Solar Water Heater

[ShaneJackson]

The first picture is the tempering valve as mentioned in the post below. Not only is this a great safety feature but it also effectively increases the capacity of the tank by allowing you to have hotter water in the storage tank. This 100 gallon tank at 180deg will put out the same as a 200 gallon tank at 120 deg (assuming 60 deg inlet water). To me this should have been standard in a solar setup, but it was not!

The 2-4 picture is of the solar collectors.

The 5th is of the top portion of the workstation. A little work and copper but no more leaks.

The 6th is showing how I mounted the collector to the 6" pole. The mount is made from scrap brick lentil (.250" thick) and 4 pieces of .125" 2" angle 12" long. I bolted it together in the ground and welded the angle to the .250 plate. Then unbolted it and welded the plate to the pole. The the fun part was lifting the frame up on the scaffolding and bolting it to the mount. Once that was done I welded it all together.

The 7th picture how I stabilized the framework using 1/2" rebar.

[everlastsupport]

Pretty cool. Not attached to the house is nice too. Assume you do not have to move/rotate it and get enough hot water? Does it work in the winter, or too new to tell? Did the rebar save you money or just best pick for the support?

You can add the welder in the payback, just do not tell the wife

[ShaneJackson]

Pretty cool. Not attached to the house is nice too. Assume you do not have to move/rotate it and get enough hot water? Does it work in the winter, or too new to tell? Did the rebar save you money or just best pick for the support?

You can add the welder in the payback, just do not tell the wife

There are 2 reasons I did not mount on the roof, 1st is I did not want any possibility of roof leaks, and second (and probably the real reason) is the damn roof is steep and I don't like heights. The panels (tubes) are facing south so they do not need rotating. Also since they are tubes the surface area allows for better solar collection the entire day (different angles to the sun).

It is fairly cloudy today but when I took the pictures the collectors were at 127 degrees with the lower portion of the tank at 118 degrees. So they seem to work fairly well even on a cloudy (but bright) day. They should work well in the winter also as the tubes are vacuum tubes and well insulated. Or at least that's what I have read. I will find out in a few months.

As for the welder, I can defiantly take it off the taxes as a business expense, and if I had bought it last year when I bought all the solar stuff I would have included it in the cost of instillation. I still may this year.... I'll have to read the tax code to make sure doing so isn't specifically excluded (tools).

[everlastsupport]

Round surface makes sense. 118 degrees on a cloudy day at the tank. Not bad (plenty hot if a good size tank). As long as snow drips off it, probably good in the winter too.

Reason I asked about the roof was leaks and hurricanes for me. We get those and a hurricane would catch it. They can break a stop sign post. It is amazing the power they have.

Great project Shane. I will let you work out the bugs and bother you for getting one going for me later hahahaha.. We get nothing but hot here (10 month or more of the year and sun all the time).

[ShaneJackson]

Actually I am rather impressed with the performance. Around 3 - 3:15 it cleared up and was mostly sunny this afternoon. I checked the temps at approx 5:30 and it showed 147 at the collectors and 134 at the tank. I just checked and the tank is at 137. It is 73 outside and the collector is at 94 still.

Mike, the only concern I would have with these for you would be flying debris. The "panels" themselves shouldn't create too much lift with all the gaps between tubes. The install was fairly simple, I did it all by myself (could have used 2 people to mount the panels on the pole...) My only advice would be to build your own work station.

[ShaneJackson]

Today was the first sunny day (at least 90% of the time) and the lower tank temp made it up to 155. Not too shabby!!!