Sand Battery Heater solar powered 250F / 120C with no flames or fuel! DIY

that is a really nice demonstration mate – loved the video – cheers

Sir, I am wanting to make something like this to heat small storage room at night in the winter. So what i am trying to find out is once water or sand is heated (equal amounts, say 10 gallons) during the day. which one would hold the heat and disperse at night for a longer period of time? I hope that made sense. Thank you and keep up with the good educational videos

How about two heater coils in the sand?

Great video. Was wondering if anyone that has watched this is from the Pacific Northwest, which equates to rain/cloudy weather and am curious if a solution like this wold be effective or a waste of money? My application would be to raise the temp in the winter time for a 8×16 outdoor shed, even it is would elevate 10-15 degrees warmer. I do use solar powered lights which seem to work fairly effectively in the winter time but this solution would have quite a bit more of a power draw than LED lighting.

Dude, you rule

I have a 22’x22’ unconditioned garage. Could I scale this up to a 50 gallon steel drum and use multiple heating elements?

Thanks for sharing !

Excellent video, thanks!

Aluminum is a better material to store heat energy. It has a higher heat capacity than sand, but gets hotter faster and more evenly. But it definitely would need to be insulated way better, because it will also lose/conduct heat to the surroundings faster.

You say you don't need to insulate the sand much because there is not that much energy going in, but keep in mind that you have it in a aluminum pot. That aluminum pot is very thermally conductive, and is sucking heat energy out from the sand (and exchanging it with the outside/ambient temps). Meanwhile, the heat doesn't transfer well through the sand itself. It's like the equivalent of being on a boat with a couple of holes where water is coming in. You're fighting a losing battle if you don't patch up the leaks.

Also, if heating is the goal, it is much more efficient and cheaper to just convert the Solar energy directly into heat. There's a guy up in Canada where it gets pretty cold during the winter (often well below 0 F), and he does most of his daytime house heating from direct Solar heating via essentially what are insulated and baffled large boxes with aluminum cans inside and everything is painted black. These are outside and he pipes the hot air into his house. (The system turns off at night, and if he needs to, he runs his woodstove for part of the night. This Solar heating system saves him A LOT of wood though).

Solar panels only really make sense for heating when you don't have any sunny areas near a window etc, and so instead you can run wire for a distance from an area that does receive sun. In that case, it is much easier and more convenient (especially since those wires can easily be put under a window). But if you have areas of consistent sun near a low 1st story window, it makes much more sense to collect solar heat directly and pipe in the hot air like the above guy does.

I really wish I had the sun for either, but our property has many trees and way too much shade to be able to use either.

I just wonder how long it would last in a real situation.. outside temps in the 30’s… 20x10x7 greenhouse.

Effective!

9:43 Stickler here, moving air itself is heat. So, yes, you will create MORE heat by using a fan. Close a fridge with the fan on and no cooling and find out. The ENERGY question still remains for all stickle sticklers. Moving air creates heat, it is called friction. Great post, am ordering parts! Thanks:) 11:40 not to mention h2o tops out at 210degF100C.

Hmmmm (caution: Rube Goldberg thinking coming!)…
What if….interior house walls, even only the lower half of walls, got packed with sand?
Add heat element(s) into that, & enuf on-site power generation, it could help temper the house, help reduce sound transference.
Sand holds heat, so, when the sun sets, there’s only the hot sand radiating warmth—various things determine how long the warmth lasts without added heat. 
It depends on:  
…. how much sand volume; ;
…. How many elements heat it;
…. How hot the sand gets when powered;
…. How cold the house gets & the temps outside, that the sand must compensate for.

…Or, how about when building, reinforce the floor framing to withstand the weight of being filled with sand? Add heat elements into that sand, placed for easy maintenance / replacement over time.  
…Sun hitting floors thru windows can also temper the floor sand-cells.
…Or, how about making a sand-bank or a brick bank, under & around each baseboard heater, & learn how to use those to heat the mass, then turn off the heater & just use the stored heat from around each baseboard? (Kinda redundant, cuz baseboards already give you all the BTUs you paid to heat—but that can help keep warm in a grid-down event).
…Or, make mostly passive solar air or fluid heat tubes, mounted under a polycarbonate or metal patio roof, & bring the air or fluid into the house with a manifold, maybe a radiator for fluid, to heat the house during the day.  
Some of those tubes could heat a sand-battery for night hours, if you have enuf sq.ft. of patio roof & tubes.

“The wheel of seasons”—the temp cycles over a year, are stored into the interior mass of a building. The more mass, the more temp storage.  Materials used, matter.
Balance the amount of mass with the interior sq.ft., & you can passively get a livable, fairly even indoor temp, year-around, with (or little) added heating or cooling.  
Properly balancing the sq.ft. of interior with the mass, allows the cool of winter to become available to the interior in summer, & the heat gained in summer, to be available to warm it in winter.
Hard materials on interior walls store temps better than soft materials (sooo…put thicker paperless drywall, or, cement boards, on walls to store temps).

The mass-battery for temp storage can spawn lots of variations!