Solar heated base for chicken waterer

[JaciChambers]

We are off grid, and I am looking for a way to keep my waterers from freezing! I am currently hauling them in every night and its a pain. I use the a fountain style, so it cant be a submersion heater. I was hoping to find a base heater thats solar. Anyone seen anything like that?

 

[cavemanrich]

I do not know of an easy way to solve your needs. Your options are to invest in medium size solar panels and with a battery as storage. Use a power converter and a small aquarium heater or equivalent. Not sure how much power your solar panel would produce compared to power requirements of heater element??? May be a sizable investment for the duration of winter in your area.
WISHING YOU BEST.....

 

[jeria]

I will be hunting something also as I have no power to my coop and very expensive to get power to it. I will be adding some solar lighting this summer but would love something for their water also.

 

[RevolutionaryChicken]

Did you ever come up with anything? I was wondering the same thing--would solar work for heating the chicken's water?

 

[cavemanrich]

Did you ever come up with anything? I was wondering the same thing--would solar work for heating the chicken's water?

You may get some IDEAS and advice from a recent thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ater-heater-light-electric-coop-door.1313185/
If you do have a possible access to electricity from the home,,,, it is the easiest option. Not sure how much winter weather you get since you do not have location in your profile.
All that is generally needed is APPROXIMATE LOCATION. This way respondents can offer advice to questions based on climate factors.
WISHING YOU BEST,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and

 

[paneubert]

The problem is that any heater is just converting electricity to heat via resistance in a wire (or actual resistor). If you know about electricity, energy loss via heat escaping is a suuuuuuuper inefficient form of energy conversion. Heat generated is literally something that is normally avoided and attempted to prevent due to how much power it wastes in any system that is not MEANT to put out heat. Horrible "bang for your buck".

It takes a lot of wattage to generate heat. Therefore it is going to be REALLY power intensive to run any sort of electric heater. Whether that is a fish tank heater, heat tape, a hairdryer, a forced air heater to heat your off grid cabin (to keep the humans warm), a red heat bulb, etc..

People have success with solar based lighting and solar chicken doors because it is not hard to power a 9 Watt CFL bulb, or a much smaller wattage LED bulb, but it is hard to power a 50 to 100 watt heater (that is on the low end of what you would need) for the entire time the temp is below freezing. So months on end, when the sun comes out the least (robbing your solar panels of any recharging juice). Same for a chicken door. Not super hard to have enough solar juice to run a small motor for less than 60 total seconds per day with the time between used to recharge the battery.

 

[cbehr]

I'm thinking of how to do this for next winter too. I see some small solar 100-200w kits are reasonably prices plus an inverter and deep cycle battery. I'd stick with one of the heating type bowls that around that wattage and then thought maybe run it on a timer so it only cycles on every other hour or so. Temp would determine how often it would need run or even a cheapo ebay temp controller that would activate when water drops to 32 degrees.

Just my brief research/finding...not saying these pieces are all 100% compatible but more of a reference of how something could be pieced together.

150w solar kit from lowes
https://www.lowes.com/pd/grape-sola...mIkmDkWji_Jn00Vit3xCTD4Nm_8rmL5zqpRoCVFPw_wcB

Here is a 180w inverter, not sure if that would be the correct size but it's a starting point for research
https://theinverterstore.com/product/180-watt-pure-sine-power-inverter/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S1RT58C/?tag=backy-20

Or 1200w version from brief Amazon search
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G36Z2TH/?tag=backy-20

Deep cycle 12V battery
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S1RT58C/?tag=backy-20


1.5g water bowl only 60w https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G1C884/?tag=backy-20

125w galvanized heated base
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000HHQDPM/?tag=backy-20

 

[paneubert]

I'm thinking of how to do this for next winter too. I see some small solar 100-200w kits are reasonably prices plus an inverter and deep cycle battery. I'd stick with one of the heating type bowls that around that wattage and then thought maybe run it on a timer so it only cycles on every other hour or so. Temp would determine how often it would need run or even a cheapo ebay temp controller that would activate when water drops to 32 degrees.

Just my brief research/finding...not saying these pieces are all 100% compatible but more of a reference of how something could be pieced together.

150w solar kit from lowes
https://www.lowes.com/pd/grape-sola...mIkmDkWji_Jn00Vit3xCTD4Nm_8rmL5zqpRoCVFPw_wcB

Here is a 180w inverter, not sure if that would be the correct size but it's a starting point for research
https://theinverterstore.com/product/180-watt-pure-sine-power-inverter/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S1RT58C/?tag=backy-20

Or 1200w version from brief Amazon search
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G36Z2TH/?tag=backy-20

Deep cycle 12V battery
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S1RT58C/?tag=backy-20


1.5g water bowl only 60w https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G1C884/?tag=backy-20

125w galvanized heated base
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000HHQDPM/?tag=backy-20

Nice list. Totally can be done (hell, people power their entire off grid houses), just way to expensive for me!

 

[cbehr]

Yeah it's a lot of money to keep a tiny bowl of water from not freezing! I have to decide if it's that or dig up some of my patio then trench and run electric around my septic drainage field to the coup...which I could run water there too I'm trenching anyway.

 

[New2COchicks]

Gosh obviously the person who markets a solar water heater for chickens would make millions as we are all sitting around waiting for one to be made...you know it’s not that hard. What did they do 200 years ago with no electricity?..