Hello RE-friends,
I finally talked my dad into allowing me to put a fairly simple Solar Hot Water heating system in the basement of their house. I have been wanting to for years, but only after seeing Gary's (Builditsolar.com) Full-house system, did I see how I could do it cheaply. (Thanks Gary)
I, of course, had to stretch the truth almost beyond belief for my father to let me do it.
He is the same as 99.9 percent of the population who wants EVERYTHING (energy) for NOTHING! (pennies)
He said "NO WAY" to the $1000 system -- So I offered a smaller $400 system -- He said "Sorry, can't afford that either" -- So since I KNOW my dad the way he is, my final offer was $50 (Yes,fifty messly dollars!) and I said it would pay for itself in the FIRST MONTH!! Amazing!
(And that I would pay for any little incidentals myself-- that he could pay me back little by little when he sees the savings on the electric bill- he-he)
Finally, his eyes lit up for the first time, and allowed me to make this Basic (About $300 actual cost) system in his basement utility room and back yard. The photo below is my parent's back yard showing the Solar collector. (6.5 feet by almost 3 feet wide)
It may not be among the best, but it is all I can afford now, and will improve on it over the following weeks. But it has been A LOT of FUN!!
The collector uses 1/2" pex tubing and is on an axis between the posts cemented in the ground, so it is easily adjusted to any angle. Just tightening a 1/2" wingnut holds the angle in place good enough.
You can't see it from the photo, but there are two pieces of angle iron I cut mounted to the top of the posts, and I drilled a 1/2" hole thru the steel so that the collector mounts to it with 1/2" bolts.
I have yet to buy or make the aluminum 'concentrators' to clip the pex into to get hotter, more efficiently. I could not find any at 'Menards' or 'Lowes'. I guess I will have to make them myself as Gary showed with a pipe and jig.
Nevertheless, just with the Pex tubing (40-50') laying in the collector on the black sheet metal, it heats the constantly circulating water quite good, but their is a LOT of condensation on the pex and the inside of the collector. (which is not good)
I wonder if the aluminum 'concentrators' will eliminate this problem?? I do not know.
I will do it soon though, since I want even quicker heat accumulation.
I made the collector simply from 6" wide treated decking boards, and ripped off an inch to serve as the cleats to screw the 26 gauge sheet metal too and to fit the insulation board up against in the back side.
Here is a mistake I made putting typical pink fiberglass insulation on the inner most area -- since I could not find any of the high temp insulation board at any of the major stores. The outside insulation board is the lower temp common poly-foam board.
At the store this was confusing me and most all the workers there. They did have something with a foil skin type insulation board that MAY be better for higher temps, so I will replace the pink fiberglass inner insulation (which is actually soaking up water from condensation) with the foil board soon. But I will keep the common poly-foam board on the outside as is -- which will equal about 2" inches of insulation on the back side. (about R7 total I think-- which is good)
I used some extra sheet metal pieces I had left over to hold the insulation board on.
By the way, I used my jig saw and a metal cutting blade to cut the 26 gauge sheet metal to size. I got it from a Heating and Air conditioning guy for 20 bucks. (3x8 feet piece)
ALWAYS wear eye glasses and ear muffs to do this though, since sharp little pieces go flying up toward your face. Tin snips would probably work too, but be more difficult.
The inside is painted flat back, and of course, use silicon caulk to seal around the glass. The groove in the wood sides allows a little expansion and contraction for the glass.
My idea of using a PLASTIC 55 gallon drum as a Hot water pre-heater tank seems to be working really good. The tank is actually more sturdy than I thought it would be.
I get these nice plastic drums for FREE from my brother. They use to be filled with dialisis fluid (??) for medical purposes. It smells like vinigar, so it was easy and quick to clean out with a little bleach.
I cut out a little square on the top to put in the 250' feet of 3/4" PEX TUBING as a nice Heat exchanger which is directly hooked to the high pressure 50lb house hot water plumbing.
Here is a close up photo of the pex in the tank. It does not layed perfectly, but this fact may even make it better for heat exchange.
This bigger 250 feet (3/4") PEX tubing was the most expensive component of the system. I got mine for $120 bucks at Menards super store. The 100' feet of 1/2" PEX tubing for the collector and the lines to the tank in the basement cost only $25 bucks. The two special copper (or brass) fittings required to hook up the PEX to the normal CPVC (plactic) house plumbing, costed me $6 bucks each.
The easiest way I found to coil the PEX tubing into the plastic drum requires TWO persons. First, the entire 250' feet section needs to be UNWOUND out into your yard the whole distance.
Then, one person keeps turning the plastic barrel WHILE you carefully fold the PEX tubing into the drum, without kinking it. This only took my father and me about 15 minutes to put the PEX in.
It is actually quite firm stuff-- so kinking it would be difficult to do unless you really pull the heck out of it HARD.
Be extra careful when it comes to putting the PEX up thru the two holes in the drum.
Make sure you allow at least 6 feet extra sticking out of the drum for plumbing hook up.
This was another one of my mistakes. I only had about 3 feet extra and when it came time to plumb it in, I yanked and pulled forcefully on the Pex to get more slack to come out and actually KINKED one side unknowingly.
After It was all hooked up to the plumbing, It took me HOURS to figure out why the pressure was very low. I thought it was the shut-off valves but it wasn't.
Anyway, after much stress, I found the problem and put in a brass 'straight' adapter fitting using a PEX TOOL I borrowed from the local hardware store (for free) , using two stainless steel crimp rings for PEX tubing. That part was very easy to do.
Here is the tool. Make CERTAIN you use this proper tool and NOT just try to use typical hose clamps. NO silicon caulk is required here.
I tied the yellow nylon rope around the drum for extra strengh especially when hot.
May not even need it-- not sure yet. The 6' piece of steel I bought for this purpose, wound up not being Long enough to go all the way around the drum by 6 inches!! arg. (Thats when I thought up the rope idea)
The pack of R13 insulation worked beautifully. One roll was only $9 bucks and I had 8 feet left over. It has plastic all the way around the fiberglass insulation, which makes it very nice. I think I am also going to put this around the electric HWH in the photo. Duct tape sticks to it very well and holds it good.
I have yet to put the 2" of extra foam insulation board on the top of the tank. I am waiting for my new little CPU 14 watt mini-water pump ($15) to arrive tomorrow.
Right now, I am using a smaller 6 Watt mini-water pump but it is not strong enough and does not prime the line by itself , which is a pain to have to BLAST the siphon hose inside the tank with a 50lb pressurized garden hose to get the air out of the lines. Then it runs by itself.
The new pump should push the water up the 10' high line going up and outside to the collector, so it will be like Gary's system and self drain and self prime itself.
The mini-pump is controlled by a simple mechanical thermostat ($12) in the solar collector.
Since my parents don't have a Renewable electric system, I just use a 2 amp 'wall wart' 12v transformer to run the 12v pump.
The following is the simple plumbing hook up to the house hot water line that goes into the electric hot water tank.
I can bypass the pre-heater for maintainence if I wish. There are TWO shut-off valves in the middle there because the 'ball' type was already there, and I don't like those type. They seem to always leak for me. And a leak there could be very bad since it may equalize the 50 lb pressure and no water would flow around and thru the pre-heater! The water flow could get stuck. So that is why I put the other Shut-off valve in. You MAY only need one there--not sure.
Today was the first day everything was working, and it was exciting I must say.
It got up to 101F degrees in the tank and the exchanger line out looked to be the same temp flowing into the electric HWT.
Then my mother turned on the dreaded Dish washer machine. And wow, over the 20 minute cycle, the temp dropped all the way to 86F degrees!
Boy, do I hate that washing machine now! It seems to be equal to 3 showers and a clothes washing!!
Anyway, I will keep doing some tests over the next days/weeks, and post results here.
It has been much fun and now My dad (and mom and many others) are believers now!
-Any comments or questions most welcome.
P.S. I am not a real plumber by any means , and this project is a personal experiment for me and my family. I can't quarantee anything!!
