Cheap Heater for chicken Coop

Just thought I would share with you what I am trying for a little warmth for my chickens this winter. I built a heater out of an old window and 30 aluminum cans. I just stacked up cans with holes drilled in them to allow the heat to rise thru them when the sun hits them and painted them flat black and siliconed them together. It took me about 2 hours worht of time so if it does not work I am not really out anything. I will update how it is working once winter gets here.Started out with an old window and some aluminum cans. drilled a hole in the side of the bottom row of cans and then a hole in the bottom of the rest for the heated air to flow thru

Measured and cut holes in the coop wall, lower to pull air in form the coop and the upper to allow the heated air to return into the coop

siliconed the can stacks together and painted them flat black to absorb the heat from the sun

here is a view of the openings from the inside of the coop

the install is complete

view of my coop ( old ice fishing shack) , c'mon sun heat the cans.

That is very clever! We have a plant green house and we use bottles of water that heat up with the sun and keep a lot of heat going without having to run the heater. Look forward to seeing how this will work!

Very cool. So it's heating the existing air in the coop instead of taking in new air from outside the coop? Convection is a very neat principle to take advantage of.

It should work. You may need to install a small fan to push air through the system. I had a friend that was going to do this on a large scale to heat his shed/garage.

Well my "Beer Can Heater" worked fantastic over the winter. I am definately going to start looking for old patio doors to build one for my garage. Now that the heat of summer is around the corner I am going to just paint a white piece of plywood to cover the outside of the heater to try to keep the heat down in the coop this summer.
Simple , cheap and effective. Perfect

That great!