When I was thinking about building a solar dehydrator, my unused cold frame caught my eye and I thought, hmm, that would make a great solar dehydrator during the off season. I use a cold frame in the spring to get my starts going early because it’s like a mini greenhouse. It gives full natural light early in the season when I start to run out of space under the grow lights.
But once I’m done with starts, the cold frame just takes up space in my backyard until the next season. I thought, why not have it double as a solar dehydrator. With a few modifications, it could become a dehydrator and not only conserve space, but save me the trouble of having to go to the trouble of building a separate dehydrator.
I’ve been frustrated with the inefficiency of an electric dehydrator since it uses over 600W and seems like just a waste of solar electric power when the sun is right there in the summer. So in this video I design and build a new kind of solar dehydrator that can double as a cold frame.