solor water heater

[getterdone]

i built one of these bread box heaters. they work better than i hoped.

i was using a small camper ten gal. electric 110v. water heater, to heat water for showers. being totally off grid, i had to run my lister a half hour to offset the power used buy the water heater.

i was unsure how good the solar heater would work, because i had to run the water lines 130' under ground. i ran the water lines through 4" corrigated stuff. i insulated the lines with 1/2" thick pipe insulation. i decided to use plex 1/2' pipe,instead of 3/4".

i was concerned that i would have a pressure drop issue.

i used a circulating pump to move the hot water from the solor heater to the camper water heater.

if the sun is shining at all, within 3hrs.,i can have enough warm water for showers, plus warm water the next morning.

i did add a 40gal waterheater under the 10gal. electric one for storage.

i run the circulating pump for 3 min. with bypass valves to send the cold water back to the solar heater.

then i change the valves to put the solar heated water into the 10gal heater and the rest into the 40gal. storage tank.

i let the pump run about an hour.  that's all it takes.

this project is one of the best i have done.

every one should build one of thease.

i will put bells and whistles making it self regulating;when i have time.   these work very well!

[luckeydog]

If you have more photos I would like to see them. It sounds like a worth while project.

how much money do you have into this hot water heater?

any other details would be great to hear.

thanks sharing

Luckeydog

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[huntedheads]

I agree EVERY one should have one! I was so surprised at the amount of hot water from the flat plate collector I made. As for bells and whistles I made mine self regulateing by putting a temp. controller from a power attic fan inside the collector now when it reaches 120 degrees inside the pump comes on and off below 120. You'd be surprised how little sun it takes to make heat!

Good Job!

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Figure about 1 KW per square yard at right angles to noonday sun, and about 5 solar hours per day.  That's 5 KWHr raw for a 3x3 (or 4x2 1/4) panel.  Figure about 3.5 KWHr of that gets captured as heat and not lost through the insulation and the like.  (A tad less on cloudy days.  But light cloud cover mostly defocuses it more than attenuating it.)

3.5 KWHr is 3500W x 3600sec = 12.6 million joules = about 11943 BTU.  

Divide by 8.32 oz/gal and you get 1435 gallon/degreesF of temperature rise.  Call it 60 degrees supply water and 120 output for a 60 degree rise and you get about 24 US gallons of hot water per day.  Start from 70 and you get about 29.

Modern shower heads are designed for 2.5 gallons/min.  Mix with some cold water and you're good for three 5-minute toasty-warm showers.  Or just take one and keep 20 gallons for other uses.

11. for a dishwasher load, down to 9.
    
13. for a front load washer - but use a warm/cold cycle and you've only run maybe 4 or 5 gallons of hot.  Still a few gallons left for hand washing.
    
    

Or build it bigger and you can have a family.  B-)

[zap]

"Or build it bigger and you can have a family."

ULR... I think you need some more sex education.  From what I know about it, more hot water has nothing to do with getting a family!  : )

[luv2weld]

Maybe you should rethink that.

If you don't take a shower, you ain't getting to sleep

with any women I know!!!!

Therefore, no family!!

Ralph

[getterdone]

there is another picture of the water heater in my files. it's a closer view. the plans i used were in mother earth news. to get that sorce google,Gary Build it solor.

i have the cost of [2]sheets of treated plywood,[3]sheets of 1" foil fased foam board.

i resized the plans to the size of glass what i had. [sliding glass door pannel].

i used a used gas hot water heater for the tank.

Gary Gary at build it solor might want to comment on this post.

he reads thease posts often and makes comments.

took about 3 days to complete.

THIS PROJECT IS A WORTH WHILE PROJECT!!!

                        happy reading!

[RogerAS]

"cause when momma aint happy aint nobody happy"

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Ditto if you want to keep the family you have.  They're much less likely to stick around if they can't have clean bodies, clothes, and dishes because you were too cheap to have enough hot water.  B-)