Keeping water from freezing in Winter....

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote:
Other than an open flame, not really. You COULD do it with solar, but you'll spend a FORTUNE to do it, and it would be cheaper to simply run grid power to the coop

 

[lovechickenswis]

Electricity is not an option at my chickens new home. Solar? I have never seen a solar one. Where do you find something like this? My husband and I have discussed trying to make our own. Has anyone tried this?

 

[leahmeit]

Electricity is not an option at my chickens new home. Solar? I have never seen a solar one. Where do you find something like this? My husband and I have discussed trying to make our own. Has anyone tried this?



Yes...my husband is actually trying to devise one as I write. He bought the solar panel and is trying to figure out how to do it!

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Solar ELECTRIC isn't going to work without spending an outrageous amount of money.

Solar HEAT using water to store the heat could work , but STILL you'd have to spend a small fortune for a system large enough to actually work

 

[lovechickenswis]

Electricity is not an option at my chickens new home. Solar? I have never seen a solar one. Where do you find something like this? My husband and I have discussed trying to make our own. Has anyone tried this?



Yes...my husband is actually trying to devise one as I write. He bought the solar panel and is trying to figure out how to do it!

Please keep me posted on his progress!

 

[lovechickenswis]

Solar ELECTRIC isn't going to work without spending an outrageous amount of money.

Solar HEAT using water to store the heat could work , but STILL you'd have to spend a small fortune for a system large enough to actually work

I am sorry I am stupid. Why won't it work? We have a small solar panel that charges our boat batteries and we can run electric things off the battery, so if you have a waterer that you plug into an outlet why can't this work? What is a an outrageous amount of money? I understand that you would have to somehow insulate the battery from the cold and that you would have to figure out a way to circulate the water maybe rather than heating it, but there must be a reasonable solution to this. Like I said I stupid with this stuff so please give me your input.

 

[CAjerseychick]

Well my roommate came home from Burning Man TWO years ago with this big plastic mug with a solar panel in the side-- it keeps liquids cool-- you just set it in the sun and its starts cooling immediately, the funniest thing to see-- so I am not sure why the reverse couldnt be true--

I did a quick google search and this hotplate for water thingie came up- so not sure why something couldnt be rigged up especially if you are just looking at a small waterer or something...Even if it was just capable of just thawing the waterer by midday would work (leave the set up in an exposed area so the sunlight catches it)...

http://responsive.kinetecoinc.com/index.php/en/products/k-eco-solar-mug

 

[lovechickenswis]

Well my roommate came home from Burning Man TWO years ago with this big plastic mug with a solar panel in the side-- it keeps liquids cool-- you just set it in the sun and its starts cooling immediately, the funniest thing to see-- so I am not sure why the reverse couldnt be true--

I did a quick google search and this hotplate for water thingie came up- so not sure why something couldnt be rigged up especially if you are just looking at a small waterer or something...Even if it was just capable of just thawing the waterer by midday would work (leave the set up in an exposed area so the sunlight catches it)...

http://responsive.kinetecoinc.com/index.php/en/products/k-eco-solar-mug

Thanks! I am definitely going to check into this.