But the problem is that they are only posting once and then creating a new account and then posting only once again.
Doesn't really make any sense on what they are trying to accomplish by doing this?
:confused:

Some of them just want to post ads (and links) for bogus products.
But it seems like some others just want to irritate you..

Very short Posts that make no sense.. "I much enjoy the topic you posted about"..??.

Maybe you could give the original poster (if he has been a member for 90 days),
the power to police his own thread??
So, if I see a Spam or robo-spam post pop up on one of my threads, I can just delete it,
or 'hide it' until you get some spare time on Sunday night?. ;)

I see obvious spam in my new-post-notify email all the time.
I know you are doing a lot of work, since they are mostly gone by the next morning..
If I had a link (anti-spam link), like the unsubscribe link, that would 'hide' or delete the spam post, it might lower your work load a bit..?.

There is a 'report post' button on the lower left of the post. This notifies the admins and mods to come take a look at things. That is pretty much the fastest way to get rid of spam.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/images...ons/report.gif
That's it!! That's what happens when you get too cold to pay attention..
I'll have to start using that little button!! Thanks!

I'm gonna have to start using that button if we don't get this thread back on track! :D

Doax, what is the progress with your rack or has the weather stopped you?

The weather has indeed stopped me. With the ground frozen theres no way I'll be finishing my trench. And without the trench theres no reason for me to freeze my butt off putting the panels up there. :)

I could be working on the tank that'll be in the basement. I need to redesign it I think for the new area that we carved out. As we get closer to spring thats probably what I'll start doing first.

What's the actual status of the panels themselves?

I seem to recall that you were planning on designing a better way to hold the glass onto the front of the boxes?

The original clips that did that were little more than "bathroom mirror clips".

I think the plan for interconnecting the panels was just to use something like radiator hose, right?

The panels still all need cleaning up and some refurbishing. They all need to be pressure tested. They also need some way to hang the glass on them. I really haven't decided how I'm going to do this. Perhaps I'll ask around and see what solutions are out there for fastening to thin aluminum sheet.

Now that its going to be a pressurized system I'm not sure how I'll connect the panels. Rubber hose would have been great and it might still work. I'm not sure what kind of pressure I should be running in the system.

Closed loop systems typically run at about 10-20 psi and have a pressure relief valve set at 50 psi, so your hose idea should theoretically work fine since car radiators typically run around 15 psi.

Solar Hot Water for Cold Climates: Closed Loop Antifreeze System Components


It would be a little more costly but you could always put on copper unions. This would definitely hold the pressure and still allow you to disconnect the panels if needed.

For hanging glass, maybe Aluminum Z-Channel with some pop-rivets?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg

Yeah, I'm thinking of using something like that. Here is an image of the cross section I'm dealing with. I currently have the frame, glass and rubber gasket for the panels.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1328818556


The fasteners and angle I have yet to completely figure out. I'm also thinking of adding some form of backing nut because threads will strip out that thin gauge aluminum like crazy. I'm thinking of something like this. I'll pop rivet them in place on the under side of the aluminum flange.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1328818557

Are the panels salvaged, new or homemade? What type of glass is required? The reason I ask is I'm curious whether glass breakage is a factor here because the glass will be exposed away from the home, so presumably at higher risk for tree debris and because the panels aren't vertical, for hailstones.

They are salvaged panels. They have glass with them. I'm not sure what type it is. I'm not real concerned about breakage. You'd need some pretty large hail to break through this stuff.

Its been a while since an update here, but I've been trying to work on this so it can be done before winter rolls around. I'd really like to be able to get me some nearly free heat!

In parallel with getting the panels ready, me and the mrs have also been digging the trench for the solar hot water plumbing. The rack is roughly 80ft from the house, so its no small task. Last year when we put in the solar panel rack uprights, we also did use a ditch digger to run a line between the house and rack. It was bout 4" wide and maybe 16" deep or so. We've been hand digging it out to more like 16" wide and 24" deep. We still have a ways to go, and we also have to dig 12 of those 80 feet under my porch to get to the basement wall. Thankfully, progress is being made though.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1348093805

You're making that poor woman dig? It's a good thing she loves you!

Invite me over sometime and I'll trade you digging labor for lunch!

Haha, yeah she is digging too. Goes much quicker when you can trade off and rest a few minutes.

It looks like my uncle is going to come out on Saturday to help out depending on the weather. If you're so inclined I won't pass on more help! There is more than enough trench for everyone. :)

The real fun will be digging under the porch. Anyone got any ideas on how to do that? I think there is roughly 18" above the ground, and the trench will be ~24" deep.

How are you planning to use the hot water?? What is the square footage of flat panel area?? Do you have heated floors??

Randen

The water will be used to heat DHW as well as heat the house. Yes, I do have hydronic floors in part of the house (working on the rest). My panel area is right around 200 square feet.

Congrat's We have found with 240 sq ft we can heat for 24hrs however we do have the concrete storage. Maybe you can do the same with some large water storage. Looking forward to your results this winter

Randen

I wish that it would be enough, and it will during the hip months. However, worst case I'm looking at the solar replacing ~25% of my heat November through January. The rest of the months it is a fair amount higher.

The chart below is a quick spreadsheet I threw together to estimate what the solar panels will do for me. The third row from the bottom is the percentage of solar that will replace natural gas usage. I'm estimating a ~340 therms of gas or $400 per year savings based off of my historical usage.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1348159621

I can't come out Saturday, as I'm giving presentations at the Mother Earth Fair in Pennsylvania.

For digging under the porch, how are your boards attached? Any chance they are screwed down instead of nailed? I seem to remember it's old-school farm-house, so probably nailed and painted over with lead paint. If possible, it sure would be easier with a few boards removed.

I did my porch with stainless steel screws and a stain finish, so that the boards are removable.

Doh, thats right I forgot about your trip. Good luck BTW.

I don't think I'll be taking up boards to do this unless it is ridiculously hard to do. There should be enough room for short people (me and the wife) to get under there if we dig the trench from the outside in I think. There will definitely be some sore backs, but I think it'll be doable.

This is rad. I eagerly await more progress.

Not a ton of progress to show, but the trench is nearing completion. We have 70 out of the 80 feet dug. However, the remaining section is the jaunt under the porch which is going to be the hardest part to dig by far. My wife has been working on that. Its slow going without a ton of room to work, but with a new hand pickaxe tool we picked up today it isn't the horrendous job I thought it would be.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1348444810

Maybe put some XPS around the lines once they are planted?

Thought I would send you a little inspiration. Last night the outside temp went below 0 deg C. here in Ont. Canada. The house cooled off quite alot overnight. The inside temp this morn. 16.5 deg C. The Mrs. ask could you put some heat on. Indeed, started the heating season with some solar. The days solar input wasn't the best, high thin overcast with some cumulus cloud. We receive enough heat to heat the floor from 20 to 24 deg C.
The house is now a balmy 24 deg.C and didn't cost $0.10 not to mention the domestic hot water since March.

Daox solar hot water works and works well. Keep forging ahead.

Randen

That is the exact plan, 3" of XPS around the tubing with 1" between them. Very similar to what Gary has done on builditsolar.


Thanks Randen! The house is currently a fairly cool 16.5C (62F) right now. We've been working outside or gone so much that I haven't bothered to turn the heat on except for once this past weekend. I sure wouldn't mind having a bit more warmth though. :)




Tonight I picked up 300' of 1" pex tubing for the trench. The plan is to lay it out in the yard for at least a week. Hopefully that will help straighten it out before I try to fit it in the XPS foam sandwich. Any other tips on straightening it would be appreciated.

The work continues. We've been making about 1ft per day progress under the porch. So, we're not quite half way done with digging under the porch.

Hi,
Would like to hear how well the PEX flattens out.

I can remember debating with myself over using PEX or CPVC in my similar length trench, and finally deciding on CPVC because I did not want to fight with the curl in the PEX, but I think PEX is the better choice for durability and heat resistance -- and no joints underground.

Gary

Yes, I had the same thoughts. I wanted to try the pex because I didn't want the in-ground connections.

When I built my panels I used 1" aluminum pex. The biggest thing to remember is not to pull it like you would a coil of wire. You have to unroll this stuff, I did was to anchor the end of the tube so it would not move then actually roll the roll like you are pushing a tire so that it unrolls. It is a major pain. Since you have regular pex it will want to coil back up, my aluminum pex did not since it has the alum core .

Wind Loads...
 

I can't remember if you calculated wind loads or not, but I came across this page that tells you how to do it.

What is the Max wind speed there?

Best,

-AC

I ran wind loads on the original structure I had designed. I haven't done it on the new one.

The trench is just about completed. There is only about 2 feet to go now.

Over the weekend I started working on the rack again. I got my cousin over with a couple ladders and we started putting up the framing that the solar panels will be mounted to.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1349225585



This is what will be done on each post. Then there will be a long 2x4 (sorry, camera took a dump during the day apparently, I'll get more later) screwed to the top and bottom, and some additional bracing added. The tops of the posts will be cut off.
http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1349225585

you may want to add cross bracing to the posts to stiffen everything up like I did with mine. I have withstood 76 miles per hr winds so far and mine is out in the open

Wow! Quite a system. How's it working out for you?

-AC

Works good 3 rd year now

I finally nabbed some time to work on the solar panel rack again. I got the rest of the vertical boards up.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1349647185



The next step is to put one of these across the top and the other across the bottom. We'll see how strong that all feels, but I'll probably be adding cross bracing in there too.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/attach...1&d=1349647185

I ended up returning the 300' of pex and just purchased 300' of oxygen barrier pex (from pexuniverse, awesome prices) so I can use a cast iron pump. I also ordered my Grundfos UP15-100F pump from them as well which I've been discussing with everyone else here in another thread.

Greif

Could you give us some performance data on your extra large collector. Are you heating the floor or blowing the heat around?? Do you have storage capacities?? how well are you heating?? Can you through out your furnace??

Randen