BuildItSolar: Solar energy projects for Do It Yourselfers to save money and reduce pollution

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Welcome To Build-It-Solar

Plans, tools and information to do renewable energy and conservation projects.

Hundreds of projects -- from changing a light bulb to building a solar home.

Design information and tools for building renewable energy projects.

An Experimental section for backyard inventors.

Nothing For Sale here -- just free ideas, plans, and information.

The renewable energy site for do-it-yourselfers

Holy Solar Cow!

Our Solar Home Heater is Cover Story in Mother Earth News

Frugal Energy Saving Projects...
A collection of projects that cost little and save a lot -- 90 solid ideas from bubble wrap to sunspaces.

About the Ads...

Some New Work

A $1000, cold climate, high performance, durable, Domestic Solar Water Heating System ...

Two new versions of solar water heating collectors:

A collector using PEX tubing instead of copper ($4/sqft)...

A low cost, high performance, copper/aluminum collector ($6/sqft)...

New Content

Thanks very much to all who have spent time on the site and especially to those who have sent in project descriptions and suggestions in 2008.

Last update January 6, 2009

Concentrating solar water distiller...

Root cellar/cooler in basement ...

December performance for $1000 Solar Water Heater...

Making a wood fired clothes dryer for off-grid homes...

Another good solar stock watering tank with full construction details -- with performance ...

"Homebrew Wind Power" new book on building wind turbines...

Using Google SketchUp for sun on home modeling...

$1000 solar water heater performance at -20F...

More Power Hogs ...

Good and wide-ranging solar cooking site...

A very nice solar heated and insulated stock tank ...

Earth bermed freeze freeze resistant stock tank ...

PEX/alum collector efficiency test..

Comparing fuel use for two years ...

November performance on PEX/Aluminum Solar Water Heater ..

More Power Hogs ...

Very nice trellis shade structure...

Wood Handbook from Forest Prod Lab ...

Ghost Mine -- A unique, 90% solar heated, low cost home design -->

Final Update on Tom's turbine -- up and running -->

Update glazing ref -- add Coroplast...

An electric MINI...

New pump for $1000 solar water heater project...

Older New Content items ...

What's Here?

Getting Started

Getting Started

Solar Site Survey

Projects - Hundreds of them

Conservation

Solar Homes

Plans
Construction

Solar Heating

Sun Spaces

Cooling

Efficient active

Solar Electricity

Bio Fuels

Solar Cooking

Lighting

Efficient Lighting

Vehicles

Efficient
Concepts

Solar For Kids

Frugal Solar

Frugal Projects
Top 10 Solar
Half

More ...

The "Half" Program

Our family's program to cut our energy use, energy costs, and CO2 emissions in half.

Half

Design Information & Tools

General

Climate
Solar Associations

Solar Analysis

Technical References

Sun Charts & Climatic Data

Overhang & Shading Tools & CAD

Home Heat Loss Calculator

Insulation Upgrade Calculator

CO2 Calculators

Electrical Tools

Collector Design & Ratings

Measurements & Testing
Measuring Collector Efficiency

Material Properties

Properties of materials used in renewable energy projects.

Government Incentives

Government offered Incentives for doing renewable energy projects.

Suppliers

List of potential suppliers for all types of materials and products used in renewable energy projects.

Other DIY

Interesting DIY sites having nothing to do with renewable energy.

Experimental

An area for backyard inventors.

Promising ideas

Questions?

Getting questions answered

Site Map

BIS Needs Your Projects

Most of the projects on Build-It-Solar come from people like you who find or build renewable energy projects and send them in ...

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