....especially on the cold days! We now have a solar furnace which is really just a box of pop cans painted black. As you can see by the picture, the "box" is about the size of a door and yes, inside are pop cans. They've been painted black to attract and hold the energy/heat of the sun. In one bottom corner is a cold air intake and fan that goes through the wall into the kitchen. In the opposite corner at the top is another vent that allows the heat the builds up to move into the house. As the temperature in the box reaches a set level, the fan comes on and begins to move the warmed air out and suck in cool air from down by the floor.
At this time of year, because of the direction of the sun, it comes on at 8:00 in the morning and will run until about 2:00 at which time the angle of the sun has changed enough that the furnace no longer receives the sun rays adequately. But by that time, the house is warmed in general by the sun. Considering that we are in Nova Scotia which tends to be a bit cooler because of ocean air surrounding this little province and considering that we get quite a bit of cooling winds from the Bay of Fundy, this should prove to be a terrific idea for our house.
Unfortunately for our house, while we have lots of windows, the bulk of them have been located on the north side of the house which is a disaster as far as taking advantage of the effects of solar heat. This solar furnace is one answer to taking advantage of the sun on the other side, when it isn't doable to install new windows on the side due to that also being the location of the kitchen cabinets. Pretty neat eh?!
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