Solar heat

[WA1GFZ]

Well it is about 80 in the solar room and the sun on my arm is starting to feel like a heat gun. Time to head to the shack and cool down.
OPEC monster will rest today.

[W1RKW]

My next project for the house commencing next spring is a solar system to supplement heat and fight the OPEC monster.

[WA1GFZ]

Yesterday I finally put a shirt on around 5:00 pm after working on the rig most of the day down in the shack. The Heat came on and woke me up about 11:55. It was a fine solar day yesterday and we pumped a lot of heat into the rock bed. The sun is at a nice low angle with a bounce off the snow. Kind of like a good ground system under an antenna. The sun was just hitting my elbow yesterday and it was beginning to sting with heat. If the glass was perfect we would be pulling 30,000 BTU off the sun so a bit under that.

[W1RKW]

Frank,
Is the rock bed isolated from the geothermal effects of the ground?   How do you isolate it in your solar setup?  How do you transfer heat from the collector to the rock bed, liquid or air?

[WA1GFZ]

I blow warm air through the rock under the slate floor. I have 35 yards of stone and concrete. I pull air from near ceiling with a dual 340 CFM blower and pipe it under the rock bed. it exits the rock bed in the basement. I have 3 inches of foam around the sides and 1 inch under sitting on the old carport driveway. The room used to be a 14 by 30 foot carport. fc