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baffles still trying to save money on heat, I am building a large pop can solar heater out of an old vinyl frame picture window. I will put it on the roof just over my living room and attempt to pump heat into my living room through the window (like a window air conditioner). if it works well, I will do something more permanent. I am thinking I can run an insulated flexible duct and have a fan on the end of it that comes in the house. that way, I can turn it on and off when the sun is out and see how well it works, without investing in the fancy thermostat and damper system. all the little extras like that are an extra few hundred bucks. I like my budget thus far better. ZERO. these are the baffles for it. it will be 12 cans across. I tried to make a baffle out of wood, but I wanted the cans so close together that the wood would break. this way, the cans themselves are the baffles. this is the top and the bottom baffle, I just have to connect them with 216 cans in between. the window is twice as tall as it is wide, so probably 18 cans high at least. I should be able to turn on a fan on sunny days and get heat all day. I can set the thermostat on the furnace at 68 and it won't kick in until the sun goes down. my heat bill here is really crazy. I am on the budget plan so I pay the same every month, and it is still a lot of money. if I can take a chunk out of my usage this winter, it will knock down my budget plan amount,. it is a self adjusting figure that depends on how much you use over the winter. the tea light candle thing has been helping too. I always have one burning near me when I am in one place in the house. it also worked really well in the church Friday night. I put out 3 candle heater things with 4 candles each in 3 corners of the room. it stayed above 68 all night, when a bunch of people came, it got a little too warm for a while. . 
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I will post more pics of it as I build it. it is pretty big and I am going to build it up on the roof so I don't have to move it up there. it has been raining all week. I will also report on how well it works. i have decided to use an inline fan in the line that brings the heat into the house. i will probably use 4" flex duct. it isn't the most efficient way to use a fan, but it will let me plug it in and turn it on and off when i want to.
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also, try the tea light heater in previous post. that actually works pretty well for cheap space heat.
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i am not real clear on the science, but I think the cans are imitating the long hollow metal things (towers? jets?) in a furnace. the cans interconnect top to bottom with silicone caulk. there should be pictures of that somewhere back in this blog from last winter? were we here last winter? I built a bunch of similar popcan heaters, but out of styrafoam for the inside of the house. it worked, but it didn't heat the chuch enough. this year I am hoping to heat the church using tea light candle heat. if that is not enough, I will put up another pop can solar heater on the roof. that is if it works well.
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the thing about these pop can heaters is that they only provide any heat when the sun is out. I have church at night. I don't think it would help to heat the place all week during the day, it would still be cold at night.
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