“The Solar Parasite” Window Box Heater – Tiny Yellow House

Energy & Sustainability Home Woodworking
“The Solar Parasite” Window Box Heater – Tiny Yellow House
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This time around on Tiny Yellow House, I decided to mess around with passive solar heat so as to warm the always-cold front foyer of my home. The result: a smallish, closeable, passive solar collector that fits into a window opening. Its not rocket science (and it NEVER will be here on Tiny Yellow House) but it does work, even in January, in New England.

The NEW version of my book Humble Homes, Simple Shacks is out in a week or two! Check it out (part of this design is from that book).

Subscribe to the Tiny Yellow House podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo.

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Check out all the episodes of Tiny Yellow House.

6 thoughts on ““The Solar Parasite” Window Box Heater – Tiny Yellow House

  1. Tim Gray says:

    Unfortunately it has a very inefficient design,  it needs to draw cold air in from the house, and then let warm air back in.   adding a center divider will do this. It also needs insulation around the outer edge and a way for you to close it off at night as it will act as a radiator to let heat OUT of the house.

    It’s a great start.

  2. Anonymous says:

    how about putting some fans (solar powered perhaps) to blow the hot air in the house from the box?

  3. Al Miles says:

    I have made four hot air solar collectors for my garage with different adsorbor plate systems. They have been mounted vertically on the south wall of the building and provide up to 125 degree air for almost six hours on a sunny winter day in eastern PA.

    I used 1×6 pressure treated lumber to make a simple rectangular frame to fit glass from patio doors that neighbors had left out for trash pickup. I used a router to make a recess for the glass on the front side and the the insulation (1/2″ foil covered foam board) on the back side. The inside walls are also insulated with the foam board and act as the support for the adsorbor plate which is vented soffit painted flat black. I feed inside air into the box in the lower corner behind the soffit and extract the air at the upper corner opposite the inlet from in front of the adsorbor plate. I use a small 110 volt cage blower to circulate the air. I looked into solar powered fans and found them way too costly.

  4. POD HD500. says:

    An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a friend who had been conducting a little homework on this. And he in fact ordered me dinner because I discovered it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!! But yeah, thanks for spending the time to discuss this topic here on your website.

  5. Dr. Ramon Argila de Torres y Sandoval says:

    Mod the outside legs. Put them on a hing like the little stick, make them so they can expand (get longer) and raise the box. Put holes in the outside of the box. Then the raised box will pull the air in the room out, serving as a crude air conditioner… well it won’t cool the air, but will pull the air inside out.

  6. Barbara Elizabeth Bogucki says:

    I’ve also seen these made with cans or piping. Thoughts? Thanks

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Interview/Bio Sheet: "Blah, Blah, Blah..." ABOUT THE AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR:

  DEREK ALEXANDER DIEDRICKSEN, AGE 32, WAS BORN AND RAISED IN THE SEASIDE TOWN OF MADISON, CT. AFTER GRADUATING FROM DANIEL HAND HIGH SCHOOL, and later BOSTON'S NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY (CLASS of '99- Summa Cum Laude), HE WORKED IN COMMERCIAL RADIO AT THE LEGENDARY CBS STATION 104.1 WBCN AS THE EVENING DJ (The Youngest Full Timer In the Country In A Top Ten Market, at the time). 
 Through WBCN, he worked with and hosted the "I Sold My House.com" Television show numerous times for the WB/Warner Brothers Network, appeared on the Playboy.com Channel as a host/interviewer, and hosted Nik Carter's nationally syndicated radio show (70 cities in the US) "Nothing Sacred". While simultaneously at WBCN and Northeastern, Derek's comic strip "The Warped Zone" ran for just under three years in the NU News, a weekly paper, and his subsequent strip "Slugs, Not Hugs" was featured through the well distributed Boston papers The Weekly Dig, and Soundcheck Magazine (R.I.P.). In radio, he additionally worked for WJIB, NU's WRBB, the legendary, corporate-free WNTN in Newton, MA, (where he had his REAL start in radio), and the pioneering BostonRadio.com. 
 His work (both art and carpentry/tiny house building) has also been featured in Worcester's Pulse Magazine, Tiny House Design Magazine, and on the concert venue flyers of many a band in, and beyond, the Boston area. 

Musically, having toured the US a few times in the past (Rochester NY's "Rail"), both in bands, and managerially (Boston's "Superkollider"), he now plays drums in the Tribute act Age Against The Machine (www.bostonrage.com), which doubles as the original act "Any Given Enemy". They've recorded and been involved with the WWE, ECW, The Cartoon Network's "G.I. Joe", Video Games, Indie Movies, and Boston Bruins NHL broadcasts. In January of 2009, their recording of WWE Wrestler Jack Swagger's arena and television entrance theme "Get On Your Knees" was selected by Columbia Records to be part of the cd "WWE: The Voices. Volume 9". The cd debuted on the worldwide Billboard Top 200 charts as the Number Eleven best-selling cd on the entire planet. It also debuted as the Number One selling Cd soundtrack on the globe, and stayed in the charts for close to a month.

Derek is also an Eagle Scout (MADISON CT's Troop 491), and credit's the Scouts with further strengthening his love of the outdoors, camping, conservation, and carpentry. He comes from a large family of Scouts, as his cousins Neil and Kurt Malek, also attained the Eagle Rank, and his Brother Dustin, the rank of Life.

Derek currently lives in the small Massachusetts town of Stoughton, with his wife, Elizabeth, and his two children, Jonas and Alexandra (and his dog Orzo), ten miles or so outside of downtown Boston. He longs to move, full time, to the woods of Vermont to focus on growing a beard, and losing his teeth.

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