Saturday, October 25, 2008

Heat your house with the "Heat Grabber"

Has your heat kicked in yet? My sister sent me a link to an old Mother Earth article about a Solar Heat Grabber which was sent to her by somebody else, who got it from somebody else, etc.

Cheap, easy to make and highly effective, as long as you have a south-facing window, the devise will last for years and really cut into your heating bills.

We're making two of them for our house next week.

4 comments:

AdamH said...

I turned on my heat last Tuesday night when it was 61 in my house. The people who lived here before me put in an incredibly sophisticated programmable thermostat, so I can control the temperature pretty exactly all the time.

I always feel guilty for turning on the heat. I don't know why. I need to work on that.

Anonymous said...

Hi
Thanks for the solar heating link. It refreshed my memory regarding these simple yet amazing heaters. How about a workshop to get together and build one somewhere in Western MA?
Stan
stangeddes at yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

So were you able to find the Thermax insulating tiles to build this? I noticed the article was from 1977...

And as early as 1978 they published another article without the Thermax tiles, because they were so hard to find:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Modern-Homesteading/1978-11-01/Mothers-Heat-Grabber-Is-Back.aspx

Just as an aside, a $32.18 price tag in 1977 is equivalent to $108.93 now, considering inflation...

Unknown said...

No, I was not. I did call a Thermax Corp. but the operator says it's not the right Thermax, she gets lots of calls for insulating tiles, but has no idea where to refer people.

It may be that talking with someone actually in the solar industry would produce a close match; otherwise, the 2nd Heat Grabber version might be the best we could do.