Solar heat.

Geo-TH,In

Well-known Member
I went to HF and bought an IR thermometer with a laser pointer. The pole barn was so warm I removed my jacket and worked in long selves.

My barn has no insulation, just solar heat. The temp of the south wall of barn was nice and toasty when the full sun was hitting it at 1:40 today. I took the pic of the outside of the barn at 5:10 as I was clocking out. The doors are on the south end. The inside temp had dropped to 51. The sun was on it's way down. As long as the sun is out, the barn has always been warmer than outside temps. Just working out of the wind is good enough for me. The solar heat is a bonus.

The white overhead door was about 75 degrees. So, if I ever decide to paint it, it will be a darker color. If I ever build another barn, I will have length of the barn going east and west, so I'll have more solar panels.
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My dad built a pole barn years ago and has luminous panels on the south wall. On sunny days it gets warm inside without using extra heat and the extra light is also a bonus. Seems like it may be worth it to have extra panels and change them for summer and winter, however during summer the sun angle is high so it's not too bad with the big doors open.
 
In the summer the sides of my barn get warmed more. If I had the ends on the barn, smaller side, facing east and west, I would have less summer heat. The long side facing south, more solar gain in winter and the over head sun won't hit them either.

Wish I had given more thought to how I positioned the barn.
 
Somewhere in my old shoebox fulls of pictures I have some from a Farm Progress show, pretty sure in the 1970's, there was a large pole barn made to collect solar heat. Wish I could find the picture easily.
 
book i read on thermo solar said the Greeks and Romans had that down way back then and utilized it on their mansions.
 
Well I spent the evening going thru 4 boxes of pictures and didn't find the one I was looking for. I sorted and discarded a bunch of worthless ones as well as duplicates. Still have a few boxes to go thru. Should go thru them all again and really thin them down and organize them. I came to the conclusion that only about 20% are worth keeping. Thank goodness for digital cameras now!
 

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