Ideas for passive solar

[TaylorC]

I'd like to do something clever for passive solar since we have so much sunshine even in the cold months. On idea was to simply fill the space in between the studs on the south face with water-filled plastic bottles. We were planning linoleum (yes, "lineoleum") for the floor, but maybe stone tile would be a better solution. I can't imagine it's nearly as squeegeeable though. I'd love other ideas.
Ideally, it would be semi-removable in case i want to relocate the coop.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

water-filled plastic bottles.

Unless the sun shines directly on them, they wont collect much heat
Plain water will freeze at night and possibly burst.
It might be better to use some sort of antifreeze mixture​

 

[patandchickens]

I understand what you're saying, but unfortunately that design is not renowned for working real well with houses (and it works at *all* only in a fairly narrow set of climates) so I do not think it's your best bet for a coop. The problem is chiefly that in order to collect the solar energy during the day, the outer face of that wall needs to be uninsulated. However that means that, at night, half or more of the heat being released by the thermal mass is just going right back out to hte great outdoors rather than benefiting your coop.

A better design would be to have the sunlit thermal mass entirely inside the coop. If the coop will be small and you are not too far south, you could probably put your thermal mass (soda bottles, or see below for more discussion) on the bottom half of the BACK wall of the coop, with good insulation on the outside. And a good big front window to let the sun in to hit them (with a large window you may need a curtain or shutter or whatever to cover it with at night, which is an addition management chore but this is often an inherent issue with passive solar). That way, the heat they release at night goes 100% into the coop. In a deeper coop or more southern latitude, where the sun doesn't penetrate to the back well often or at all, you could build a low wall or pedestle at the most favorable location within the coop to do the same thing. The chickens would unfortunately lose a bit of floorspace this way, but if it were a *low* wall (which is safer anyhow) you could probably use the top of it to some degree for various chicken purposes, even put the roost and a droppings board over it.

Another possibility to consider is to make a popcan-style heater whose air, when it enters the coop, flushes through or around a region of large thermal mass, again well-insulated from the outdoors.

Don't bother with stone tile on the floor. You will have bedding on it, so it isn't going to even *acquire*, let alone store, much of any solar heat (in houses using a stone or brick floor for heat storage, you oughtn't even put much in the way of rugs on it -- much less 4-10" of shavings <g>). A poured concrete slab floor gives you some useful thermal inertia despite bedding on it; but is expensive.

(edited b/c I forgot I was going to comment on what to use as thermal mass: pop bottles will work ok as long as they are not filled all the way. Something larger would be better though, like the big box-shaped carboys that you buy bottled water in in larger quantites (like a gallon or three?). My experience is that as long as the container is not filled past maybe 80% full, you can safely freeze popbottles and those disposable carboys without cracking them. You cannot safely ffreeze the big square-ish catlitter buckets full of water, however, as they get too brittle and the bottom cracks. Salting the water heavily will decrease freezing point, or I suppose you could look into pet-safe antifreeze although I don't know how the finances work out there at this scale - I would NOT use ethylene glycol (traditional) antifreeze, as it is toxic to animals if it should spill and get ingested. Another possibility is cinderblocks filled with cement, or large rocks, or stacks of bricks, or buckets of big rocks with sand in between, or anything like that -- rock type products do not store as much heat per unit volume as water does, BUT they do have the advantage of you don't gotta worry about bursting/leaking if temps get too cold. Whatever you do, it should be dark-painted, and stacked so as to have absolutely no chance of falling over and squishing chickens

)

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[TaylorC]

Awesomw. Pat you are an amazing resource.

 

[Sc00ter4900]

Quote:
Not sure if this will help but my solarium is passive solar.Its facing south. During winter gets abot 75 and drops to mid 5o's at night. Thats on the coldest nights . Close to 0. Here is a pic

Its the one in the back ground LOL. The box in front is a rabbit hutch being patched up

Works great durring the day but yes drops at night but not enough to freeze. Scotty