Thermosiphon garage door heater

[elt]

Hi, I've had this idea for a while to use the frame of a garage door as the basis for a thermosiphon heater... basically, use the openings at the top and bottom of a garage door as the vents and use the existing door frame to mount fiberglass panels and the screen. As near as I see, the only thing structural needed would be a footer board across the bottom of the door to tie in the bottom of the fiberglass panels.

What do you think?

I haven't tried this myself for two reasons:

• my doors face west and I'm not sure collecting heat from a west exposure is worthwhile.
  
• Once the fiberglass panels are installed, then opening the garage door completely would make the opening act as giant window... I think I read somewhere that if you have sun coming in a window, that's about as good as it gets and there's not much point in doing any more.
  
  

 - elt.

[spinningmagnets]

I recall the host of "builditsolar.com" had a project with some similarities to this. It might be useful to check it out.

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm

[GaryGary]

Hi,

Yes, that scheme does work just as you describe.

The version I use is described here:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/SolarGarageCollector/garcol.htm

If you look at the pdf labeled "Additional downloads for this project", it talks a bit about using the collector as a thermosyphon collector.

As you say, just opening the door all the way makes a good solar collector, AND it provides really outstanding lighting when you are working in the garage.  

The way that I was thinking about using the thermosyphon mode is to collect heat and duct it to the house.  I would add a sort of air dam extending down from the ceiling and near the door that would capture hot air generated by the thermosyphon.  Then a duct can fan would take the hot air from this plenum to the house.  Based on a couple simple tests, I think this would work pretty well, but I've not gotten to actually using it that way.

The really nice thing about this glazing in front of the garage door is that at night, the lowered garage door provides good insulation on what would be a big heat loss window.

The west exposure is not ideal, but it may still be worth doing.

Gary

[SolarGuru65]

Great stuff guys! I feel like I'm at home and among like minded friends here. I've got an interesting video on my blog from a couple of guys who built a solar air heater which builds out from your design and plans above. Thought you might find this video interesting although by the looks of your plans above, you are probably more advanced than these guys. I don't see why you couldn't take your plans above and basically capture the heat from the garage door and run it through a system like this.

DIY Solar Heater Video