Some more thoughts on a solar desiccator/drier

As I said before in my post on the Klimagarten workshops, I am very fascinated by the idea of a solar desiccator. So far I’ve come up with quite a few use cases for it: one could use it to dry

• fruit slices, of course
• herbs
• homemade noodles
• firewood, prior to storing it in a dry place
• and flax straw that’s getting ready for rippling and retting.
• Or maybe even laundry, but this would probably require a much larger design.

Depending on your firewood, this might be the case anyway. However, since I intend to build a rocket stove that takes long thing sticks and branches, I’m thinking that something like this might be just the thing for me:

I’d make trays of metal mesh and a wood frame to put on fruit slices, herbs and the like, and they could be taken out to dry wood (standing up and distributed nicely). Also I thought it might help to make the window’s angle (the window being the solar cell, right) adjustable to get the most out of the sun regardless of season. I haven’t yet figured out how to do this without letting half of the warm air escape sideways though. And I’m not sure if it’s worth the hassle. Hm.

What do you think: Is this a good design? Any suggestions for improvement? Let me know!

I think I’ll build this next year already and start collecting and drying firewood. Won’t be needing it until the winter of 2015/16, but in 2015 I expect to be busy building a house…