing add some thermal mass in the form of black painted water containers. The idea is that the sun shines through the glazing, warms the thermal mass containers during the day, and the containers keep the pump house from going below freezing at night by giving up their heat. 

It would be good if the glazing was double wall (twinwall polycarbonate as in greenhouses would be good).

The nice thing about this is that there are no motors, controls, or anything to maintain. The down side is that the glazing will lose some heat at night.

Scheme 1 is loosely based on these solar stock tank heaters http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/SolarHorseTank/SolarHorseTank.htm I guess you could also think of it as following the same kind of design you would use in a passive solar heated house -- direct solar gain shining on thermal mass.

Sheme 2: This would use a solar air heating collector that you add to the south wall of the pump house. It could just be a small version of this one:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/SolarBarn.pdf

You would then add some thermal mass in the form of water containers near the exit vents from the collector. The exit vent air runs about 120F under sunny conditions and can heat the thermal mass water containers to good temperatures during the day. The stored heat in the water containers then keeps the pump house above freezing at night.

This is also a nice simple scheme with no motors or controls. It has the advantage that the collector does not lose heat at night as scheme 1 glazing does.


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While it certainly would not have to be sunny every day for these schemes to work, but, if you have a string of cold, overcast days, you might still freeze the pipes, so some kind of backup scheme would still be necessary. Maybe a small electric heater or light bulb on a freezing thermostat like this: http://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovato...d=1392396545&sr=8-1&keywords=temperature+cube

How much thermal mass would be needed would depend on your weather, how much sun you get, and (most important) how well insulated and sealed the pump house is.

The nice thing about your application is that you are not trying to keep the pump house at 70F, but just want to keep it above freezing.

To be honest, this is the kind of solar thermal project I love to work on and and tinker with the design until it works well, but if all you want is a no hassle pump house right away, I think that a better, thermostatically controlled electric heater might get you there sooner.

Here is a very nicely done (but lots of work) solar heated well house that works: http://altbuildblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/building-well-house-9-trombe-wall-solar.html

Gary


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## obleo+6 (Jul 21, 2008)

Thank you SG...passed this on to dh and he's "noodling" with your ideas. We just want to be prepared for when the lights go out and don't come back on again. You've given us some very sound ideas...very much appreciated.

Will let you know which one we go with for future reference. You've been a great help.


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