Solar collector under metal roof?

[kert]

Has anybody considered something like this:
http://www.libertynrg.com/purlin.html

Looks like an interesting concept, but I don't know how how well the metal would work as a solar collector even on a sunny day in the winter. i'd be considering putting this on the South side of a 12 in 12 pitch of the garage I'm planning.

 

[RPH]

Looks good but I would use it as a drain back system.No need to pump at night. Find the solar map for your area. You have to be in a better solar place than me in this. I use Flint,Mi as my station and there is 2 kW of energy per square meter in January and goes up in February. You have to be insulated extremely well to hold the heat in but I believe in free heat before I buy heat. In fact in I made sure that I put the 72' wall with clear view to the south just for the solar reason. Mother earth news has some great plans for this stuff. I will keep the link and check into this. Thanks for posting this.

 

[kert]

Did a little more research and I don't really think this is as good as it sounds. Most metal roofs have coatings that are specifically designed to reflect heat. That's why there was a 30% rebate a few years ago.

Funny thing is I found a site selling a similar product that had a link to "the advantages of metal roofing" which included reflecting 80% of the sun's heat.

It really does seem like a neat idea though to have an inconspicuous solar collector. Oh well.

 

[AV8OR]

I wouldn't give up so fast they do make colored metal roofs. Now all you need to do is see if they make it in black. A back up color would be dark brown, dark green, etc.