Solar Heating with Aluminum Cans

How To Make A Cheap Solar-Powered Heater With Aluminum Cans
by John Horning

The idea of using pop cans to heat a home may sound a little strange at first, but a company in Canada has proved the idea makes great sense. Cansolair Inc. has used aluminum cans in it’s solar panels for over 10 years now, and they’ve even won awards for their design.

Why Pop Cans?

The company’s heaters, made with recycled aluminum cans, are not only cheaper than other types, but have proven to be very efficient as well. The company reports exponential growth over the past few years.

The Cansolair solar panel is about 4 ft. wide by 8 ft. tall. It can produce up to 10,000 BTUs per hour and raise the temperature of the air passing through it by 50F or more. It includes a fan to push the air through the cans which increases it’s efficiency.

How They Work

The heaters are normally installed on the outside walls of a building, and of course, in a location that gets a lot of sun. While they won’t help you much on a cloudy day, they can make a big difference in your heating bill on cold sunny days.

The idea is to draw air from near the floor of any room in a building, and pass it through the solar panel, which contains several columns of cans. The air is then returned to the same room near the ceiling and at up to 50F higher temperature. The cans are stacked and have large holes cut in both ends to allow the air to pass inside them while the outside of the cans is getting hot from the sun.

Thin-walled aluminum, which is what the cans are made of, has good thermal conductivity, making it an excellent material for transferring solar heat to the air as it flows past the cans. Flat black paint on the outside of the cans aids in the process by absorbing the sun’s heat more quickly.

Excellent Project For Do-It-Yourselfers

Cansolair has the facilities and materials to produce sophisticated units on a large scale, but the basic concept is simple enough that virtually anyone can build their own with readily available materials.

Frank Gombik of Ontario, Canada made one to heat his workshop in the winter, and Daniel Strohl of Vermont constructed one to heat his garage.

Daniel noted that the south wall of his garage was receiving a lot of sunshine, but the temperature inside was still cold. He constructed a simple free-standing heater, containing 45 aluminum cans. He used a vacuum cleaner hose to pipe to and from the garage.

Frank had two goals in mind – he wanted to heat his workshop and also replace the old double-door entry leading into it from the outside. His heater included a total of 176 cans and some special temperature sensing equipment to measure the system’s efficiency.

Constructing this type of solar heater is well within the skills of the average handyman. The pop cans are free and the other materials inexpensive. This project has the double advantage of free solar energy and conserving our natural resources, not to mention the free heat in the winter!

About the author: John Horning has a website devoted to solar-power for the home. Learn more about building a solar-powered heater out of recycled cans on his website, www.DIY-Solar-Power.net