Solace at Cripple Creek

It’s finally time to post about my solar cooker project, which has been ongoing for several months.  It started with an interest in just finding ways to be more self-reliant.  Truly self-reliant, not the kind where you buy high-technology, charismatic, Green Movement items like photovoltaic solar cells.  I’m not one who believes that “technology got us into this mess and only technology can get us out of it,” as if the way to stop a speeding car is by applying more gas.  Back to the point though, one of the things I started looking into was passive solar technology and its use in cooking.

The simplest solar cookers can be made from cardboard boxes and aluminum foil, and work adequately.  I suspect that many people, like me, don’t really want a cardboard box solar cooker sitting in their yards, so I looked into nicer, more permanent cookers to see what’s out there currently (I’ve only seen these other cookers online — nobody in this area had ever even heard of solar cooking).  I was shocked to see that they were pretty much all at least $200, which seemed excessive to me.  I figured this was a market just waiting for me, so after lots of research and drawing, and a lot of time in the shop, I came up with a prototype cooker that we’ve been using for the last three months or so with great success.  It gets up to over 230 degrees (air temperature) in the cooker, with the cooking vessel probably at least 50 degrees hotter, since it directly absorbs heat from the light energy.  The final design uses a better reflective material and has much better joinery, so ought to get hotter, but we haven’t had a good sunny day yet to test-drive it.  Regardless, the prototype cooker gets plenty hot enough — you can see what we cooked in it on Easter in this old post from April.  And best of all, on hot, sunny days we’re not adding heat to the house by using our oven.

My original plan was to market these cookers at farmer’s markets and maybe music/craft festivals, and to come in under $200.  Now that I’ve got the first of the final design completed though, I can see that they are simply not mass-marketable.  To begin with, the materials have ended up to be nearly $100 per cooker (the reflective material, Solarflex, alone is about $30), and the joinery and finishing just takes time.  Rather than a sub-$200 cooker, it has become a $350 or more cooker!  I think if I went to glue-and-screw construction, and simplified the finish, I could get down close to $200, but I wouldn’t be happy making them, and I wouldn’t feel good about them.  So I’ll be happy that I’ve got the prettiest and best-constructed solar cooker in SW Virginia (probably in the country, based on what I’ve seen online), and I’ll focus on other things.  I do have four more cookers in process, that I bought materials for at the same time as the first one, and I’ll finish them at some point, but I probably won’t make more unless I get specific requests.  It was a fun project though!  Here are some photos:

the Solace Solar Cooker in "standby" mode

the Solace Solar Cooker in "action" mode -- the top reflector diverts more light into the glass top

detail of the mechanism holding the cover/reflector in place, and the double-glazed glass top

The cover/reflector adjusting holes are all grommeted to prevent wear of the wood. You can also see the half-lap joinery on the top opening frame.