Название: DIY Solar Projects for Beginners: Small and Easy Projects to Whole-Home Systems That Use the Sun
Автор: Eric Smith
Издательство: New Shoe Press
Год: 2025
Страниц: 144
Язык: английский
Формат: epub (true)
Размер: 30.1 MB

Learn how to make your own solar-powered appliances and additions to your home with clear step-by-step instructions.

Put the sun to work in your home with this updated and abridged version of the best-selling book, DIY Solar Projects. Similar to the previous edition, this new version offers small-scale, achievable solar projects that homeowners can build and install themselves. From cooking in solar ovens, to mounting solar panels on your roof, this book teaches how to take advantage of solar energy. It's all possible with relatively small investments and minimal DIY building experience.

You'll learn how to make:
• Solar oven
• Solar-powered security light
• Solar water heater
• Solar hot-air collector window mount

With clear instructions, tips, and step-by-step color photos for each project, this book takes the intimidation out of DIY solar builds. For those with more ambitious solar power plans, this updated edition contains information on outfitting your home with solar electricity collection systems and integrating them into your primary power supply system. Excitement about home solar energy is exploding, and DIY Solar Projects for Beginners sheds light on how you can get involved immediately.

The term “solar power” is really a bit misleading. Solar power is not just big arrays of solar panels. There are two essential strategies for harnessing solar power. The first uses photovoltaic cells to convert light to electricity; depending on the size and number of panels, cells can power anything from a pocket calculator to an entire city. However, the basic building block–the cells–have to be manufactured. The second type of solar power involves concentrating and converting sunlight to heat; the technology to do that is simple enough to be understood by children, relatively inexpensive, and very DIY friendly. If you can glue aluminum foil to cardboard or cover a wooden box with a piece of glass you can make a working solar collector and start saving real money immediately.

In this book we’ll explore both types of solar power, explaining how-to projects that you can build with basic tools and skills. We’ll show you how to heat your own water, warm up your house, dry your own lumber, make your own distilled water and do other projects that turn solar heat into reduced utility bills. We’ll also explain the basics of solar electricity, from battery charging and simple lights and pumps to sophisticated whole-house systems, and show you simple ways you can make use of solar electric technology right now.

This book also offers an extensive resource guide with links to tax-reducing, subsidy, and support programs on both a national and state-by-state level. With high energy costs and an environment that demands cleaner fuel sources, now is the time to introduce new, cost-saving solar projects into your home.