www.TheDoItYourselfWorld.com

I just began to experiment with what will be part of my future off grid setup- just two marine batteries, one 100W panel, charge controller (like the cheap one you just got in the mail), 500 W modified inverter, and some basic supplies to run off of it. It's all an outside setup in an old playground, and the batteries are in a laundry bin that has some flexible foam thing (from the solar panel packaging) to keep all the holes for ventilation safe from water getting in. Don't worry, I have enough holes to keep the thing from blowing up, and the holes are screened from bugs, too.

I still live at home (I am only 15) but I was outside recently in the freezing weather, and realized that there must be a way to harness the sun's energy for heating rather than using fire or electricity or propane. Lo and behold, within seconds of a YouTube search, I found out that there are people who make just that. It is as big as you want it to be, and it looks quite similar to a solar panel. It has glass and is black on the inside. The only difference is that there is one vent pipe thing and uses a fan to blow the heat, instead of two wires to charge batteries. Watching your no water video, you could use this concept to melt ice, heat your RV (you could combine it with the pipe that you made/considered making to run heat around your RV)

I made a link to the video below. You don't need to have the same material that the person sprayed black, it just has to withstand around 250-degree heat and be colored black.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwUT0ytPfLA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I would also love to help you sometime in the future when I graduate from High School with whatever project/experiment you may be working on then. I'm taking courses in carpentry and electrical, so I can help you out with stuff related to that, too.

Good luck!

Sounds awesome that you are getting into solar. It is good to become familiar with it using a smaller setup and then expand. By the time you graduate, you will be a pro.

Thanks for the idea on the solar heater. I actually do make them myself and had my old camper heated for a while two years ago with just solar heat in the day. Now my passive solar porch helps a lot but I can improve it some when I get back from Australia.

Would be cool to have help one day. Keep in touch when you are out of school

Alright, I hope you enjoy Australia! I've been doing many experiments myself involving my setup, and I really do see what you mean with your tests and everything. I really hope I will be able to help you with anything once I graduate, but I know this solar and do-it-yourself stuff is definitely for me. Good luck!

Thanks. Australia is definitely a good place for solar. The sun shines strong here all year round. So far its turning out nice here. But I cant wait to be back to The Off Grid Project

Awesome to see a teenager interested in solar heating! It is definitely an old idea, but it is finally making itself into the commercial market: they actually sell these solar collector heaters in north america... But the technology is a little behind the times for most commercial units. There's a new product out now that has an upsidedown approach to solar heating... Some say they are just blowing the air the wrong way, but others are saying, duh, heat should come out at floor level, not the ceiling!. Called Okapi systems. Weird name, but you might want to look it up for fun.
Hope you experiment with a bunch of awesome solar collector designs!

SolarSam wrote:Awesome to see a teenager interested in solar heating! It is definitely an old idea, but it is finally making itself into the commercial market: they actually sell these solar collector heaters in north america... But the technology is a little behind the times for most commercial units. There's a new product out now that has an upsidedown approach to solar heating... Some say they are just blowing the air the wrong way, but others are saying, duh, heat should come out at floor level, not the ceiling!. Called Okapi systems. Weird name, but you might want to look it up for fun.
Hope you experiment with a bunch of awesome solar collector designs!

It looks very interesting! I would definitely get it if I had the funds for it. I am going to make a heat box soon for myself, I think. I have $0 in funds at the time and to follow up on my primary post, that "experiment" I was talking about has evolved dramatically- check for my post under the off grid living discussions page for more info on that.