Mike the Hillwizard
Some people march to a different drummer, I march to the counter beat, sometimes pounding out my own tune, and dancing to that.
Hi Everyone,
Just musing about my propane fridge, and wondered about a solar heated alternative to propane. It would be interesting to find if a parabolic trough heating up motor oil would be a good supplement or replacement heat source. My old Dometic uses about 1100 BTU/hr, which is barely more than a pilot light. Plenty of that heat going up and out the stack.
Does anyone have BTU data from a "size X" trough, which can be used to plan an appropriate size trough to replace the propane flame?
Another interesting thought would be to have a highly insulated storage tank of, say, 15 or 20 gallons. An oversized trough creates a surplus of hot oil, which could be circulated after loss of sun to keep the fridge cold through the night. The hot oil storage might be impractical for making steam to generate electricity, but a small scale demand like a fridge might be do-able.
No, I have not done calculations on BTU storage and oil temperatures - this is just a thought at the moment. Someone said in a recent post that they can't make propane for their fridge, but you could make plenty of hot oil.
TW
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