A little heat and some confessions of a hoarder..

Garry Foster

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North Central Ohio
Well now that I am retired I want to spend some time in the shop, It is the lower level of a split. Takes up about 2/3 of it. It is basically a 2 car garage that is also 2 cars deep. In other words 2 side by side and room for two more in front of them. The back half sits on past the end of the house. It has cinder block up about 4 feet and above that is stud construction. The studded walls are insulated and sheetrocked. The ceiling is insulated but not sheetrocked.

So I took one of the doors and built a minimal false wall and installed it outside the garage door. Covered it with 4 mil poly for glazing. When the sun shines I open the door and let the sun shine in. This morning it was in the high 20's outside and the shop was 43. By sunset it was 54 in the shop and I had spent all day in it with no jacket. It never got over 33 outside all day.

I will add some pictures in a day or two but as it stands now it sure won't win any beauty contests. I think if I would insulate the cinder blocks and also do the second door I could work on most winter days.

The idea came from here but as I say this is just an experiment, and so far the dollars invested has been zero, so at this time it looks nothing like that. My doors face about 5 degrees east of south which is why I chose this option.

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/SolarGarageCollector/garcol.htm
 
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I wonder is I can do that in the winter on my shop, in spite of the fact that I live in AZ it gets cold here at least for me. The night time temps get in to sub zero temps and day temps can run in the 40's and 50 on some days annot very far into the 60.....hmmmmmmmm....:huh::D:thumb:
 
I wonder is I can do that in the winter on my shop, in spite of the fact that I live in AZ it gets cold here at least for me. The night time temps get in to sub zero temps and day temps can run in the 40's and 50 on some days annot very far into the 60.....hmmmmmmmm....:huh::D:thumb:

Don there are a lot of solar options out there. If you get sun and face south there is a lot you can do. If you have room you can gain a lot by building a system that leans back to a good average angle for you location.

http://www.builditsolar.com/

You can get lost here for several hours....

If I was planning on staying here 10 years I would get pretty serious about this solar stuff..

Some systems you can store enough to last a a few days....

I am not a greenie per say but I sure do like to hang onto my green backs and both electric and propane have about tripled here in the last few years..
 
My neighbor (wish it was me!!) had solar installed on their house during construction...want to say about $42k?? His PG&E (our poor excuse for a utility company) bill for the entire year in 2010...$74 for the entire year and mind you it's usually over 100 during the summer and his house is cooled to 72F 24/7. His house is 1500sf. I really want to look into solar since my PG&E is about $600 a month during the summer:eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
Here are a couple of pictures of this simple solar assist..

It was 40 in there this morning and 22 or so outside. Now at 3:00 out side it's about 27 and inside it has climbed to about 54.

P1010488.JPG

P1010489.JPG
 
If any of you have a south facing door I sure encourage your to give something like this a try.

Temp is 24 outside with 19 mph winds and temp down there is well above 50 and sunshine today has been intermittent. As usual it started out about 42-43 in the shop. The other day with no sun I ran an electric heater all day and only raised it from 43 to about 46 and it was well above 30 outside. If there is any sun I can work in a long sleeve thermal undershirt and a short sleeve T shirt over it. I am still in the clean up phase after trashing and saving everything for 26 years. Problem is I save everything and am a Ham as well as hobbiest in metal and wood. So i have hoarded way to much stuff. The other day I threw away some Ham magazines and the first one out of the box was from 1976. Oh and I used to shoot trap/skeet and worked at the trap range. I have thrown away probably 10,000 shotgun hulls and still saved to many. Fixed an old ice cream freezer today that had sit broken fro 10 years or better. Redwood and the hoops rusted thru, so I used my clone clamptite wire tool and we will see how it holds up.

As has been said its a disease! Hording that is..
 
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