Free Heat!
Made this for about 3 bucks..
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Building a cheap solar heater is pretty easy to do for getting some free heat to be piped into your greenhouse, hen house or even your own house. I made my first unit from recycled materials I had in my shed and garage and within an hour created a simple design that cost me about 3 bucks out of pocket.
My design was based on using some old black sewer pipe. It is light, easy to cut and you can find it in most home improvement stores. It is typically used for French drains, but in this case, I used it for my heat chamber. Since it was already black, it was a natural fit to absorb heat and pipe it to the top of my solar furnace. I could have used aluminum cans for my heating chamber but did not want to drill any holes or paint them, so this worked well.
The basic principle of heat being generated from sunlight is not that complicated. If you have ever worn black clothes while in the sun, you will know what I am talking about. The color black naturally absorbs light and transfers it to heat. All you need is some sunlight and the right design to create free hot air to pipe into your living space or bucket garden greenhouse.
Since I used plastic pipe and an old storm window, the enclosed box was fairly easy to put together from scraps I had in my garage. After sealing with basic tub caulk I had lying around, and some BBQ black paint for the inside, the heater was pretty much done and ready to go.
I made a video showing the process and tested it in my back yard. After it was all done, I spent about 3 bucks on the materials I did not have leftover from other projects. A cheap heater is not that hard to make and can be adapted based on what you have available.