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I'm old enough to remember magazines that used to come
to the house when i was a boy, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and they had
plans and were
full of articles about how you could make useful things that you couldn't buy
and that's really the spirit of what I've tried to do here
About five years ago we were
faced with the prospect of replacing our
pool heater which turned out to be a fairly expensive proposition
several thousands of dollars
I started to wonder about the possibility of providing solar heat with something that I would build
After five years, five prototypes,
much distress, agony and some
delightful times
I have come up with something that i'd like to share with you
that is working well for us and is a pretty neat project
to have been involved in. The unit that you're going to see
currently heats a swimming pool.
It provides about fifty thousand BTUs (British Thermal Units) of energy
on a bright sunny day such as we have today
It completely takes the place of the propane heater that we were using before
the energy from the sun is essentially free
the cost of building the collectors approximately a hundred and fifty
dollars US per section, you can build as many sections as you like
I have thirteen in my collector that you're going to see
A person that is reasonably comfortable with the tools
and the methods will probably spend about a week to two weeks to make their first collector
The time after that after that once you get the jigs worked out
and in place and you get comfortable with the method you will probably cut that time in half
When I set out to design the guidebook I had in mind the person that
had a basic set of skills, had learned to use a saw and a drill
perhaps taking care of things around the house
and i tried to lead them through
possibly in greater details and might be in some other books but I tried
to show step-by-step
what it would take
to successfully built the array
The manual contains step-by-step directions
still a list of materials, a list of the tools that you require
alignment procedures
electrical diagrams
for size templates
virtually everything you need
The person who builds this is going to enjoy the
wonderful satisfaction of the project being completed
enjoy an ongoing source of free heat
and will have knowledge that what they have is
absolutely unique
You can't buy a product like this You have to make it
It's a good thing to do. Ecologically we have to get off fossil
fuels and if you are faced like i was with the prospect of a five thousand dollar pool heater
and ongoing operating costs of one to two thousand dollars a year for propane
plus the pollution that produces this is much much better