Emergency preparedness from a Counterintelligence Agent

Free hot water forever DIY project

solarthermalpanelcoilandframe

Those of you who know me know that I’m a HUGE fan of making stuff out of stuff laying around. Basically, repurposing (The link takes you to a great little kindle book but there are more there to learn about what I’m talking about). Repurposing stuff has gotten me home several times, including 3x I’ve used kite string and vice grips as a makeshift throttle system for a jeep twice and even my Harley once. As you also know from my Skills vs Stuff article, knowing things trumps having things.

In that vein, I’ve decided to use this theme to start an addition to the normal article type that I’ve always done. I come across a lot of articles out there from websites that have some fantastic ideas out there. Usually, I’ll get an idea from them and then try to perfect it or adjust it to make it more flexible before I write my own article about it but from the feedback I’ve gotten from you people, sometimes my articles tend to be a little overkill with detail and there are a LOT more great articles out there than what I’m ever gonna be able to dive deep into. I can’t help that when I want to write an article I want to write it so it’s a complete thought but you guys are the reason I’m doing this in the first place so I’m gonna compromise a bit on my writing without compromising on giving you useful information. Whenever I come across a great article that I think you’ll like, I’m just gonna give you the link and a few thoughts of my own (even if I come across idiotic ideas now and then).


Basically, I’m gonna start sending you websites that I think are what you can use and follow my personal philosophies. I’d imagine that a lot of these are gonna be projects that you guys should know about but shouldn’t have to wait until I have enough time to get around to building them and testing them myself for some ridiculous detail.

The first of these new articles is from The Sietch. It’s an article about a very simple and cheap way to make hot water using solar power. It’s from one of my most favorite places on Earth: Hawaii.

The Sietch explains how to make hot water using a few pieces of wood, a glass sheet and some irrigation tubing. In total, about $30 worth of parts and stuff you can find easily if you had to go scrounging around a neighborhood for stuff.

Seriously, take a look at this article and get some ideas. You could easily adapt this to assist in your home water heating, heat water in your RV or heat the water in your pool to extend your swimming season.

The only thing I’d do in addition to this setup is add an insulated holding tank that recycles the water through it so you could tap the tank for the water you want. If you don’t have that, you could always just add more hose so the system holds enough water for each use (shower or whatever) that you’d need.

Here’s the original article – DIY Solar Thermal – Hawaii Addition

If you’re really interested in researching different ways to use solar to heat your water, check out this book by Benjamin Nusz called Solar Water Heating.

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About graywolfsurvival.com

I am a former federal agent and military veteran who has deployed to combat theaters in Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan and have almost three decades of military and military contracting experience.

My goal is to help families to understand how to intelligently protect their family and their way of life against real threats, without all the end-of-the-world doomsday crap.

Comments

  1. Sandy Patterson says

    Graywolf, there’s a concept known as ‘Affordances’ in psychology. In short it’s how our brain views the potential of world around us. Example: the lapels of a suit don’t register as anything but decorative for most people. For a martial artist they may register as handholds, for a Scotish ghillie they may register as a way to keep warm, and for a tailor a notch lapel could be created out of a peak lapel while allowing him a small piece of cloth for a repair. Learning skills gives us not only the skills, but also the ability to see from a different perspective even when not using those skills. A man with a guitar in the woods has a guitar. A green beret with a guitar has snares, a garrote, an antenna extension, a fire starter, a light saw, trip wire, and the base for a fire plow, amongst other things. Maybe it’s best expressed by saying it’s how our we make new skills out of skills we already know. No matter how poorly I’m expressing myself I still encourage you to check out the concept of Affordances. It’s an eye opener for a lot of folks.

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