Sun ovens in the UK

[dannydela91]

Hi everyone,

I was on the net having a look around and saw sun ovens and was wondering their uses in the UK?

I would imagine in the summer when we have very good weather we would be okay but were more a cooler climate and therefore have more cold than warm meaning they would be pretty useless and not worth relying on.

Any other thoughts ?

[northern bloke]

I saw them and knocked one up, it worked but like you said it didn't get much use because of our weather conditions I later got a large Fresnel lens out of a large rear projection TV and thought about having a go at making a solar hotplate or direct its focus on a dutch oven, true you still need the sun but I think its more efficient at getting up to speed so to speak.

Here is a link if you haven't seen them and interested in solar cooking.

http://rimstar.org/renewnrg/fresnel_len ... cooker.htm

[ForgeCorvus]

I wonder if you would get more use (in the UK) out of a solar oven if you used it as a slow-cooker or haybox (get the food hot and then use the oven to just keep it hot) rather then trying to heat the food from cold in order to cook it?

[nickdutch]

The issues with solar cooking in the UK is firstly about the quantity of sunshine you will have on that one day. You need to check the online daily forecast that morning to make sure there is going to be enough consistent sun to be able to keep the temperature rising. If the oven is a home made job of cardboard construction, you have to make sure that rain isn't going to be forecast and to plan your cooking accordingly. Unless the oven is very heavily insulated (like some commercial solar ovens seem to be) you will struggle to get good temperatures if the weather is chilly. If you are an urban location, you need to verify that the area that the oven is going to be placed isn't going to be obscured by buildings shadows as the time passes and the sun moves across the sky.
Also,it will work better between march the 21st and September the 21st as that is the time of greater sun power and even better between 1st may and 1st August and best on June 21st as that is mid summer.
You will also have to turn the solar oven periodically (eg once an hourly a factor of 1/24th of a full circle) to maximise the sun power on the food and heating space unless your reflector has been constructed to take that into account.

All of this means that planning your meals, when you will defrost your meat etc, can be more challenging than normal.

A problem with off grid technologies is that they aren't labour saving. If you stop using labour saving devices, you have to use more labour.