I recently discovered an inexpensive, eco-friendly product to supplement your home heating system. It’s a compact, but efficient, solar powered room heater designed to be installed in the south facing rooms of your house or apartment.

Since it’s powered by the sun, and heats with hot air, the only mechanical or moving part is a simple fan that draws room temperature air into the heating panel through a series of heating channels, and then exhausts the heated air back into the room.

The basic solar window heater is 20″ x 32″ x 3.5″ and framed in clear pine for painting or staining. … read more

1.0       INTRODUCTION

The low solar radiation during winter and rainy season give rise to a need for backup heating source for solar dryers and solar air heaters. The backup charcoal stove consists of three main components, the stove, heat-exchanger and chimney. The stove is made up of the burner and ash tray. The burner is pyramidal with holes along the slanted height for air delivery to the heat-exchanger. Holes at the bottom of the burner allows for easy air circulation and the ash tray for collecting ashes. The heat exchanger is shell and tube type. The chimney has rectangular cross section; … read more