solar heating

[nsisman]

Solar enthusiasts,


We went to small ecology type demo day today in town and I was quite impressed with the demo trailer set up for the solarmax sytem.


http://www.solarmaxheatinginc.com/doityour.html


Basically a couple of solar hot air panels hooked to the south facing roof with some insulated ducts piped thru to the ceiling registers.

There was a small squirrel type blower that is thermostatically controlled for daytime use and some type of sensor that turns the system on.

The fellow doing the demo says the panels will reach and maintain over 200 degrees even in winter (Canadian winter) !

Just wondering if anyone ever tried something like this and how would we automate it ?

Neil

 

[upstatemike]

Looked into it and found with the size of my house and the average temps in the Winter, I would need something like 2 sqaure miles of collector surface.

 

[Guy Lavoie]

I've made a solar heating system for my pool using my old windows and frames when I replaced them in 1998. It works very well and sure helps the pool heat up quickly during a sunny day. I used 1/2 inch carlon hose (designed for in-earth sprinkler installations). Each window is 4 feet high by 6 feet wide and there is a total of 1200 feet of hose under the windows. Here are a couple of pics:

 

[Steve]

Wow - that's very cool Guy! A similar concept to solar pool panels which are small tubes with 2" headers. Bet is was alot cheaper than the Fafco panels too!

 

[nsisman]

hey Guy,

I did that same concept on our first pool (24' round) back in '72.

2-250' coils of 1.25" PVC on a black shingled roof -no old windows though.

One electric solenoid valve opened or closed the solar leg and I used the existing pool pump to run it all. It worked very well for me !

I can remember the pool going over 95 degrees and turning on the solar at night to keep it a little cooler ! Used a lot of liquid chlorine when it got that hot !



I have these solar max people coming for a site survey to see if it would work here.

I will know more after they have been here but it sounds like $5000 - $6000 for their system.

I am sure I could home build it for a lot less but they have a decent warranty as well.

Neil

 

[Guy Lavoie]

The whole setup that you see here cost me about $300 or so. The 1200 feet of 1/2 hose comes in 100 foot rolls and these are only about $11 each. I only needed to buy the hose and pipes. The old windows were free and so were the plywood panels I used for the bottoms; these came from my old basement flooring. A 3 way manual valve allows me to send the water either to the solar panels (with its own return) or to the regular return, or a max of the two.

 

[electron]

That is a pretty cool setup, thanks for posting that pic!