Build A Solar Stock Tank

[Dover]

Are you there LWolf? Thought of you and your girls when I saw this article:



By using this easy-to-build solar stock tank, you probably won’t need an electric tank heater to keep your livestock waterer from freezing this winter. Typical stock tanks have a large, exposed water surface that loses heat. They also have highly conductive, single-wall sides and bottoms that are in direct contact with cold air or cold ground. If your goal is to design a tank to maximize heat loss, you couldn’t do much better than a typical galvanized or plastic stock tank. However, this solar livestock water tank will provide ice-free water for livestock in all but the most extreme winter weather. We used it through two frigid Montana winters, and if it works here, it should work just about anywhere.

cont'd

http://www.motherearthnews.com/do-it-yourself/solar-stock-tank-z10m0gri.aspx

"In spring and fall, you can use the collector box as a miniature greenhouse." cool!

[LWolf]

1. I'm here!

That looks fascinating. I like this idea. I'll have to play with it.

:hi:

[Dover]

2. Oh yea!! So glad you're around!

This passive solar idea seems pretty darned easy and cheap. Has it started
turning cold up there yet? First cold front here today which, of course, means us natives have to stop running around naked and put on some shorts.
Brrrr! lol!

[LWolf]

3. We've had a really bizarre year, weather-wise.

A vicious, hard, long freeze that broke pipes at the beginning of winter, then a mild winter and early warm spell that set buds to swelling, then more cold weather, snow, and ice in late spring. No fruit on the trees this year, lol. A very mild summer, some light frosts in late August and early September, and today a heat wave moved in...80s for the next week.

It's hard to keep up.

The biggest issue with that tank, for me, would be that my horses live on the north side of the barn. I'd have to move it pretty far out, and then it's harder to get a hose out to it. It's easier to drain SHORT hoses, lol. To do something like that right in the barn, not for solar collection but just to need less heat, would be great. I'd have to find one of those thermostatically controlled heaters. I've never seen one; we just have the heaters that turn on and stay on for the winter. They add $10 - $15 each a month to the electric bill.

[Dover]

4. I hope this winter goes easy on you this year and you figure out a workable

solution for the water trough. I'm sure just insulating a tank would help, and reducing the amount of water surface exposed to the weather.

You might also consider insulating and burying both the tank (partially in the ground) and the hose like a water line out to the tank. Of course if you were to go that far it's probably not much more to just run a regular water line instead of a hose. Seems like it would be nice to work out some way to do it passively rather than relying on electricity.

Feeling creative? A few more intersting ideas to consider:

There's a lot of info about this online -
PARABOLIC TROUGH REFLECTOR SOLAR WATER HEATER GREEN POWER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXXOwfZA2Rk

http://www.youtube.com/user/GREENPOWERSCIENCE

Written instructions on making one:

http://power-shift.org/parabolic-trough-reflector-solar-water-heater-green-power
https://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/pdfs/FTA_para_trough.pdf


All about solar water heating heatinghttp://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm


Horse forum discussion on freezing troughs:
http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.com/horse-chat-forum/get_topic/3/001005.html

[LWolf]

5. Okay, this tops off my reading for the next week, lol.

:hi:

[Dover]

6. A good idea. Ya never know when there will be a pop quiz...lol.