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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Using the sun to warm your water, simple solution

It is always nice to have warm water, for example for a shower when you are out camping. Or just use to keep you warm in the when the temperature goes down. Put the warm water in a bottle and put some socks on the outside of the bottle and it will keep you warn for a couple of hours. For example put it in your sleepingbag if it gets cold in the night.

I found an interesting article that I will share with you.  
"Build a Solar Water Heater: An Intregal Passive Solar Water Heater"
by David Bainbridge


This is a simple solution that I like. I will try it out some time, when I am on the road and the weather is nice.
IPSWH stands for Intregal Passive Solar Water Heater. Here is an excerpt from the article:

"A low-cost IPSWH, which can be built for just a couple of bucks, was developed a few years ago by the Minimum Cost Housing Group at McGill University in Canada. This unit offers more Btu per dollar than any solar water heater designed to date, and should be useful to summer campers and owners of weekend homes with no conventional water-heating facilities. This budget water warmer can be built with a minimum of time, effort and cash by anyone in need of a little hot water for washing purposes, and requires only a plastic garbage bag, some PVC pipe and fittings, a few hand tools and a lighted cigarette for "welding" the plastic joints.

The heart of this heater is the common plastic garbage bag of 1.6-mil-thick, dark green polyethylene in a 26" X 35" size. The drain outlet is made of PVC pipe, washers and nuts, and is fastened to the bag mechanically (that is, by tightening the fittings over a hole punched in the plastic). Tests at McGill University demonstrated that a plastic bag of this type and size is strong enough to hold water to a depth of three inches, thus offering a capacity of about a dozen gallons. Temperatures of about 104°F were reached by just setting the bag of water out in the sun, and when the bag was placed inside an insulated box with a glass cover, the water temperature rose to a respectable 132°F!"

Read more: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/1984-01-01/Solar-Water-Heater.aspx

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