Almost the first thing anyone who wants to experiment with solar energy wonders is "where the heck am I going to get the glass or other materials without it costing an arm & a leg?" How does just about FREE sound?

The reason I say "just about free" is you do actually have to invest a little little bit of time & fuel to go pick it up and maybe a few minutes of manual labor. I collect glass and other materials for my own projects as well as for friends who are experimenting and have yet to actually have to pay someone for it.

A lot of people out there are writing and selling E-Books about how to get free glass or solar panels & quite frankly it is ticking me off. Don't get me wrong, almost all of us want to earn a living or make a profit but our sky rocketing gas & energy prices are hurting everybody and the information on how to acquire materials to recycle into equipment to make the planet a better place or just so someone has the money to feed their kids needs to be freely shared.

Ok, now that I have stood on my pet soapbox & preached my sermon I will shut up & get to the point. There are a few ways to get so called free insulated glass panels and other cheap materials .

1- There are a ton of "Window Replacement" companies out there who use a reciprocating saw (sawzall) to slice the frame of the old windows when they remove them to save time & labor. Most of these companies either throw them in a dumpster or have a small scrap metal dealer pick them up for the aluminum frames.

Getting all the thermal pane or insulated glass panels my friends or myself could ever use was as simple as stopping on one of their jobs and telling the owner why I was looking for used glass window panes. They had 9 good 32X48 insulated glass panels on the job that he gave me plus almost 300 usable ones of various sizes stacked in his yard that his wife was regularly chewing him out to get rid of. One little visit solved all my needs for glass as well as the needs of my friends & everybody they know. His wife now calls every time the guys get in a hurry & unload in the yard.

2- We have all seen the local "small time" scrap metal guys driving around in the trucks built from several different vehicles. These usually unshaven & unsavory looking fellows often turn out to be a gold mine of parts & supplies for the alternate energy hobbyist or enthusiast.

Windows can often be gotten from them for free if you will just take the remainder of the frame off the window & throw it in a stack for him to save him the trouble of having to do it himself.

A good water heater tank will bring a junk dealer about Twenty Cents and the salvage terminal. I have never seen a scrap guy turn down $2 for a very good tank to be used to build a solar water heater with.

The little guys usually are the ones that get all the goodies from the smaller heating & air conditioning companies. Many of the units have had recent repairs and still contain virtually new components that can be bought for for a few cents on the dollar or depending on the guy, given to you to get them out of his way.


When you are looking for copper or aluminum coils for solar or other alternate energy hot water space heating check the "spot" price per pound for the metals before going hunting. If the little guy is going to get $1.50 for the coil at the depot you can bet he will take $2-$3 for it right on the yard. The same coil would cost you $150- $200 at most HVAC supply houses.

Simply put the stuff you need to build almost anything you want is out there either very cheap or for free. All you have to do is look around, ask a few questions & find where it is laying.

Good luck, Happy building & Thank you for doing your part to make a difference.