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Twin-wall polycarbonate glazing info
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hgl1ss: Hi gang- Speaking from experience, I could have used the attached document below. It is a link a to a very informative brochure/catalog for the...
Free insulation!
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Rick H Parker: According to DOW, if you take a sheet of their foil-faced polyiso and leave a ¾" gap between the foil side of the insulation and the back of...
Cover for solar panel in summer
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stmbtwle: Make a cover for the panel out of marine grade vinyl, has soft material on the inside to protect the glazing, fasten it on with snaps or Velcro.
Cut rigid insulation with a taping knife
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sundug: I saw this great tip on the Green Building Advisor site about cutting rigid foam insulation. It originally appeared in Fine Homebuilding (there is a...
Electrify your bike
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stmbtwle: Electrify your existing bike in 2 minutes with these ingenious wheels see: ...
Free Solar Energy Courses
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stmbtwle: Hello from cold and wet Penn's Woods. There are numerous free courses offered by various schools online. Some dealing with solar energy. see: ...
How to use a snap switch without running 120v inside collector
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stmbtwle: You can use a 120v fan with a snap switch without running 120v inside the collector. Use a relay like this one. ...
Easy Pipe and Tube Insulation
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gbwillson: Use flex duct insulation! Have a helper hold one end of a section of the desired length being used. They should only hold the insulation. Next,...
Snap Switch Circuit Additions
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KevinH: This may be covered somewhere else in the Forum but I'll add my $0.02 anyway. When I wire a snap switch I like to add two more simple 120 volt AC...
BRAIN FOOD! Use baseboard hot water to pre-heat your domestic hot water storage tank. Make sense?
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Garage_Hermit: Check this out.. This idea is for someone who is using a hot water boiler in conjunction with baseboard heating to heat their house and using a...
Use SMART STRIPS / what they are and how do they work...
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stmbtwle: I recently purchased some multiple plugin 'energy efficient power smart strips' is what they're called. The ones I picked up are made by:...
Soldering to Aluminum
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GOM: Sometimes it's handy to be able to 'tin' or solder to aluminum. The way to establish a solder base on aluminum is to scratch/roughen the area to be...
Using the Solar Radiation Tables...
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Garage_Hermit: I sort-of defined a method for simplifying use of the tables, see enclosed WP file. G_H
Extreme Screen Tightening!
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Bert: Hi gang- Below is a method I devised to stretch screen much tighter than normal. The ZeroPass design requires a smooth, even screen layer to define...
Use suit coat or winter coat lining material to build your own backdraft damper.
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solardan1959: Make sure to really think out your tubing when building a hot air collector so that you are balancing out your cold air tubes to help stop/trap cold...
Eliminate Glazing Film Static Cling!
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gbwillson: Hi gang-- Here is a tip for anyone who has used glazing and knows the crazy amount of static that is created when you pull off the protective film...
How To Bend Rigid PVC Drain Pipe
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sparky: You can bend rigid PVC drain pipe (1.25-inch or 1.5-inch diameter) by first softening it with boiling water. Allow the water to go off-boil for...
Backplate material (moved)
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gbwillson: Moved this from the links section as it seems more appropriate here: Recently I came across this stuff at the home store. It's light, tough, easy...
Cutting Corrugated PVC -- simple operation, long story...
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KenD: I had to cut a sheet in half , and hummed and ha'd for a long time, as it is very FRAGILE stuff... After a web search, I discovered that some...
Cover for outside insulated tubing.
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KevinH: To protect your flexible tubing from your panel to shop or house if it is not fastened to the side of building, make a sleeve out of plastic tarp,...
PEX Minimal Bending Radius
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netttech: This is generally stated as "five to seven times the outside diameter" So for my 12 mm O/D tube (= 10 mm I/D), I ought to be getting 5 x...
Use your panel as a dehumidifier in summer.
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Seatec: My panels on my house run in my basement. In summer I have a vent on the side of the panel I open, block the hot air outlet and take the moisture ...

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