Garrett Yazzie's Solar Water Heater

November 2007

You may have seen Garrett Yazzie and his family the other night on Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Extreme Makeover built his family a new "green" home. But what is most i

nteresting is the solar water heater he built from an old car radiator so he could heat his home. His younger sister has severe asthma and burning coal and wood in their wood burning stove was causing her problems.

That's why this young inventor and Navajo Indian, Garrett Yazzie, built the solar water heater - to heat his home for his family. Garrett has won numerous awards for this invention including a Discovery Channel Young Scientist Award. Not only did his solar water heater provide much needed heat for his family, but it got his family a new green home and a new Ford hybrid SUV. Not too bad for a 13 year old!

I think everyone should have one of these on their home. What I like about his solar water heater is he uses it to heat his home and his water. I believe he uses some kind of heat exchange system made out of a window fan. And, of course, the hot water can be utilized right out of the system - be careful though - it will be scalding hot. It looks like the water is heated in the radiator which is obviously under a sheet of glass or plexiglass. I'm not exactly sure what the soda cans are for. My best guess is there is a glass covering over the soda cans too and the soda cans are used as a crude air driven heat exchanger for heating the rooms. Of course, everything is pained black to absorb more of the suns rays. The rest is basic solar oven technology. The suns rays enter the glass and upon hitting the black surface, is converted to thermal energy which is trapped inside the glass by the greenhouse effect.

Start saving yourself some money today! If a 13 year old kid can do this, you certainly can do it. It costs very little money, it's easy to understand, so what are you waiting for? If you need more information, get my book "Electricity - Make it, Don't Buy it". There's a whole chapter in the book on solar heating and cooling. In addition to the other chapters, principles like thermosiphon, solar cooking, thermal walls, cryophorous, evaporative cooling, thermal mass, thermal chimney, parabolic and trough collectors, solar room, etc are discussed. Click the banner below for full details...

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