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Old 08-19-20, 11:21 PM   #29
menaus2
Apprentice EcoRenovator
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Driftless Region, North America, Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy,Virgo Supercluster
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So its been about 3 months since my last update, and overall the collector has worked great over the summer and have made some refinements also.

1. The reflectors have really helped out with the high sun angle. 120f-130f for the tank an 150s for the collector are pretty common temps. I've recently gotten the tank above 140f recently even with hot water usage. I'll probably keep them on if they can survive the snow load.

2. My vertical smaller collector i just plugged in so it runs when the larger collector does. Simple & extra btus.

3. The system now runs on solar PV. I ran conduit from my small off grid solar system upstairs into the basement with its own dedicated gfci. I was using the PV system to run my satellite internet & office, but the battery is only 1 kwh. Not enough storage for cloudy days and a lot of power not getting used when sunny. The production and consumption is very well balanced and my battery is happier. The pumps take about 220w of power to run. The temp controller about 1-2w.

4. I checked out the tank with my SEEK thermal camera. The storage tank shows hardly any heat loss it works great. I did see a lot of heat loss through the pipes heating the storage tanks though even with the foam pipe insulation. I've started adding another layer of pipe insulation by using 2 sticks "clamshelled" around it and duct taped. Big improvement in heat loss and red green would be proud.

Before heating season I'm planning on:

1. Replacing the water circulation fluid with 10 gallons of glycol still stashed in the shed somewhere.

2. Pumps, piping & Contols to integrate the tank with my forced air furnace plenums. Really interested to see how it will work for space heating. I considered radiant heating, but its more than I want to take on right now. It would be pretty easy to modify it to radiant in the future.
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