If my stove sells I am going to put part of the proceeds into an alternative form of heat. Figure a $600 max budget. I am not afraid of building it myself and have been looking over plans from Builditsolar.com. This is one of the maybes to build screen collector

option 2 for a water based system is this aluminum/copper collector

open to suggestions, mainly looking to heat the living room. No basement under it so very cold floors.

so your planning on heating your house over the winter with this? where do you live hawaii or florida?

No I plan on using it as supplemental heat to keep a room warm that doesn't have basement under it. If I installed enough panels I could provide a significant amount of the houses heat load. Consider that my Bixby puts out 53,000 BTU and some of these panels can produce quite a bit during the day. Night I will fall back on my natural gas 94% efficient furnace.

well the solar air is probably your best bet for low maintenance.i hope you have a big southern facing wall too.i made one just for fun over the winter.it was very small just for experimenting.it worked pretty good.what kind of glazing will you be using?4'x8' panels?most of the heat will come out the top so you might want to redirect it too the floor?add some clay bricks in line for heat storage.what kind of floor do you have you might want to insulate it.if you plan on having these for awhile you need to make them so they can be opened yearly or every couple years to reapply the black coating.you can get some solar panels and 12 volt computer fans to help pull in the heat. no batterys needed. when the sun comes on strong the fans kick on when its not so sunny natural convection.is your room at ground level or above? you can post pics here.

tinypic.com/

so that we get a better understanding of your room inside and out

www.harborfreight.com/5-watt-solar-battery-charger-41144.html

www.harborfreight.com/45-watt-solar-panel-kit-90599.html

I had 2 of those Harbor Freight junk 45 watt panel kits. Charge controllers lasted 6 months. 1 of the panels completely died and 3 others had the wire junction box fall off the back. Builditsolar.com has lots of good articles and I will be using one of their designs. I have 10 feet of south wall in this room and 12 in the bathroom so some type of solar hot air is most likely.

I finished putting windows in my back porch. I used Lowe E 179 passive solar glass. I also know of a guy that sells door units that have no frame here in Wisconsin cheap. The same glass can be used in your collectors.

Menards carries a plastic panel that works well and is 4x8 making construction easy.

Went with a dryer vent based solar hot air panel.







Currently 17 degrees outside and it is pumping 135 degree air into my living room. Pretty good for $250 in parts!

what did you do for the clear cover glass dbl pane or plastic

I bet the cats found a comfy spot fast lol. What type of clear covering do you put on the front of it to protect the inside?