DIY Solar Water Heaters! My 7 DIY Solar Water Heaters - All Easy DiY's! (Copper/Pex/CPVC/Poly Tube)
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2022
- My 7 DIY Solar Water Heaters! I've built several types including... Copper Coil Units, Copper Pipe Units, PEX Tubing Units, C-PVC Pipe Units and Poly Tubing Units. all are easy DIY projects! **Links to each of the original full-length videos (with instructions) are listed below...
1.) 1/4" Copper Coil unit • DIY Solar Water Heater...
2.) 3/8" Copper Coil unit • DIY Solar Water Heater...
3.) 1/2" Copper Pipe unit • DIY Solar Thermal Wate...
4.) 1/2" PEX Coil unit • DIY "PEX COIL" Solar W...
5.) 1/2" C-PVC unit • DIY Solar Water Heater...
6.) 1/2" Poly Pipe Single Spiral unit • solar water heater sim...
7.) 1/4" Poly Pipe Double Spiral unit • DIY Solar Water Heater...
Note: there are many other ways to heat water with solar power (including solar box ovens, parabolic dish collectors. parabolic trough concentrators, solar 'bottle-in-bottle' water heaters *to name a few). i'll be posting an extended cut of this video that will show all of the other solar projects i've made that can be used to heat water.
*this video focuses on my larger solar water heating panels. - Наука та технологія
Dude, your channel should be a public service, there’s so much useful (& potentially life saving) knowledge on here, I especially love your water distilling work 👍🏻 You’re a flat out madman genius, and your videos are very much appreciated. Thanks again, peace 😊
hi there. i appreciate the kind words. one of my main goals for the channel has always been to try to help as many people as possible by building easy, practical and effective projects that people can make to help their lives. i also try to promote recycling, up-cycling solar and renewables as well.
Agreed!
Indeed..
It is
For real, this is the real gold on the interwebs. Almost balances out all the intentional evil and hate that people spew because it's so easy. Can you imagine where we'd be if they used all that energy like this guy? Can you imagine where we'll be with this knowledge when this tech becomes life or death gear?
It's people like this man that leave the earth a better place than when he found it. Best wishes from Ireland 🇮🇪
Awesome! You have one of the best channels on UA-cam.
thanks! 🙂
The 3/8 copper is my favorite. Thank you 🙏.
you're welcome! yes, the copper ones are great (and very long lasting). now if they would make 1/2" flexible copper tubing that was easy to work with, that would be great. 👍🌞
Great video and very informative. I live off grid and have used a polypipe one of these in the past and a radiator one. They do get so hot and quickly on those sunny days. Best wishes.
hi and thanks! yep, just a simple black-poly spiral (irrigation tubing) can go from tap water temps (80F) to 130F+ in 15 minutes. the shower i made with the poly spiral works awesome. you'll need the cold water line too (as shown in the video) to get the right water temp for a shower. a single 100 foot 1/2" coil with cold water line attached gets me a warm 5 to 8 minute shower.
Gonna have to try this for my camper in Louisiana.
good deal! ✔🦅
Looking forward to trying the PEX Coil version 👍
Surprising and impressive that the poly tubes got that warm considering they weren't even in a box to keep ambient air temperature from cooling them. A few years ago, I built a small (3'x3') CPVC type, with 1/2" risers and 3/4" top and bottom manifolds to heat my hot tub (soaking tub). I glued it all together and painted the plumbing black, but just set it over shiny corrugated sheet metal, thinking reflection from below as well as direct sun would help heat it. It's covered with a piece of double glass I had laying around (box sized to fit), and insulated the perimeter with 1" polyiso foil foam board I got from a renovation project. It takes to the third day to heat a 180 gallon stock tank (insulated with strips of the same foam) of cold well water to 105. As long as I cover it at night, it stays hot enough to reheat it to piping hot soaking temps the following day. It's just an inline circulating pump with screen filter running to the panel. Fun and rewarding project. ...love your channel. I'm building one of your solar ovens.
Loving it Brother! Thumbs up video ~John
dayum thank you you're a life savor. have you thought about creating or buying a electric cooler to continuously cool the water and run that through the cooling inlets? one day you should make the video titled 'the ULTIMATE diy cooling system at home guide (beats commercial ac's)'
It's been suggested a few times ;)
All your videos are truly amazing.
thanks very much!
truly a GREAT VID !!!
especially the included separate build vid links !!! 👍
Thanks 👍
Great work on the experiments showing the ability to heat water using solar. It is quite easy because there is approximately 1000 W of energy per square meter of area and it is easy to get it. The sun just needs to hit an area and not leave. Black does that.
For accurate comparisons of heat, you need to have each one operating at the same flow rate. A slow flow will result in more heat but less actual calories of heat in the same volume of water. The total amount of heat energy is what is important for actual use. Since the available energy is due to direct sun contact, only the actual pipe that is in contact with the sun will be heated, unless you have fins that can gather that heat and carry it to the pipe. Either way, there needs to be good contact with the area that the sun hits for the water in the pipe to get all the available energy for max efficiency. Aluminum flashing works well for this, as it is thick enough to transfer heat fast enough to avoid reaching its thermal capacity, as long as the distance isn't too far. Using the flashing method, you need good contact with the pipe on at least half of its diameter. It really increases the efficiency so you get more energy out of less area and less components.
Keep up the good work.
hi and thanks!
awesome for the winter
summer too! 🙂
@@desertsun02 Thanks for your fabulous work man.
@self-Law you bet! 🤠
@@desertsun02 yep, would be awesome for off grid heated showers like you had in the video.
You save me with your videos
Channel is awesome. Was wondering and hoping you might have some more diy heating coming up. With the word being spread around the net, it would be cool if folks had some options to keep warm. Keep up the great work, awesome stuff!!
hi and thanks! - i have been looking at making more DIY heater vids. i have one "in the works" currently. btw - make sure to check the channel for my other DIY heating vids. i've got 15 or 20 previous vids on the various DIY heaters i've made. (most of them run 'off grid' and a few don't even need electricity!).
Hello. I've just found your channel and have seen two of your videos which are excellent so I've subscribed to your channel and can't wait to watch everything you have on it about these solar hot water systems. By any chance do you have a synopsis video of what you've learned over the years building all these systems that go over which of them work the best? It would be incredibly helpful to have you go over a comparison that includes common (if any) breakdowns in the various systems you've built, including longevity (or likely longevity) of the materials in each (piping used and fittings), how you hook these systems into your home water system, pros and cons of each, etc? Since these systems are obviously heating water up to scalding temps, I assume you have some sort of mixing valves on your fixtures to prevent that... Gosh there's so much to think about in designing this sort of thing!
We are building a house next year and are implementing a gravity feed how water siphoning system that is heated by our wood cook stove in winter, but we need a way to heat our water during the long, dry, relatively hot sunny summers here in the Pacific Northwest. For this reason we will want our solar hot water system to be mounted at ground level. Since our hot water storage tank will be on the second floor, I hope to hook a solar hot water heater into the same storage tank to heat our water in the summer. I need to be clear about the details of whatever system we're going to make by late this spring when we finalize our plans so that when we start construction in the spring of 2025 we'll know exactly where we need to lay pipe, etc. We will be draining the solar system during the winter, so no worries about it freezing. For shoulder seasons we would maybe like to have a way of hooking up our outdoor kitchen rocket stove hot water heating system to the same fittings as the solar hot water heater if we can figure out a disconnect system. Any thoughts or input on that would be greatly appreciate as well. Thank you so much for posting all this amazing info for everyone to learn from!
Love your stuff. I rely on it and you all the time even just to cut daily expen$e$ .. Try to let folks know about you whenever I have an opportunity!!!
hi. i appreciate that! it helps more than people know. sharing the channel name & video links with people (plus embedding the links wherever you can) are 3 best ways to spread the word. it helps a ton.
If you build it like the CPVC heater, but with cold water coming in at the bottom and hot water exiting at the top, you can make a thermosyphon. No water pressure or pump necessary. Place the panel below an IBC. Run the cold pipe from the bottom of the IBC straight downward to the bottom of the panel. Run the hot pipe straight from the top of the panel up to a bulkhead fitting near the top of the IBC. Voila! 250 gallons of hot water that can last for days, even if it's not sunny.
Thanks. Very simple and useful!
Can you make sand battery with water heating element insted water use sand. As electric radiator for heating space in a house. Maybe idea for a video?
Good ideas
thanks!😎
This is so helpful, thank you! I am thinking of ways to heat a chicken coop and “cold frame” green house. Is there a way to have a closed solar system and bury additional pex a few inches under ground and have radiant heated floors? How would you get the water to move? How would you pressurize it? Just a few questions I have!
Genius⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Hot water for virtually free. MY MAN.
I live on Maui so plenty of Solar doing research to use to provide sufficient hot water for my Jacuzzi tube up stairs. If I can achieve 140 degrees that should work. I was looking at producing 10 gallons. I looked at the pipe volume calculation…. 1/2 inch pipe 500 ft would have a little more than 5 gallons. I’ll try 1000feet and see if it fills sufficiently probably need to cool it any ways.
Amazing! What air temperature are you operating these water heaters? Do you think they would work in cooler cloudy countries like the UK. Thank you
hi. the air temp range is from the 40's to over 110 Fahrenheit. the main thing you need is the sun for these to work good. the air temp is far less important. as long as it's a sunny day - it should work good
The coils in frames should be behind galss covers which would protect the coil from outside cold air cooling. I am going to use two sources of off grid heating, solar from pv panels or this coil frame with a multi fuel burner with a water loop inside, i have an indirect water cylinder with connections for both.
Love your channel, I was wondering if you can make a diy solar powered ice maker with no batteries, I think it would be great for man kind. Great work on everything you do, very very insporational!
hi and thanks! unfortunately, the ""no batteries"" part is very hard to do. (i'm assuming that you've seen my 2 vids on making ice with solar panels and batteries). seems like all the ice makers and freezers have a 'surge' at start up (so batteries and an inverter are required). if they didn't (and they were 12v DC powered) i would be able to connect them straight to a 12v solar panel (or panels). a solar panel by itself won't handle the startup surge. the only possibility i can think of is that they sell those 12v freezers that you can plug into your cars' 12v power port. you might be able to run a freezer like that straight to a solar panel (with no batteries). i'm not sure if those have a surge when they start up. now you got me thinking. i may have to research those 12v freezers. who knows, it may be my next video 😎
Such a great reply. Thank you for the info. If it is possible then the ice would be like a battery. Everything batteryless is will be a huge benefit in the future, thank you for helping make that happen, maybe perhaps another one or two 100w panels to help with initial start up. A variable startup would be ideal for different times of day and intensity if that's even possible. Been wondering about batteryless ice for years thanks to your old videos. Batteries always add such a cost that it probably makes it prohibitive for many folks around the world. I'm on ig if you would ever like to colabprate on ideas, I'm also learning ed modeling with a 3d printer if there was ever a specific thing u need designed in plastic. Keep up the great work man, inventions like yours will and are are changing the world. Only downside of solar is the heat islands they create from the dark color, thankfully there are companies that can add art, color and white to reflect heat, also some new chemicals that absorb and reflect better than anything we ever had. Cheers
Need advice. I am getting ready to build my solar pool heater. I’m using 1/2” irrigation spiral in a 1/2” plywood box framed with 2x4’s. I’m thinking of using XPS foam board insulation and then aluminum flashing before adding the tubing. Thoughts? Is it worth it? And what is the best value for covering panel? Glass, plexiglass, acrylic? Thickness? Appreciate feedback.
hi. i couldn't say about the foam board insulation (since i haven't used it), but it may be beneficial for extra heat. the best material for covering the unit is just clear glass. in my experience, things like plexi-glas sometimes want to 'warp' and can cause issues. try to find clear non reflective glass. some of the home stores sell it cheap in my area.
Awesome, I wonder on your copper tubing collectors, if you put reflectors like a solar box oven, on how much would that raise the temperature.
hi. it would probably raise the temperature quite a bit. i'd guess you could raise it another 10 degrees F (maybe even more). that might be a good option for people who get a little less sun
One of these combined with one of your transcooler heaters would provide space heating on cold winter days.
yes indeed! that's a great use for these. ⭐✔👈
I made a poly pipe coil solar collector with 50 meter of black 13mm irrigation poly it worked great for around 5 years but eventually the poly pipe became brittle and cracks and leaks appeared and the pipe crumbled - the suns heat and water treatment chemicals probably degraded plastic - maybe will try a copper pipe version next.
hi. i've had the same experience as you have with the poly pipe units i've made. i usually get about 5 years before the pipe gets brittle. the painted pex should hold up a lot longer (but copper would last the longest).
Good video! Which one of them heated the water the fastest?
hi there. the copper is probably the fastest (but just by a few minutes)
So im doing a hybrid evap cooler with a radiator based system, use the condensation from the rad with the blue pad on a rad, its for my 82 f150 that has just heat but i live in the desert where the lowest is 50 ish lol
Just love ths kind of projects which one in your opinion works best out of curiosity ? 👍
hi there. the ones made of copper have an 'edge' but it's just by a few degrees.
Heya, love your builds! Just a quick question before I start planning - how long, would you say, would it take the PEX coil to heat 5gallons of water to cca 86F in full summer sunlight? Just a ballpark number is more than enough - an hour, two, less, more? Thanks! PS: if you have any data gathered from these projects, would love to see it!
hi. i can get water to go from tap water temps (77F) to 130F in only 15 minutes (in the summer sun). it takes a bit longer in the winter months but it will get there. (it would probably get to 86F in less than 5 minutes).
@@desertsun02 since you don't mention volume, do I understand correctly that when you say 'water'. you mean the water that is in the coil? So if the coil itself can hold a gallon of water, let's say, that gallon gets heated to 130F in 15mins, right?
Two things I'd be curious about; seeing a chart of the temperature from the different systems and what temperature readings they would get running about 100 gallons of water through it just before sunrise for morning showers?
These are all solar flash heaters. With no sun, the water coming out will all be right at the hose water temperature coming in. If you want storage for morning showers, see my comment above.
Hi, my free warm water adventure started with a couple garden hoses just lying on the terrace and being connected to an outside shower.
At another location I got myself a couple of the fancy thick black american garden hoses with the brass couplings for an outside shower. In fact they did not work better than a simple garden hose.
On the third location I am using black flexible water pipe with 20mm outside and 16 mm inside diameter. I got 50 meters in 3 loops under an old balcony glas sliding door just lying flat on the flat roof.
A simple car thermometer with an outside sensor is taped under the pipe at the inlet side.
When it shows over 40 degree C it is ample for one person to take a good warm shower. Over 55 C it is enough for 2 persons.
The pipe contains 10 liter water. It is connected to the house warm water line and is used as the only source of warm water.
OK this does not work all over the world but in sunny south Spain it is the easiest way to get warm water for free. (Well around 50 $ for the pipe and the connectors and you need a big old window or glass door.
And jes you have to do your shower after the sun schedule, not after sun down. But for free, it is a small price to pay.
Regeneration time is around 1-2 hours sommer - winter
System in permanent use since 3 years.
It works with light cloud cover if your solar radiation is over 300 w/m2.
Great designs and, more importantly, results. What's unclear (except for the outdoor shower) is what's being done with the heated-up water and/or how it is integrated into the household use: is it stored, is it contuously circulating, is it only on-demand during sunny day time, that sort of practical application information. I can build a coil and heat up the water in the tube, but I take my show inside, I wash the dishes after evening dinner, ... I'd like to take advantage of this solar power but am afraid I lack the ingenuity of turning it into a "system". Any good advice, examples, ... would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all you're sharing
hi there. i generally use the coils as stand alone units. i heat up the water and then transport it to where i want it. i mainly use the water for cleaning dishes, hand washing clothes, scrubbing floors and counters... thinks like that. i experimented with storage containers but only use use those as portable setups. some people use these to heat pools and others use them as a pre heater before they feed into a water heater.
how much hot water do they produce though?
This might be a bad observation. But what is the input temp, outdoor temp, and final temp. I hear 140/145 but it' doesn't tell how much thermal energy is being absorbed, or the relevant flow of water, thermal transfer, etc.
hi. water going in is 75 to 80F. water coming out can be anywhere from 130F to 185F (depending on the model and how hot it is that day)
1.) 1/4" Copper Coil unit 75C =167F
2.) 3/8" Copper Coil unit • 78C = 172F
3.) 1/2" Copper Pipe unit • 65C = 150F
4.) 1/2" PEX Coil unit • 60c = 140F
5.) 1/2" C-PVC unit • 60C = 140F
6.) 1/2" Poly Pipe Single Spiral unit •
7.) 1/4" Poly Pipe Double Spiral unit • 60C = 140F
Please make one with 50 feet of 1/2 copper coil and see if you can get the temp to just under boiling
hi. the problem with (1/2" copper) coil is that once you get to that size/diameter it's very rigid and very hard to shape into a large flat coil. (at least it's very hard to work with 'by hand')
@@desertsun02 I have been making bends with a 1/2" pipe bender (1.5" Radius) and it is easy because of the two levers for handles, but I know what you mean, 1/2" copper is not the easiest to work with. Not to mention without a couple people to help it is unwieldy to straighten a 50 foot roll to then coil in increasing size concentric loops. Copper work hardens very quickly, just straightening the coil and attempting to make the heater is a challenge. Unfortunately to be plumbed into a home heating system it needs to be 1/2" to avoid flow restriction.
But what if you hooked them all up into one another in a line then ran the water into one of your aluminum heat Sink room coolers and made a heater
hi. using these to heat air is a good idea 👍
What's the best bang for your buck?
hi. the cheapest is the irrigation tubing. if you only need it to last a few years that may be the way to go. copper tube cost the most but last 50 years or longer.
It's like tony stark survived and went offgeid after endgame.
Tell us again please, which one got the hottest?
hi. on average, the copper pipe ones get a few degrees hotter than the non-metal pipe units (but it's a trade-off with the price). the copper is the most expensive by far.
fill with sand
i've been considering trying that. sand holds heat well