[Greenbuilding] new solar heating system in this country

[Matt Dirksen]

I just met one of the owners of this company the other day. One thing I thought interesting about their system is that no electric pump is required to circulate the glycol. Therefore, it still provides hot water even if you loose power (except at night). Any thoughts about their technology from the experts out there? A "geyser" pump?

http://www.sunnovations.com/content/for-installers 

Thanks,

Matt

On Mar 18, 2012, at 11:56 AM, J M Alden <speireag at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sgrìobh Reuben Demling:
> 
>> (c) something elegant and simple along the lines of what our friend Speireag used to talk about: DIY loop of black hose on rooftop, etc. Or was that someone else. I've participated on this list so long I can't remember.
> 
>    Wot?  Wot?  Did I hear my name mentioned?
> 
>    It might have been someone else in addition to me, but it was also me.  I took a few hundred feet of black polyethylene pipe and coiled it, tying it down to salvaged pallets.  I angled those pallets to face the sun, using extra concrete block.  The cold water which was on its way to the heater got diverted through these coils, and then went through the heater, which at the time was a tankless Myson.  Total cost was minimal, and at the height of summer the heater didn't come on, as long as we spaced the baths and the dishwashing.
> 
>    Had to drain it during freezing temperatures.
> 
>    Now that I have a tank heater I'd be tempted to have a solar-powered circulating pump at one end of the loop (wired to come on only when the temp in the loop was higher than the temp in the heater), and arrange the valves such that incoming cold water would go through the polyethylene loops before it hit the heater.
> 
>    If I ever can get enough of the addition built, I definitely will have polyethylene pre-heat again, probably suspended overhead in the greenhouse (not on pallets, though):  the pipes would get first pass from the sunlight and temper the sunlight a bit, especially in summer, when the bulk of the input is through the roof, as opposed to the height of winter, when more of the input is through the vertical glass wall, which I'd leave pipeless.
> 
>    The polyethylene pre-heat will be plumbed such that I can isolate it and drain it, if need be, and it will come before the evacuated tubes in the system, which are still sitting, pining, waiting for installation.
> 
>    My life got busy.
> 
> -Speireag.
> 
> 
> --
> We are beyond the day when an employer could evaluate employees by assuming or insisting that they matched the stereotype associated with their group.
> --the Majority, in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Greenbuilding mailing list
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
> Greenbuilding at bioenergylists.org
> 
> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/greenbuilding_lists.bioenergylists.org