Hi one and all,
There didn't seem to be a section for ridiculous ideas so I am guessing that this is an ok place to mention this.

I live in Guernsey and it is pretty damp here the whole time. Alot of the houses are old granite ones and the traditional approach was to have an Aga running to keep the perceived moisture levels down. I grew up with them and love them...

However, I guess that they are the car equivalent of a 4x4, guzzling oil like nobodies business.

My gran has an electric one (Economy 10 or something) which is a more indirect way of using fossil fuels (no direct personal combustion), but still pretty bad for the environment. I think that the local electric company is looking at a tidal solution but that will be a while away.

Anyway, it got me thinking. My gran's Aga is much like a very large night storage heater - a bunch of bricks that heat up and store energy and then release it for cooking.

Surely there must be a way to heat up that amount of bricks (or whatever the material inside is) to the correct temperature by solar energy? Would PV panels work or would you need to use some kind of evacuated tube/water solution?

As you can see I am blissfully unaware of all the details but hoping to find out alot more about solar power in general (will post another thread on that). So if you are more practical in this area please let me know if this exists or is possible or even is desirable.

Cheers
Ed

Thanks Frank,
I don't own an Aga but I keep thinking that this would be a nice idea. A mate of mine makes solar cooker things for Africa/third world places. He took some large sheets of stainless off me in the summer and had a good chat about tracking ... He found some multi use encapsulated circuit units that can be programmed and plugged into external feeds (like thermometers and light sensors) - he has had some good results with tracking mirrors apparently. I'll have another chat with him...
Cheers
Ed