Solar Heating Plan for Any Home
(Page 5 of 8)
December 2007/January 2008
By Gary Reysa
Most of the pipes coming into the tank go over the top edge then down into the tank. This eliminates penetrating the EPDM liner and reduces the potential for leaks. The exception to this is the pump inlet connection, which does penetrate the tank wall. This is necessary because the pump must be mounted below the tank waterline to retain its prime. Use a high-quality bulkhead fitting for the connection through the tank lining.
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Heat Transfer Trench
The trench for the transfer pipes should extend below the frost line, and insulation of the pipe is very important. For our 120 feet of pipe, about 3 percent of the heat energy in the water is lost on the round trip. We used three-quarter-inch Chlorinated Polyvinyl Chloride (CPVC) pipe for the supply and return lines. PEX pipe would probably also work well.
We made the insulation for the pipes by cutting 8-inch-wide strips of 2-inch-thick extruded polystyrene (pink) insulation board. Two three-quarter-inch grooves are cut down the length of each strip for the pipes to sit in. One 8-inch strip goes under the pipes. Another strip fits on top of the pipes. The strips are glued together with polyurethane foam insulation from a spray can. The strips can be weighted or tied together until the foam cures.
Heat Distribution
We decided to remodel our floors to include hydronic radiant heat. The solar heating and radiant floors make an efficient combination, plus we didn’t like our old floors. We did this by removing the existing finish floor and installing three-quarter-inch plywood spacers with slots between the spacers for PEX tubing. Aluminum heat spreader plates were used to improve the efficiency and eliminate hot spots directly over the PEX-Aluminum-PEX. This is a type of PEX tubing that has a layer of aluminum sandwiched between two layers of PEX. The advantage is it expands much less than standard PEX when heated, so floor noises are less likely. It is also easier to install, because it retains its shape when bent. After the PEX was installed, we covered the floors with laminate flooring.
As a rough guide, three loops of about 250 feet each (a total of 750 feet) were enough to distribute the heat from the 240-square-feet of solar collectors.
All of the floor heating loops start and end at a common point. One end of each loop is connected to the supply manifold; the other end, to the return manifold. Water from the storage tank is pumped into the supply manifold, then out through the floor loops and back to the return manifold where a pipe takes it back to the storage tank. If water from the storage tank is too hot to go directly to the floor, a mixing valve installed in the supply line mixes water returning from the floor loops with the supply water to bring the temperature down to a level that is safe for the floor. We used a commercial set of supply and return manifolds that included all the fittings, air vents, valves and temperature gauges.
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