That is as simple as it gets. Since you don't need it in the summer you could hook your food dehydrator up to it.

Hey Perf.. that is a Damn good idea, excellent idea!

That's what I've been mulling around in my head the last while.
I think some kind of outdoor attachment to a dehydrator box. All this is gonna do is supply heat to the box. You need lots of airflow but in the summer your collector will be much more efficient than in winter. A tall narrow dehydrator box with a chimney will promote lots of airflow.

Am I the only person around that is taking adavtage of this summer heat? I have out side, water in 2 gal pasta pots. I wish that I still had my black, military 5 gal water carrier. In the field (Wainwright AB) we use to set these out in the sun, before we left in the morning to come back to a fairly hot shower/wash water, when we came back at night, or at least I did.

A few months back, I saw a youtube video for a similar design useing aluminum downspouts. It had a small fan powered by a $15 solar panel to blow the cool air in. I,m building a shop at the cabin this summer and a solar heater was one of the first projects I had in mind. I hadn't thought of useing it for a dehydrator though. Thanks for the idea perfesser.

While looking for a good sprouting tray for making essene bread I found this place in Elmvale On.
They have one hanging sprouting thing that would double as a dehydrator. Seems like a really quick way to whip up a dehydrator.

http://www.sproutmaster.com/general-products.html#sprouts

2nd item on the page

Thanks a lot for sharing very useful information related to solar power.....