With the clod weather fast approaching for some of us, finding a way to warm the house without breaking the bank is on everyone’s mind. The conversion of energy into heat is one of the most costly processes and that is most apparent in the winter time when the frigid winds are howling and everyone is trying to stay toasty.

To help you out, we’ve found some rather ingenious projects that you can make yourself to help out with this heating issue. Best of all, you don’t have to be an engineer to build them or understand how they work! Most of them can be made for relatively low cost — the junk yard will prove an invaluable friend for many of these projects.

Take a look and see if anything here can help alleviate the strain on you energy budget this winter!

Solar Furnace – Create this simple and straight-forward solar furnace to help heat your house up a little bit more in the winter and help cut heating costs by installing it in some of the most used rooms in your house.

Simple Solar Air Heater – This highly detailed tutorial shows you how to create a thermosiphon heating system and install it into your home or workshop. He even goes on to explain how and why it works so you know exactly what the system is doing.

Portable Solar Water Heater – This portable solar water heater would make a great emergency back-up while camping or just to be prepared. It uses simple materials that you could easily get your hands on and might even have around the garage!

Solar Heater – Get ready to drink a lot of soda — and then create this low cost solar panel! Using some simple  designs this solar heater takes in air from the bottom and wafts it out the top. It showed a 15 degree different in heat from just this small panel. Just think of what a larger one could do!

Solar Hot Air Collector – This ingenious build made use of materials found for cheap and actually heats their entire house for around 6 hours during the day!

DIY Solar Thermal Water Heater: Hawaii Edition – This solar thermal water heater is a great design for warmer climates but solves the expense of energy used to heat water. He even suggests how you could make this work in a cooler environment.

Solar Thermal Water Heater – Here is another great example of a thermal water heater that could be used in an environment with enough sunlight. Most of the materials can be scavenged from junk yards or found around the house.

Window Heater and Oven – This window heater started as just a simple piece of greenhouse plastic over a window and within a day turned into a solar window oven! Watch the accompanying video and see the oven cook rice, hard-boiled eggs, and even lentil stew!

Solar Window Inserts – These simple window inserts can be sized to fit right into your windows and they don’t block light, or the view. Using Aluminized Mylar (the stuff the make emergency blankets out of) is great for this because you can still see through it, it doesn’t block a ton of light and it reflects heat magnificently!

Cheap and Easy Solar Heater – For those living off the grid, or looking for a serious project, this one is for you! The process is straight-forward but involved for a quality final product. Check it out!

Hydronic Solar Thermal System – This guy has so many great ideas when it comes to solar heating! This panel system is used to heat water which is them pushed through a series of piping that heats the floor of the main level of his home for plenty of extra, free heat in the cold months.

Window Mounted Solar Hot Air Furnace – Even with indirect sunlight this project can kick out quite a bit of heat and it easily mounts into a window for simple installation and removal.