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How to Make a $5 Solar Powered Water Heater From Junk Fridge

I mentioned in an article last summer that most of Israelis have solar water heaters on their rooftops, and thus they save a lot of energy during the summer. In fact, the idea of heating the water in a boiler is not new, I had more than a dozen times showers in my grandparents’ backyard, during some hot summer days in my childhood.

One simple way of making hot water has been perfected by a blogger on thesietch.org, and it relies on a simple and easy to find piece of junk: an old refrigerator!

backoffridge 225x300 How to Make a $5 Solar Powered Water Heater From Junk Fridge



Other components are: wood, for making a frame, glass (not plexiglass), hoses, a rubber door mat, a reflexive aluminum foil, scotch tape and glue, or silicon. Eventually, you’re going to need some screws.

Because it’s black, the refrigerator radiator heats faster than other materials. This also happens because of its tightness. The inventors who made this “instant” water heater want to make another one, that transports the water by thermoconvection and recycle it, until it reaches the desired temperature.

The entire project costs less than $5 and can save you of a lot of electricity, reflected on your bill.

It’s easy to do. You may go to their site or watch the gallery below, because it’s self-explanatory:



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By Ovidiu
on February 17th, 2009 		Get E-mail Updates Subscribe by RSS

cheap solar, cheap solar heater, cheap water heater, how to make solar heater, how to make solar panel, junk fridge, junk refrigerator, old refrigerator, refrigerator collector, solar heater, solar water heater, water boiler

This entry was posted on February 17, 2009, 8:24 pm and is filed under How to..., Solar Power. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. #1 by kompo on February 18, 2009 - 8:35 pm

    I believe, that a big barrel with a water on the sun (on the roof) – after the hot day – can make more hot water then this :)

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  2. #2 by Ovidiu on February 18, 2009 - 8:45 pm

    First of all, you need efficiency in heating the water. What greater efficiency can you have than that of a thin, black pipe? The hot water in the barrel gets hot after a few hours (I know that from experience), but this kind of setup heats it almost instantly. For example, leave a hose (not a black one) in the sun for 2 minutes. I guarantee you won’t want to bathe in that hot water from it!

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  3. #3 by titus on September 10, 2009 - 9:51 pm

    please do not use refrigerator parts: when you cut the tubing the refrigerant (freon) will be released into our atmosphere causing global warming…

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  4. #4 by cory on December 3, 2009 - 5:32 pm

    the sun causes global warming………not freon…..

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  5. #5 by Radiators on July 2, 2010 - 11:00 am

    Just love this! I wish I had the ingenuity and ability to transform an outmoded product to a useful pieced of equipment. I often have flashes of ideas, but then lose sight of when it gets down to the physical completion and execution.

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  6. #6 by solar water heaters on August 4, 2010 - 1:05 pm

    Is it really working?

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