Pingree Grove inventor's space heaters run on nothing but sunlight

While thousands of suburbanites have spent recent days standing in long lines for new, greener appliances through the Cash for Appliances program, one Elgin Community College student is making his own.

After taking a renewable energy course in the college's Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration program, Dan Duggan of Pingree Grove has developed a portable, solar-powered space heater.

The 30-by-36-inch box, plastic on the outside and foam, heat absorbing material and glass on the inside, collects the sun's rays when placed in a south-facing window.

Using no electricity or moving parts, the units disperse heat through natural convection, Duggan said.

A former machinist and owner of a custom mailbox business, Duggan returned to school last summer after he was forced to file for bankruptcy when the housing market plummeted.

With a longtime interest in alternative energy, he decided to pursue an associate degree in alternative energy management. One of his first classes was Professor Andrew Erbach's solar power course.

"I was going to start making wind turbines, but then when I got into the class at ECC I found out how much more efficient the solar thermal was," Duggan said. "I wanted to make something that would pay back the customers as soon as possible."

The solar heaters, which took about six months to develop, feature an intake and output ports on the same level, which Duggan says help prevent a backlog of cold air from blowing through the heaters at night.

Though meant to work as a supplement to a regular furnace, two space heaters alone kept Duggan's townhouse heated over the winter.

"Any day the sun was out, I was able to get 70 degrees in there with the furnace turned off," he said.

Duggan applied for a patent permit and received a letter from the U.S. Patent Office Friday requesting more information.

In the meantime, he says he'll continue work on the heaters to make them even more efficient.

Duggan hopes to sell the heaters for about $200 each. Unlike conventional solar panel energy, which costs thousands of dollars to install and doesn't produce a return on investment for 15 to 20 years, the savings from his heaters can be realized right away, he said.

"They're pretty neat," he said. "The toughest part, being unemployed, is having the money to develop these."

For more information, e-mail Duggan at nikon 4@hotmail.com.