thermal storage tank progress

[sunspot]

Originally Posted by randen

Sunspot
Your investing a lot of time and energy to a new system. I would humbly suggest to educate yourself in the low temperature heating methods.

Randen, thanks again for the detailed replies.I know how much effort it takes and am very appreciative of the time yourself and others put in helping the rest of us.

I've read a bit about low temperature heating here and elsewhere but I'll read more and see what I can pick up. I agree with in-floor heat option where possible. I did an installation in a bathroom for my sister years ago and that small space became everyone's favourite place.

The cutting, splitting, stacking of firewood is a big job but so far I enjoy it. And we don't burn that much (< 3 cords/year)considering it's our only heat right now. It's a rare morning the stove gets lit at all - weekends. Usually I start the fire around 4 pm. The house heats quickly upstairs where the stove is located. The bedroom, bathroom, and guest rooms are downstairs and are cold. These are the rooms I want to distribute heat to and, unfortunately, they have finished floors on sleepers over uninsulated slab on grade. Our bedroom is only a few degrees above ambient. I measured it at 4 degrees C a couple of weeks ago. The mattress heater makes this tolerable, comfortable even.

I should explain that I'd consider solar space heat a bonus as the weather on Vancouver Island in the winter is a lot of overcast and rain and not much sun. When the sun does shine the south facing windows let enough sun in to heat the house dramatically. This is part of the reason I'm considering the less than optimal winter angle of roof mounted collectors. Significant winter gain might be a pipe dream at best. If all we can hope for is lots of hot water in the summer we'll be content with preheated DHW (I did put pipe in the wall in case we end up with enough to dump some to a small hot tub just in case).