Abstract This paper reports an experimental study on the performance characteristics of four solar air heaters. Two were of a corrugated type and two were of a mesh type. All used ordinary black-painted surfaces. Instead of comparing the efficiencies at the same rate of discharge, the same amount of pumping power was employed so that the unequal frictional losses were also taken into account in the comparison of over-all heater efficiency. The rating parameters, such as plate efficiency factor, heat-removal efficiency factor, over-all heat-loss coefficient, and the effective absorption coefficient have been reported for average winter conditions for these heaters at Roorkee, India. The air-heater performance can be computed from these parameters for any other usual range of operating conditions.