Has anyone ever used these products: solar sheat, any cannsolair products. They are roof or wall mounted panels that use the sun to heat air and push it back into your home using a t-stat and a fan. I have a slab on grade breezeway that I insulated(walls and cathedral roof) and turned into an actual room. Always colder and draftier than the rest of my house. No help from the sun with only 2 small windows on the south wall. I would like to put one of these units on the roof over the room in hopes of giving my boiler a rest during the day (even with the lower temperature setting in this room, it still calls for heat at least 2x more than the rest of the house during the day). I am having a tough time finding reliable reviews about this relatively simple technology. Any thoughts/experiences would be appreciated.

I have a solarsheet 2 panel set up on my house.  It is wall mounted with a separate PV pannel and fan.  It has been installed for about a year.

I can honestly say it is a great product  and puts out quite a bit of heat on sunny days.

I spent one whole day on the instalation to be happy with it.  Part of it was I was attatching it to an ICF basement wall so drilling the TAPCONS trook a while. 

I believe of all the things I put in my house this was one of the smartest.  In the picture you can see the wallmount of the double pannel.  The small black pannel is the PV module.  I had a bit of a wierd set up becuase of the wall overhang and could not use the standard set up.

It works best in concert with better air sealing so the space is not so drafty.
Buy it, you will like it.

Eric

Thanks for the info, thats really what I was hoping to hear.
Mat

What happens in the summertime with solar walls to avoid the heat?

The manufacturers say they shut off. They are thermostatically controlled. Realistically Eric would know better than I do, actually having them and all...

On a slightly different topic... Eric is that solar DHW on your roof?

In the summer you have 3 things going for you ( at least in my case). 

First the overhang shields the  solar collector from direct sunlight.  On a roof mount I might just cover them for the summer with a reflective cover of some sort.
Secondly the system comes with a thermostat so if you don't need the heat, the fan does not come on.  Clearly you don't want it blasting heat all day in august.  The pannels are capable of taking the high heat of  direct sun with no airflow.

Thirdly I just closed off the exaust vent for the summer so I did not get any airflow.

The advantages I see with this over a window (no pun intended) is you don't get night time  heat losses and durring the summer you don't get excessive heat gain.  OTOH you can;t look out a solar airheater and it might not go with the asthetics of your house.
Cheers,
Eric

Yes, The roof is a 40 ft^2 flat plate collector.  IF you are contemplating  installing it, the air heater is MUCH easier to install.  I think the solar DHW can be done yourself, but it is alot of work. 

Eric

Make that four: Being vertically mounted it's at a very sub-optimal angle for summertime gain, and stagnation temps remain reasonable. (It'd get a LOT hotter in summer if tilted for max annual gain for your latitude the way your HW panel is.)

Vertical mounting also maximizes winter gain for 40+ degree latitudes, particularly when there's snow on the ground.  It's not perfect, but it's not bad for space heating apps in snowy climes- measurably better than the latitude + 15 rule of thumb, which is based on direct-solar geometry only.

Dana,
 That was my thinking, the DHW pannel mounted for max annual gain, the solar air heater max heat gain in dec/Jan.

I did the same thing with the south facing windows.  They are sized with the overhang to get full sun ~Nov 10-feb 10 and be gradualy shaded from then on unill around mid may when they are completely shaded by the overhang.

The solar airheater is mounted lower so it reaches full gain earlier, hoever it is on a thermostat so it does not contrubute to overheating in the sholder seasons.

I realy like the concept of vertical mounting for solar space heating application.  You never have to worry about it being covered with snow, and it is at its most efficient  angle in Jan and feb.  There have also been some studies that show reflected light from snow on the ground makes it even more efficient to mount  verticaly.

Cheers,
Eric

Builditsolar has a few solar wall collector projects as well as collectors that work with existing windows.

http://builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm

I made one of these for a southern fixed window and it does crank out the heat w/out a fan.  I read that these are about the same heat gain as an uncovered window but the insulated panel minimizes the heat loss at night.  The alternative is to leave the window uncovered and put up the insulated panels nightly.   Ah, no fun.  This happened to be an extra large window in my loft bedroom, which gets plenty of light(too much!) already so didn't mind sacrificing the view.

I just used 1 1/2 in of polyiso cut to fit snug in my window w/ lower intake slot and upper outflow slots, and painted the ext side black and mounted alum perforated sofit material as well as black aluminum window screen folded up like an accordion for additional material.  I put a plastic flap over the top vent to prevent reverse flow at night.

I've got a couple large exterior wall surfaces on the south side so I might try one of the wall mounted panels soon.  One is along a lower roof line that would have snow on it most of the winter so that sounds like a great opportunity for additional heat.

FROM ERIC:"I have a solarsheet 2 panel set up on my house. It is wall mounted with a separate PV pannel and fan. It has been installed for about a year. I can honestly say it is a great product and puts out quite a bit of heat on sunny days."

I just had two solarsheat panels installed this summer. I have used it twice. Both times the temperature in my family room went DOWN and the only way the fan would shut off was manually.
Is anyone else having these problems?

I installed the Cansolair solar air heater last fall after doing a comparison between it and SolarSheet. My reasoning was that by my logic the Cansolar product put out more heat for less money (although neither of them are cheap and the payback with either will be many years).

If interested, you can read about our installation and heat rise experiences with the Cansolair product in our home here:

http://dailyhomerenotips.com/2009/09/21/solar-air-heating-product-and-installation-summary/

As well, here is where I found that per Nat. Resources Canada, the Cansolair product produced more heat that the SolarSheat product:

http://ecoaction.gc.ca/ecoenergy-ecoenergie/heat-chauffage/v2008/collectors-capteurs-eng.cfm

I hope this helps,
Dan

It sounds like something is wrong with the installation.  Can you answer the following questions and I will try to help you troubleshoot it.

Is it set to recirculate air or to bring air in from the outside of the building envelope?

When it is on, feel the air at the outlet.  It should feel hot.  On a sunny winter day mine blows air between 100 and 130 deg.  Does it blow hot or cold air?

Take off the cover to the outlet from the panel and find the temp sensor.  Measure the electrical resistance across  the leads. on a cold day  It should be very high (meg ohms).  Now take a hair dryer and blow hot air on it for a while until it gets nice and hot.  Now measure it again  the resistance should be very low(< 10 ohms I would guess).  Is  the temp sensor working?

 

 The system is very simple.   You  should have a panel or 2 of air collectors  a pv panel that provides electricity when the sun is out (it may be built into one of the panels),  a controller with programmable thermostat and a  temperature sensor in the  hot air outlet of the panel

You set the controller to what temp you want the room,  If it is colder in the room then the set temp, the thermostat calls for heat.  Basically it just closes the circuit.    If the sun is out, the PV panel generates electricity so power is available.   There is also a temp sensor in the outlet of the panel, if it is hot (I don’t know what the cut on temp of the sensor is) it completes the circuit and power flows to the fan which blows air through the panel and into the room.

If the sun goes out, you get no pv power so no air blowing.  If it is somewhat cloudy the fan runs at a lower rate.

IF the panel cools too much, the temp sensor in the panel opens  the circuit and  the fan stops.

If the room gets too hot, the thermostat stops calling for heat and opens the circuit.

Eric