upcoming heating upgrades

The heating upgrades for the future will be three-fold.
1. Recycled vegetable oil to run a 60,000 btu water heater. This upgrade will be a simple tap-in to the system but will require an attached outbuilding with door and window. I currently have available storage for 1900 litres of oil. Not quite enough to make it through the winter for dedicated heat but plenty for top up to other systems. (wood burning)

2. Convection solar. This system will be the simplest once in opperation. It will be comprised of solar ovens attached to the East-south east side of the house. They will be either "pop cans" painted black in a solar oven, or flat black corrigated aluminum roofing in the same solar oven. The roofing will be much simpler and faster but will have a cost. The cans are almost free. I am looking to place 128 square feet of convection solar to the house by fall 2010. This is low maintanence system but does not allow storage as it heats air not the slab.

3. Concentrated solar. This is the holy grail of heating systems. Bigger outlay, more tinkering and a lot of research, but once that is done, lots of free heat. I mean lots. over 650 watts per square meter. I want a 9' diameter dish with is almost 12.5 square meters (need formula) or +- 9000 watts per hour. Loss factor of, lets say .3 (arbitrary), we get 6300 watts of power to the house. Double that of a water tank. 63 cents per hour x 4 hours peak sun per day (+-) =$2.52 per day or $76 per month. or 2.5 million btu (+-)/month. It's like running an 80,000 btu furnace for 1 hour free every day.