What to do with surplus hot water
 

On a hot day in Ontario Canada last day of school and needing to cool off. "Dad the waters too cold" (direct from the well) I could get brain freeze." We have at this point more hot water than we can use and its all from the sun. A warm sprinkler why not.

Randen

Just be sure you aren't pouring nearly boiling water on the grass because that will kill it. I use boiling water on weeds too kill them, it works well and seems to take away the fertility or something because nothing grows in that spot for quite awhile.

Boiling water will sterilize the soil. It kills off the living plants, the roots and rhizomes, the weed seeds, earthworms and insects, and almost all of the microbial life. But boiling water will also scald skin, so hopefully randen isn't letting his son play in a scalding sprinkler of death!

The young boy played in the warm Sprinkler for over an hour. He was a wrinkled prune when the water was shut off. He did make a dent in the water tank temp. 120 gal. from 61 Deg C down to 36 Deg C. and today the water is back up to 61 Deg. The cost for operation under $0.07 I'm thinking about the time when he becomes a teenager and some teenagers take some long showers. We pump our own water and heat with solar. Shower on.

Killing weeds we use a mixture of salt, vinegar and dishwash soap. I had tryed boiling water for the weeds that grow up the cracks and joints of the concrete but the concrete cools the hot water and defeats the effectiveness.

Randen

excess heat in the attic..
 

Back in the 1970s, I installed a thermostatically controlled exhaust fan in one end of the attic.
It gets way too hot up there. I used to unplug it during the winter..
But for some reason or another, it was left unplugged for years on end.

The other day, I saw the it was over 120f up there and went up and plugged it back in..
It's been running on every hot day. Once the temp gets over about 115 up there, it's on.
As the afternoon sun angle changes and the temperature starts to drop (around 4PM), it will click off..

I think it's good to get rid of the excess heat, but it's costing me 218 watts while the fan is running..
But, since we are also cooling the living spaces for less money (ceilings not as warm), it's likely break-even.. :cool:

There must be a way to use the heat to power a peltier unit and use the thermal store like a huge battery?

Thanks Guys for the suggestions. My wife suggested an outside hot tub for the excess hot water. Not a bad idea. We have a neighbour with one and they pay $35.00/month for the electricity to heat it. Ouch. I think they have lots of money they still heat with oil!!?? My neighbour did help me lift the new panels into position I don't know why he won't make the change. I do have a 1000 gal fiberglass tank that could be insulated and buried but extra heat in the winter I don't think I have. The concrete floor seams to store all the heat we receive.
Anyone know anything about absorption type refridgeration??? Imagine an airconditioner that runs on hotwater!!


Randen

There are fridges that burn propane...

I did some experiments a few years back using my waste solar heat for cooling. The first one was a modified gas fired absorption air conditioning unit, way back in the 70s. It was a dedicated system, used hot glycol to boil the ammonia. I had to add a circulating pump to assist the refrigerant, the heat was barely enough. It did work. Experiment two, a few years closer in time was to wrap a copper coil around the generator tube in a propane camper fridge. It did cool, but wouldn't freeze water. What I'm thinking of doing now is a variation of my solar to steam experiments which were also marginal at best. Tried running a smallish steam engine with steam from my solar collectors. I plan to build up a two stage system using the waste solar heat to heat an intermediate working fluid, such as R-290, then expand the secondary fluid in a scroll compressor modified to be a motor. I hope to turn an alternator to charge batteries. Calculations show promise, just haven't built anything, yet.

mike