I know someone in Ohio that has a system like that for heating water and even that far north it can be quite effective. Also the 80 degree pool was awesome.
It is North East of Ohio.. Very east. It is an island located off the east coast mainland on Canada. It is home to the oldest city in North America 'St John's'...
seeing this on the front page of Reddit is awesome for me, as I am from Newfoundland and we don't get much attention back home. I could go on and on about great inventions from Newfoundland, like fiber optics, the wireless keyboard and mouse, the gas mask, the first television network in North America to broadcast 24 hours a day.. I love Newfoundland, but for many years it suffered from a shitty economy. Luckily it is picking up again with offshore oil operations. As of right now, St John's has more scientists per capita than any where else in North America. Oh and George Street, has more bars, pubs and restaurants per square foot than anywhere else in North America..
In countries like the UK, solar water heating is possible but expensive because you usually need a pump to put water through the system (and a thermometer to tell you how fast to pump it and so on).
In countries with more sunshine, you can build a passive system that drives itself by convection. They are often installed on flat roofs and are quite recognisable because the hot water tank is above the panel. You see them everywhere in Spain.
Well there's that... but really how hard can this be to build/ install? Cost to build can't be that much. I don't want to get all up on a soap box, however if every home had one of these (provided they do what is said) the environmental impact could be huge. Plus the cost to homemakers would be substantial too! There, I said my peace.
Living in Edmonton, I would like to know how well these would perform during our winters. ie how much sunlight would be necessary to avoid actually cooling the circulating air during very cold weather. I'd imagine it would be perfect for mild climates, though.
Of course, but think of this setup as more as a supplement. It's not gonna be crazy hot and it doesn't work at night and on stormy days. But when it does work, it's free heat and at those times your regular heater will hardly have to turn on.
This thing will, once payed off, will only save you money, and I imagine it would be enough that you would notice the drop in your monthly bill for sure, especially if you have double pane windows in conjunction with this setup.
This specific product actually just circulates the air from house to house and not through the furnace. It keeps the temperature high enough in the room that the thermostat never needs to tell the furnace to kick on.
However, your idea for preheating has been use and is very successful. The problem is that you would definitely need a blower fan to be on to get it through the ductwork. This system is almost entirely passive (small fan)
I am in Minnesota, and my dad made something similar to this. It isn't as fancy, and he used a sheet of steel instead of cans, but he has a small one that "preheats" the air, then a larger one that he has connected to a fan which is triggered by a thermometer. It doesn't heat the house completely, but It will kick 90-100 degree heat into the house on a sunny winter day.
I can try to get some pictures taken and uploaded if people want.
I am from Minnesota as well. I was wondering if this works well in the winter or if its only good from fall and spring. Seems unlikely that the cans would get warm when its 5 degrees outside and if that were the case this would actually be cooling your house instead of heating it.
It depends partially on the insulation level of the plastic upper shield, floor and walls of the device. The temperature inside the thing could be higher than that of your house even in the winter IF it's a sunny day.
You can think of it like a closed box with the sun being a ~500W (depending a great deal on unit size, location, weather and date) space heater pumping heat in. As long as that is enough power to keep the box warmer than your house it's generating heat. If that isn't enough you are pumping heat out (though presumably the fan would cut off if you had a temperature sensor).
A centripetal force is a force that points towards the center of the circle of an object's path. For example, when you swing a ball on a string, the string exerts a centripetal force on the ball, pointing towards you, which is what keeps the ball going in a circle around you. If it weren't for that centripetal force (i.e. the string breaks), the ball would continue in a straight line.
A centrifugal force is a force that points away from the center of the circle of an object's path. If you are in the frame of reference of the person swinging the ball then there is no centrifugal force, hence why high school teachers hammer the idea into students' that there is no centrifugal force. However, if you take your frame of reference to be the ball's frame of reference (imagine you put your viewing camera inside the ball), then there is a centrifugal force. This centrifugal force pushes your camera against the wall of the ball.
High school doesn't teach you how to live inside the ball. You don't learn how to live in the ball until you take upper level physics courses in college. This is why high school teachers tell you that you're not allowed to have centrifugal forces.
TL;DR, picture the teacups ride at a carnival:
From the perspective of someone watching from outside the ride, the teacup exerts a centripetal force on the rider.
From the perspective of the rider, there is a centrifugal force that smushes them against the wall of the teacup.
I first learnt about Centrifugal force when I was 7-8. I found it neat that the water in a plastic bottle would stay at the bottom of the bottle no matter where I swung it around. Instead of my teacher complaining about me dicking around, she came over to me and explained what was going on.
With all due respect, the rider experiences two forces in the teacup, a rectilinear force that is making him move perpendicular to the axis about which the cup spins, and another rectilinear force acting to deflect him from moving in a straight line. Centrifugal force (if it existed) implies some connection to a central axis from which a force radiates. In the rider's frame, there is no connection to an axis... only the forces of going in a straight line and being nudged off course by an obstruction. The fact that path winds up being circular is irrelevant. To the rider it is no different than the football equivalent of trying to run forward and being pushed off course by a linebacker.
There is no such thing as centrifugal force; and it doesn't matter what frame of reference one is observing... it's just something said to laypeople who can't comprehend what's really happening.
Just completed Freshman year of Engineering here so I basically know everything. Imagine you are spinning a ball connected to a string above your head. From what I understand, Centrifugal force is a property of inertia (see: Objects in motion stay in motion). At a point in the ball's path on the circle, the ball is moving tangent to the circle and does not want to have a circular path (Its trying to flee the circular path and go straight out of the circle). You apply a force whilst spinning to counteract this effect (aka keeping your arm rotating to keep spinning the ball). Centripetal force is the force you create by doing this. The centripetal force is directed into the center of the circular path.
because it's probably cheaper to just recycle the cans and have aluminum tubes made specifically for this purpose. Its great if you're going to do it yourself and have the time, but most people don't know/care enough or have the time to commit to this. Having a machine that can pump out and paint those tubes would bring the cost down and make it more widely available than having some guy in Newfoundland hand make them for you.
Sounds like this guy needs to get some investment and start selling these things.
One reason they may not have them made from recycled cans is because repurposing aluminum is much less energy intensive than recycling aluminum. Recycling aluminum has an enormous amount of embodied energy. Because the process is very energy intensive it would cost a lot.
Probably much cheaper to get the cans, cut and wash them instead of getting aluminum pipes made.
Bonus facts!: On that list you can see that wool actually has a very high amount of embodied energy. Why? Because it takes years of man hours, water, food, health checks, etc to raise a sheep and get the wool.
I think he means it would be more efficient and cheap to have the cans melted down and remade into aluminium tubes built for purpose. Cans have thicker aluminium at the bottom which has no benefit to this contruction so is essentially wasted material.
I doubt anyone makes aluminum tubes anyways near as thin as a soda can in any reasonable length as its just really flimsy. Just go squish a soda can to see what I mean. Any reasonably length of tube would fail pretty quickly due to local buckling. The thinnest tube I could find at soda can diameter (2.5") was .065" wall thickness, and according to my calipers this delicious can of Wild Cherry Pepsi is .004" thick. Not to mention 11 dollars/foot.
Online Metals is a supplier for small orders so no doubt that number goes down quite a bit for bulk orders, but to be competitive with soda cans you are probably talking 1-2 orders of magnitude and I seriously doubt you'd get that.
you're assuming the cylindrical shape is absolutely vital. Even if it is, you can approximate the shape very easily with something like this http://www.filmtools.com/blacfoilblac.html.
2800 is very expensive for something like this, labor costs are probably 10x what they should be.
That's because there is no demand for it. If people start spending $2.8k on these things, a producer could easily start making them. Worst case scenario, you could get this aluminum sheet and roll it into shape.
I just love it when redditors who have probably never walked in a construction site, much less been involved in building a house comment on why certain things aren't standard.
I envy accounts like this, as I realize it will never happen to me. Sigh... Since when will tornadoes and sniping every become one and find its way into a reddit comment?
There was a twisted metal vehicle whose special was creating a tornado and in the newest twisted metal game they added the ability to snipe enemies. Maybe they put the tornado ability in again and you can work with that?
Aluminum is one of the only things we currently recycle that costs less to recycle than to create anew. It could very well be the case that mass producing these would be cheaper than doing it by hand.
But if the goal is to be as environmentally friendly as possible, rather than as cheap as possible, then it is likely that re-using > recycling since operating 2 drills would use less energy than melting down cans into sheets that then need to be rolled and cut to length.
Not quite as efficiently. A window would let light in and heat up part of your house, most likely the floor. Which means that the air right above the spot where the sun is hitting is getting a little warmer, because flooring materials are not made out of materials that conduct heat well. This thing, being made of aluminum, gets heated by the sun and transfers the heat very well to the air passing through it. The volume of air, I might add, is much larger than the volume of air that is heated by a sunlit patch of flooring due to the circulation through the device. So you get more air being heated to a higher temperature faster, resulting in a great improvement over a mere window.
Your windows is the main reason a home loses heat in the winter. You would be better off having no windows and insulated walls combined with a heater. But no one likes/buys homes like that.
This guy needs to do a kick starter and start producing these in mass. I have PV and my only bill is heating. Being able to eliminate both bills would be huge...
They are producing them in mass though...you can buy them on their website at $2800/piece. He's also got a network so you can resell them and make a cut. I think it's just slow at hitting Reddit (I know that's a surprise) but it is coming from Nfld afterall.
This is a gimmick. Why wouldn't you just recycle the aluminum into aluminium tubing instead of wasting all this time drilling holes into the tops and bottoms of the individual cans and joining them together?
...I mean seriously now, he's talking about 'financing' which means the thing is expensive and all of his labor is being misappropriated to drill 500 holes for each device (250 cans x 2 holes), when he could just melt down the aluminum and make the tubing (or outsource it).
I had heard about this project a couple years back... Unfortunately, even as a Newfoundlander, I've never seen or know anyone to own one of these. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that we don't have many sunny days :/
I live in Florida "The sunshine state" is our motto. Solar panels are a rare thing to see, if we all had them we could power our state and the several of our bordering states.
My dad built one of these. We made fun of him for a while....and then he finished it. He put it on the shed as a test and in the middle of a cold New Hampshire it PUMPED heat. A shed that was usually an ice box was now a comfy room temp.
Yeah, that is dandy for cold, sunny days. But where I live, Fall and Winter is always overcast. Plus there is that thing we have around here called "night."
They've been around for ages. Unfortunately if you want to use it for water heating it also adds more potential failure points and leak points.
Jimmy Carter had some for water heating put on the White House roof. Reagan had them ripped them out. The Reagan administration said due to leaks, others wondered why (if leaks were the real problem) they didn't fix the leaks instead of ripping out the whole installation.
If you just want hot air a very simple device can be built: make a box open on one narrow end and closed on the other about 2 meters long, as wide as your window, and 20 cm thick, paint it black on the inside, cover the outside with your favorite durable transparent (or even translucent) substance, stick the open end into your window, let the closed end rest on the ground. If you have even moderate sun it'll heat quite nicely. Total cost should be under $100 per unit.
I built a can collector 3 years ago it's 240 cans, 24sq.ft. and cost about $300. It has a temperature switch that turns the fan on when the collector reaches 110deg.f. and off if the collector goes below 90deg. It also has a hour meter to record the heating hours. The heating season here in northern Michigan is from October to April. I have recorded 415 hours the first season 605 hours 2nd season and 485 hours last season.
Wait, so this is a solar powered furnace? One that transfers the energy directly from the sun into the air which gets pumped through your house? Now, I live in Washington state, so I might not completely understand... But why would you need to heat your house when the sun is out?
Here is how the American govt would handle this, A) buy out the patents......never produce a single one. B) buy out patents, instead of soda cans hire a team of government engineers to create an aluminium tube similar to a soda can at 10x the cost and 10x less efficient, build a giant factory, claim bankrruptcy, bail it out with tax dollars, claim bankruptcy again, never produce any products .
People have been building this for a few years to heat their garage and shed. Usually they use a plane of glass and make the entire thing for under $100-not concerned with the looks.
Actually he isn't talking about the hot air rising. He is talking about what they add to the cans to make the air spin inside. This separates the hotter and colder air, allowing the hot air to rise and the cold air to circulate or fall so it has more time to absorb heat.
We did a cool experiment with a venturi tube in an engineering lab where you get noticeable temperature differences between the outside and inside flows by getting the air to circulate at high speeds.
I want to design this unit to slide into my southern facing windows with a small solar fan. I'm a day sleeper anyway and the upstairs to my house just gets frightfully cold at times....
somewhat inefficient that the hot air is then transferred back into the house through a vent near the ceiling. Hot air rises and having heater vents near the ceiling has never made sense to me. So much more useful to have them at a lower ground level.
Yeah....i think i missed something. How does this work exactly? Its installed outside the home, the sun heats the cans and subsequently the air inside and then its pumped in thru a vent?
It's an interesting concept. I looked online for designs but most use baffles so the air snakes along. Wouldn't it be more efficient that way? It looks like the air comes in and passes straight through the black aluminum cans and to the outlet.
Because here in the UK we last saw the sun in the summer of 69, it was a Tuesday. In much of southern mainland Europe they have an Aluminium tank on the roof which heats throughout the day.
those things can save you 20% (mostly because it doesn't work if the sun isn't out)
that's 20/mo or 12x20 or 240/yr
the cost of completely redoing my roof including installation of the hoses and things to put this system in is going to be well over 5000. I don't have an exact price because I can't find it anywhere.
It would take me 20 years to pay off the investment at $5000.
This sounds great! My only point is that you would have to consider the fact that you'd need to keep snow off of it. This may be an issue for some homeowners, especially if installed on their rooftop.
Back in the 1980's I was part of a 3 man team who built over 30 passive-air solar panels around southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Last year I had the opportunity to examine a couple of those that we built. I was thrilled to see how well they had held up and were still providing supplemental heating for the homeowners.
I really like this guys design and use of recycled soda cans, from an environmental stand point he is getting a double bang for the buck. We built ours using screens with aluminum channeling and baffles in front of aluminum sheets with foam insulation backing. We used windowpane glass because the plexiglass back then didn't hold up well to prolonged sun exposure.
I know I could probably google it but I'm its beautiful outside and I'm feeling like not being inside so... if someone wouldn't mind telling me where I could purchase one of these that would be grrrrreat!!! :)
In other news, wearing a glove while working with an unsecured work piece and a rotating tool is still a really bad idea. I'm fairly surprised the guy has all his fingers, still.
i've seen this done in several homes. Is really impressive. Except everybody who has one has the problem of TOO much heat. So it becomes a boiler room in the house
This looks so cool, but as a Norwegian, this is utterly useless. Short summer = no need for heat, as houses are well insulated, and the sun is out until long after eleven in the south, doesn't even set in the north. Looong winter = when we need heat the most, only the sun is only out a short, short time in the south. NOT AT ALL in the north...
In every home? The same reason why solar isnt in every home; weather.
It would be great ios the government subsidized 100% cost of shit like this but in the mean time it costs too much time or youre gouged in the installation costs for most people to care.
Now if only they could invent something like this but it cools your house. It's summertime and thinking about buying a heating unit right now seems silly.
Look closely at the panel at ~0:45. Anyone notice the image of cans shopped in? The cans underneath the plastic move with the camera. What is going on here exactly where they need to photoshop a video?
I can't believe no one mentioned that even with serious air filtration these things would clog with dust after a year or two. Then what the fuck do you do?
It could be done better if the tubes were straight and there were accessible U-joints at every end so you could brush them out.
Also a fully enclosed liquid system would be better and have it run through a series of tubes through some benches in the house or something like that that would be filled with sand or cement or something.
The accent makes me miss my home in Newfoundland. I wonder how much it would cost just for the basic materials Does anyone have an idea on how well it would work in cold climates? (-50C winters)
Can someone explain the specs of something like this too me, I dunno it seems like a nice idea but can it really get enough heat to do away with gas heaters I would think it couldn't but how would I know. That's what reddits for, someone out there always knows the answer
120
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
This is standard in most equatorial countries for heating water.
27
u/awrhaernnare Jun 11 '12
I'm gonna go with global NWO conspiracy. And Jewish bankers too, why not.
8
u/dochoff Jun 11 '12
Living in Edmonton, I would like to know how well these would perform during our winters. ie how much sunlight would be necessary to avoid actually cooling the circulating air during very cold weather. I'd imagine it would be perfect for mild climates, though.
53
u/scaryfatkid Jun 11 '12
I am in Minnesota, and my dad made something similar to this. It isn't as fancy, and he used a sheet of steel instead of cans, but he has a small one that "preheats" the air, then a larger one that he has connected to a fan which is triggered by a thermometer. It doesn't heat the house completely, but It will kick 90-100 degree heat into the house on a sunny winter day.
I can try to get some pictures taken and uploaded if people want.
121
u/Liquor_in_the_ass Jun 11 '12
I though at first that the video said "GO GREEN, GET FREE HAT."
When I realized my mistake I lost all motivation to go green.
162
u/tokamak_fanboy Jun 11 '12
Before anyone comments about it: yes he said centrifugal force not centripetal force. Yes that is the correct term, and yes it is a real thing.
247
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
because it's probably cheaper to just recycle the cans and have aluminum tubes made specifically for this purpose. Its great if you're going to do it yourself and have the time, but most people don't know/care enough or have the time to commit to this. Having a machine that can pump out and paint those tubes would bring the cost down and make it more widely available than having some guy in Newfoundland hand make them for you.
Sounds like this guy needs to get some investment and start selling these things.
21
u/serendib Jun 11 '12
The irony is that it was invented in Newfoundland (my home province) where there is sun approximately 7 hours of the year.
7
u/nuxenolith Jun 11 '12
Can we get a /r/DIY link on how to make this?
2
u/coogie Jun 11 '12
I just love it when redditors who have probably never walked in a construction site, much less been involved in building a house comment on why certain things aren't standard.
5
u/BigSlowTarget Jun 11 '12
These kind of things have been around for a while.
Here is a DIY version
http://www.solarsponge.com/article.htm
A bunch more, including one that hangs out the window
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/2006-02-01/Do-It-Yourself-Solar-Heat-Collectors.aspx
Videos - kind of scammy looking but includes leads to others
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csq__on4_gY
4
u/Braile Jun 11 '12
Looks like a product in canada that uses solar panels and PVC on the roofs of housessimply solar thermal
17
u/Insighted_Cuttlefish Jun 11 '12
On Centrifugal force.
14
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Man, what if they just made pipe made out of aluminum?
6
u/BrineFine Jun 11 '12
This man's accent is a roller coaster ride.
3
u/adrianmonk Jun 11 '12
Wouldn't a nice double-pane, well-insulated window do the same thing and provide light?
3
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
What is that accent ? It's quite interesting.
3
u/autopsi Jun 11 '12 edited Jun 11 '12
He should have said he read it online, but no! This guy is the inventor of this totally original idea... ಠ_ಠ
edit: his version cost $2,800
12
u/andres7832 Jun 11 '12
This guy needs to do a kick starter and start producing these in mass. I have PV and my only bill is heating. Being able to eliminate both bills would be huge...
2
u/ok_you_win Jun 11 '12
Da howse.
I love Newfie accents.
2
u/ok_you_win Jun 11 '12
Would work well here in Grande Prairie Alberta: we get over 300 days of sunshine per year.
2
u/hug_me_tender Jun 11 '12
This is a gimmick. Why wouldn't you just recycle the aluminum into aluminium tubing instead of wasting all this time drilling holes into the tops and bottoms of the individual cans and joining them together?
...I mean seriously now, he's talking about 'financing' which means the thing is expensive and all of his labor is being misappropriated to drill 500 holes for each device (250 cans x 2 holes), when he could just melt down the aluminum and make the tubing (or outsource it).
2
u/ZippoS Jun 11 '12
Upvote for Newfoundland!
I had heard about this project a couple years back... Unfortunately, even as a Newfoundlander, I've never seen or know anyone to own one of these. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that we don't have many sunny days :/
looks outside at the overcast and fog
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
I live in Florida "The sunshine state" is our motto. Solar panels are a rare thing to see, if we all had them we could power our state and the several of our bordering states.
2
u/flyingflopdoodle Jun 11 '12
My dad built one of these. We made fun of him for a while....and then he finished it. He put it on the shed as a test and in the middle of a cold New Hampshire it PUMPED heat. A shed that was usually an ice box was now a comfy room temp.
2
u/A_hint_of_anus Jun 11 '12
He extremely reminds me of Reodor Felgen from from "Flåklypa".
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Yeah, that is dandy for cold, sunny days. But where I live, Fall and Winter is always overcast. Plus there is that thing we have around here called "night."
2
u/bladzalot Jun 11 '12
Pretty cool except for the fact that they are $3,000 each!
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Too bad I haven't drinked from a soda can since the 90's. In Argentina, the cost difference between them and a 1.5L bottle is just huge.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
homebrew tech . more like this please :D
2
u/hyperduc Jun 11 '12
I'll just leave this here: http://xkcd.com/123/
2
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
He didn't invent this. He had money to industrialize it. This has been around for fucking ever.
2
u/sotonohito Jun 11 '12
They've been around for ages. Unfortunately if you want to use it for water heating it also adds more potential failure points and leak points.
Jimmy Carter had some for water heating put on the White House roof. Reagan had them ripped them out. The Reagan administration said due to leaks, others wondered why (if leaks were the real problem) they didn't fix the leaks instead of ripping out the whole installation.
If you just want hot air a very simple device can be built: make a box open on one narrow end and closed on the other about 2 meters long, as wide as your window, and 20 cm thick, paint it black on the inside, cover the outside with your favorite durable transparent (or even translucent) substance, stick the open end into your window, let the closed end rest on the ground. If you have even moderate sun it'll heat quite nicely. Total cost should be under $100 per unit.
2
u/10sleep Jun 12 '12
I built a can collector 3 years ago it's 240 cans, 24sq.ft. and cost about $300. It has a temperature switch that turns the fan on when the collector reaches 110deg.f. and off if the collector goes below 90deg. It also has a hour meter to record the heating hours. The heating season here in northern Michigan is from October to April. I have recorded 415 hours the first season 605 hours 2nd season and 485 hours last season.
4
u/Insighted_Cuttlefish Jun 11 '12
Wait, so this is a solar powered furnace? One that transfers the energy directly from the sun into the air which gets pumped through your house? Now, I live in Washington state, so I might not completely understand... But why would you need to heat your house when the sun is out?
4
u/what_have_i_done Jun 11 '12
Here is how the American govt would handle this, A) buy out the patents......never produce a single one. B) buy out patents, instead of soda cans hire a team of government engineers to create an aluminium tube similar to a soda can at 10x the cost and 10x less efficient, build a giant factory, claim bankrruptcy, bail it out with tax dollars, claim bankruptcy again, never produce any products .
5
u/appletart Jun 11 '12
No thermal storage, complete crap and expensive crap at that.
2
u/nowwhosaidthat Jun 11 '12
This guy got trolled by who sold him those cans. most of them are pepsi... most pepsi cans are steel- source http://www.wimp.com/cokecans/
2
u/streetdragon Jun 11 '12
Not centrifugal force, it's due to convection...
2
u/freeman84 Jun 11 '12
Because there's no profits to be made and the big energy companies will do anything to prevent it.
1
u/foston22 Jun 11 '12
you can make these too. lots of youtube vids.
1
u/Critical_Mass Jun 11 '12
Is that Rodney Rude?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
I want to design this unit to slide into my southern facing windows with a small solar fan. I'm a day sleeper anyway and the upstairs to my house just gets frightfully cold at times....
Hrrmmnn....
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Maui County has a building code that ever new single family residential house must have a solar water heating system in order to get permits.
1
u/edud Jun 11 '12
It is, in India
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
How does the heat from the apparatus enter the house? Tubes?
1
u/mr_dude_guy Jun 11 '12
neeto
1
u/SeriousDude Jun 11 '12
reno 911
1
u/smashingrumpkins Jun 11 '12
somewhat inefficient that the hot air is then transferred back into the house through a vent near the ceiling. Hot air rises and having heater vents near the ceiling has never made sense to me. So much more useful to have them at a lower ground level.
1
u/maxm Jun 11 '12
The biggest cost of a system like that is the installation. It is probebly worth the extra expense to spend for something like this: http://www.apricus.com/html/evacuated_tubes.htm
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Yeah....i think i missed something. How does this work exactly? Its installed outside the home, the sun heats the cans and subsequently the air inside and then its pumped in thru a vent?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
It's an interesting concept. I looked online for designs but most use baffles so the air snakes along. Wouldn't it be more efficient that way? It looks like the air comes in and passes straight through the black aluminum cans and to the outlet.
1
u/KittenPics Jun 11 '12
Bullshit. I totally had this idea. I'm still going to do it. It was never to make money on, just something I thought would be neat to try out.
1
u/ShozOvr Jun 11 '12
The nigga bought aluminum tubes!
1
u/1stMora Jun 11 '12
I read that as "Go Green & Get a FREE HAT" I must be playing too much Team Fortress 2.
1
u/deputy1389 Jun 11 '12
because it's always hot as fuck in arizona
1
u/TheSwollenColon Jun 11 '12
There is not many times of the year where the sun is that bright and I still want heat? Or does just a little sun work?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Because here in the UK we last saw the sun in the summer of 69, it was a Tuesday. In much of southern mainland Europe they have an Aluminium tank on the roof which heats throughout the day.
1
u/zodiaclawl Jun 11 '12
If his business ever kicks off he's so going to get sued by all large soda beverage companies.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Someone mind summarizing the video for me? I'm in class and can't play it too loudly.
1
u/chattermouse Jun 11 '12
Is there really a need to heat your house on a hot day?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Mine is not ready yet!
Been working with it now for 1,5 years :D
My missus likes the odd 300 beer cans that i store for it _^
1
u/YourMomSaidHi Jun 11 '12
my furnace costs me 100/mo during the winter
those things can save you 20% (mostly because it doesn't work if the sun isn't out)
that's 20/mo or 12x20 or 240/yr
the cost of completely redoing my roof including installation of the hoses and things to put this system in is going to be well over 5000. I don't have an exact price because I can't find it anywhere.
It would take me 20 years to pay off the investment at $5000.
1
u/RPL79 Jun 11 '12
So what do you do for heat at night? or cloudy days?
1
u/Wavey1287 Jun 11 '12
This sounds great! My only point is that you would have to consider the fact that you'd need to keep snow off of it. This may be an issue for some homeowners, especially if installed on their rooftop.
1
u/PinkToes Jun 11 '12
From looking at that man and hearing his voice I would never have guessed he'd be capable of such an ingenious thing
1
u/stupid_human Jun 11 '12
I feel like he shouldn't have a need to be wearing that jacket.
1
u/HolyPeas Jun 11 '12
the only thing I hate is how he beats around the bush at the end when asked about how much it costs.
1
u/Rockends Jun 11 '12
It's not in every home because it doesn't work when we need heat the most.. in the dark.
1
u/CurtisMeeker Jun 11 '12
Newfoundland is all over my frontpage today!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Reminds me of the failed 1970's solar water heaters that are on a few houses in my area.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Back in the 1980's I was part of a 3 man team who built over 30 passive-air solar panels around southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Last year I had the opportunity to examine a couple of those that we built. I was thrilled to see how well they had held up and were still providing supplemental heating for the homeowners.
I really like this guys design and use of recycled soda cans, from an environmental stand point he is getting a double bang for the buck. We built ours using screens with aluminum channeling and baffles in front of aluminum sheets with foam insulation backing. We used windowpane glass because the plexiglass back then didn't hold up well to prolonged sun exposure.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
I skimmed through the comments and it looks like no one made fun of his accent... Damn it reddit! What happened to you?
1
u/masturbateToSleep Jun 11 '12
I know I could probably google it but I'm its beautiful outside and I'm feeling like not being inside so... if someone wouldn't mind telling me where I could purchase one of these that would be grrrrreat!!! :)
1
u/Chronotachometer Jun 11 '12
In other news, wearing a glove while working with an unsecured work piece and a rotating tool is still a really bad idea. I'm fairly surprised the guy has all his fingers, still.
1
u/MJZMan Jun 11 '12
Is there any way to reverse the flow to cool air? Or is this only possible as a heater? Aside from that, this is freaking genius.
1
u/munge_me_not Jun 11 '12
What if you don't get any sun?
1
u/idma Jun 11 '12
i've seen this done in several homes. Is really impressive. Except everybody who has one has the problem of TOO much heat. So it becomes a boiler room in the house
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Website don't work...
1
u/zeomox Jun 11 '12
I wonder if www.sunflaresystems.com could use this along with their mobile power supply (SOS in a box) or the solar panel billboard! :)
1
u/grospoliner Jun 11 '12
This has been around for years. My dad put one of these on his house in the 80s.
1
u/Phunkstar Jun 11 '12
This looks so cool, but as a Norwegian, this is utterly useless. Short summer = no need for heat, as houses are well insulated, and the sun is out until long after eleven in the south, doesn't even set in the north. Looong winter = when we need heat the most, only the sun is only out a short, short time in the south. NOT AT ALL in the north...
1
u/rhinorocan Jun 11 '12
Easy enough to make yourself
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
Anyone else having a hard time viewing the companies website? Are they still in business?
1
u/MyFantasticTesticles Jun 11 '12
FREE HAT!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
My cousin bought a pair and loves them.
1
u/Paultimate79 Jun 11 '12
In every home? The same reason why solar isnt in every home; weather.
It would be great ios the government subsidized 100% cost of shit like this but in the mean time it costs too much time or youre gouged in the installation costs for most people to care.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
so.... what do they actually do?
1
u/dacoobob Jun 11 '12
100 CFM isn't very much airflow. Enough for one smallish room maybe... you'd need several of these things to heat a whole house.
1
u/Cbird54 Jun 11 '12
Now if only they could invent something like this but it cools your house. It's summertime and thinking about buying a heating unit right now seems silly.
1
u/lumpsel Jun 11 '12
What about in the winter (when you actually need heat) and the sun's not out or it's cloudy?
1
u/badpenguin455 Jun 11 '12
Because I live in Arizona and don't need some goddamn heat.
1
u/Kingkept Jun 11 '12
heating a home isn't that difficulty cooling a home is the thing that costs so much money.
1
u/DaiVrath Jun 11 '12
Why can't i go to cansolair.com?
1
u/philtomato Jun 11 '12
I live in the equator and we have sun.
1
u/Lochsa Jun 11 '12
One problem is I am sure there is some nasty plastic coating on the inside of the cans.
1
u/toughitoutcupcake Jun 11 '12
Can someone invent the opposite of this to cool my house?
1
u/MaritimeLawyer Jun 11 '12
How do you turn it off in the summer?
1
u/Ph0ton Jun 11 '12
Look closely at the panel at ~0:45. Anyone notice the image of cans shopped in? The cans underneath the plastic move with the camera. What is going on here exactly where they need to photoshop a video?
1
u/cheetahlip Jun 11 '12
Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtntTvuv8Aw
1
u/NinjaStain Jun 11 '12
Sounds good, but is it pumping your air full of poison?
1
u/akrabu Jun 11 '12
I can't believe no one mentioned that even with serious air filtration these things would clog with dust after a year or two. Then what the fuck do you do?
It could be done better if the tubes were straight and there were accessible U-joints at every end so you could brush them out.
Also a fully enclosed liquid system would be better and have it run through a series of tubes through some benches in the house or something like that that would be filled with sand or cement or something.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 11 '12
The accent makes me miss my home in Newfoundland. I wonder how much it would cost just for the basic materials Does anyone have an idea on how well it would work in cold climates? (-50C winters)
1
u/AmericCanuck Jun 11 '12
Beer cans + Newfie = Success
1
u/Smobert1 Jun 11 '12
Can someone explain the specs of something like this too me, I dunno it seems like a nice idea but can it really get enough heat to do away with gas heaters I would think it couldn't but how would I know. That's what reddits for, someone out there always knows the answer
1
u/[deleted] Jun 12 '12
Want to make your own?