DIY solar collector.

Solar water heater (collector) - an indispensable assistant in the household. A collector of the required size and design can provide hot water to a family of several people, while saving hundreds - thousands of rubles, which are spent on electricity and other types of energy resources.

If your dacha does not yet have electricity and gas, and heating water is a certain difficulty, I suggest making a solar water heater for showering and washing dishes from materials that can often be found in a landfill.
First, you need to find the faulty refrigerator, namely, its coil, which is attached to the back wall, is damaged.


After the coil is dismantled, it must be washed with a stream of water to get rid of the old freon.


We stock up on slats that we will need in the future to make the frame.


I found an old rubber mat, which is often placed under the door.


Glass is also not necessary to buy. It can be dismantled from an old window, which is usually thrown into the trash, when replaced with plastic windows.


Since our rubber mat turned out to be too big, it was decided to cut it to the size of the future frame.


We knock down a frame from the slats so that the coil fits freely between the slats.


We try on the coil and rubber mat to the frame. We mark the place of fastening of the bottom rail of the frame and the places of cuts for the exit of the tubes.


We install the bottom rail of the frame, spread foil between the rubber mat and the frame.


On the back side of the frame, we stuff slats to add rigidity to the structure.


We carefully tape all the gaps between the frame and the foil with tape. This is necessary to prevent cooler outside air from entering the collector.



To supply water to the coil, a PVC pipe was purchased.


Sealing of the connections of the tubes and the coil was ensured with tape.


To secure the coil, clamps were used that were removed from the refrigerator. Fastening the clamps was also secured with tape. But for reliability, I recommend securing it with screws.



We cover our structure with glass and tape it around the perimeter.



The homemade solar collector is ready. For best heating, the sun's rays must fall on the surface of the collector at a right angle. Therefore, the fastening of the supporting elements of the structure completes the work.


To prevent the glass from moving from the heat, you need to screw in a couple of screws at the bottom that will serve as stops.

Now all that remains is to attach the hot water storage tank.

Circulation occurs only due to natural convection. When heated, the water in the collector expands, becomes less dense, rises up the collector and enters the upper part of the storage tank through a pipe.As a result, cooler water at the bottom of the tank is displaced and flows through another pipe to the bottom of the collector. This water in turn is heated and rises into the tank.


1 - hot water; 2 - pressure relief valve; 3 - hot water drain; 4 - shut-off valve; 5 - make-up valve; 6 - cold water; 7 - cold water supply; 8 - drain valve.

As long as the sun shines, the water will constantly circulate along this circuit, becoming increasingly warmer. Due to the fact that the tank is raised above the collector, the effect of turning over the circulation as a result of night cooling of the coolant in the collector is negated, since cold water simply accumulates at the lowest point of the system (at the bottom of the collector), while warm water remains in the tank.

Such a simple design of a solar collector is capable of heating water on a sunny day, up to 70 degrees.


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Comments (10)
  1. Alexander
    #1 Alexander Guests December 8, 2013 20:33
    4
    the tube is thin - it will heat up slowly, the foil had to be attached to the outside, then inside there would be a solid black surface that would ensure a higher temperature inside the collector, and the foil would not allow this temperature to escape, so to speak, from the back side. In general, it’s a good idea to cover such things with thermal insulation)) and take a thicker tube, otherwise you’ll wait a week for these 70 degrees (unless, of course, you have a 5-liter tank)
  2. Sergey
    #2 Sergey Guests 12 January 2014 12:32
    4
    What if the collector itself is placed on the roof? If there is no yard and no possibility of installing it on the ground? then it won’t be able to work... convection itself won’t work... install a circulation pump?
  3. Valery
    #3 Valery Guests 23 August 2014 14:37
    3
    *Circulation occurs only due to natural convection.* -And for YOU, both outlets from the collector are located at the bottom and there will be no natural circulation / heat exchange. The top tube does not need to be lowered down, but sent straight into the tank.
  4. Sergey
    #4 Sergey Guests 20 November 2014 15:09
    3
    Quote: Alexander
    the tube is thin - it will heat up slowly, the foil had to be attached to the outside, then inside there would be a solid black surface that would ensure a higher temperature inside the collector, and the foil would not allow this temperature to escape, so to speak, from the back side. In general, it’s a good idea to cover such things with thermal insulation)) and take a thicker tube, otherwise you’ll wait a week for these 70 degrees (unless, of course, you have a 5-liter tank)

    In fact, everything is not as gloomy as you imagined. Through a tube with a diameter of 5 mm, water moves laminarly at a speed of about 1 m/s, carrying a volume of water of more than 6 g/s. The time it takes for water to pass through the entire collector from start to finish is approximately 10 seconds.If during this time the water heats up by only 5 degrees (and practice shows that this is the case), then it will take about 4 hours to heat a 100-liter tank. In fact, if the water in the collector moves even slower, it will heat up even more as it passes through the collector. And maybe the heating time of the water in the tank will be even shorter.
  5. Dmitriy
    #5 Dmitriy Guests 6 January 2015 17:18
    3
    It was stupid to reflect energy that could have been absorbed.
    If the foil was placed on the other side of the rubber mat, it would be much more effective. The rubber would heat up, the foil would reduce heat loss on the other side (you can and should use another heat insulator instead of foil), the air would be heated by the rubber and the radiator would be heated. And the glass would not allow this hot air to escape.
    The only problem is the heated rubber mat. I don't think hot rubber vapors are very good for your health.
  6. Alexander
    #6 Alexander Guests 10 January 2015 14:48
    3
    You only need to heat the radiator, and nothing else superfluous... But perhaps the efficiency will increase if instead of foil you use a black metal plate, thermally insulated on the reverse side.
    And definitely necessary
    - stick the car tint film onto the glass with the mirror facing inward;
    - install several of these tinted glasses with an air gap...
  7. Nurullah
    #7 Nurullah Guests January 17, 2015 12:23
    6
    The foil inside the chamber, on the contrary, scatters all the light outward. You need to use a metal sheet, maybe a thin one. be sure to ensure thermal contact of the radiator with the sheet. Paint the sheet together with the solar radiator black with non-shiny paint. The rear should be thoroughly insulated. The glass must be transparent, otherwise it will heat up and not the radiator.It is advisable to make several glasses - a kind of double-glazed window with a sealed air gap between the layers. Tube supply: bottom - inlet, top - outlet. It would be better to use a radiator with a larger cross-section of tubes - efficiency increases due to better heat removal from the collector to the receiver.
  8. Alexander
    #8 Alexander Guests 8 January 2016 19:58
    4
    Foil is unnecessary. The darker the surface, the greater the heating. If you remove the foil, the coil will heat up not only from the sun's rays. Inside, under the glass, the air will still heat up from dark rubber or any other black surface. Instead of glass, you can use transparent polyethylene. Also, around the barrel on the soul, make any frame 5cm - 20cm larger than the barrel, wrap it in polyethylene on all sides. So that the wind does not blow around the barrel. Paint the barrel black. At the end of a sunny day, in summer, not everyone can resist taking a shower. We use it for washing. Solar collectors are a brilliant thing.
  9. BENDER39
    #9 BENDER39 Guests 25 April 2018 08:01
    3
    In general, if you put a tank of water in a glass box, then in the sun the water will heat up very much, but here it’s like this figovina. And nafik there is foil? What's the point of a rubber mat then? And instead of glass, you can actually use black film, it will be hot as hell, and if you also put the tank in a box made of black film, then that’s it, you’ll only have to wash in the morning, when the water has cooled down
  10. Sanya Rybak
    #10 Sanya Rybak Guests May 26, 2019 11:56
    6
    I painted the tank on the shower with black paint, put a glass box on top, even in cloudy weather the water is hot... no collective farms with pipes... and yes, in order for warm water to flow, I attached a hose with a float to the drain... that's it.. ..