Mother's Do It Yourself Solar Water Heating Project

(Page 3 of 4)

September/October 1981
By Mother Earth News Editors 
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However, these optimum performance figures weren't attained at the same flow rate. While the BTU Bucket, the Suntree, and the SolaRoll all performed best at one gallon per minute, both in-line collectors — partly because of their smaller surface areas—captured the most solar energy at a flow rate of 1/4 gallon per minute. (This point demonstrates that maintaining the optimum flow rate, for any collector, is essential if you're to get the best efficiency possible out of the heater.)

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DOLLARS PER BTU

Naturally, the real efficiency that most folks are concerned with, when considering the purchase of a do-it-yourself solar collector, is economy. And as you can see from the accompanying chart, an individual willing to spend some time soldering together his or her own collector will find that both the doubleplate and singleplate in-lines offer good returns: around 19 and 17 BTU per square foot, per hour, per dollar invested in materials. (EDITOR'S NOTE: The in-lines' economy ratings are figured from $5.50 and $4.75 per square foot, respectively, to account for the use of copper sheet not employed in our original homemades.)

The runner-up in the economy race is the BTU Bucket, with a yield of about 15 BTU/square foot/hour/dollar. Among the other contenders, the figures are somewhat lower, with 8 BTU/square foot/hour/ dollar for the Suntree and 7 BTU/square foot/hour/dollar for the SolaRoll.

IN THE LONG RUN

Of course, there's at least one big unknown left, and that's the longevity of the different collectors. There's simply no way for us to accurately assess just how long the panels might last—or how much they might deteriorate in performance during their life spans—but it's probably safe to assume, for example, that our in-lines will require more frequent glazing changes than the others, since the corrugated fiberglass isn't shielded from ultraviolet light degradation.

Still, the facts indicate that a handy person's ability to do some or all of the work needed to build and install a solar water heating system is the one ingredient that will go the farthest toward making the energy-saving system an economical one ... and, with winter coming on, it might just be time to get started!

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