Solar water thermal panels: The installation… (w pics)

cheesey – you so much as think about stabbing a spade in my lovely new lawn and you sir will be 3 feet under my terrace!

Unfortunately you wont find anything down there except gravel. I put 100m of land drain in because we’re on solid clay and the trade off for not having a boggy quagmire ofr 6 months of the year is that the areas directly above the soakaways stresses the grass a little bit harder in hot weather.

and this is the land drain outfall

Quick check of the numbers:

Steel hose and fittings £285
Pump and gate valves £29
Solar controller £71
Heat transfer fluid £34
Copper work £150
3 x 20 tube panels £1,440
Total £2,009

Trench, conduit and hose = 12hrs
Copper work in the boiler room = 16hrs
Build and site frames = 4hrs
Install tubes = 4hrs

*quietly puts spade and trowel back in shed and shuffles off looking innocent*

Quick check of the numbers:

Trench, conduit and hose = 12hrs
Copper work in the boiler room = 16hrs
Build and site frames = 4hrs
Install tubes = 4hrs

So how much is your hourly rate? How much did those 36 hours cost you?

Stoner – you have a ‘haha’, now that’s posh.

Have you got grey water tanks installed for the flushing and washing machine too?

Bunnyhop – My original plan was to have rainwater harvesting. I have plumbed the barn with a secondary service for the dishwasher, washing machine, master bathroom WC and downstairs WC (but not guest – intermittent flushing = stagnant water).

However the cost of the storage tank and pumping station was about £2.5k. The water savings would only have been around £50 pa at most, so it made just no sense at all. If it does at a later date, then the house is ready for it and I can install it then.

Not a haha. A ditch, love.
my only pic with a bit of the fencing on top of it too.

Matthew – at my hourly rate I made a HUGE loss 😉 But im actually in between projects so its nice to do something I want to do with my time instead…

at my hourly rate I made a HUGE loss

I figured it was a labour of love. Paying someone to do the work would be missing the point.

The whole project is really impressive. A bit like Grand Designs except there have been no major cock ups and Kevin McCloud isn’t wandering around.

On time, on budget. Of no interest to Kevin 🙂

I dare say I’m not the only one who’s a bit jealous of Stoner now

#waits for Stoner to realise that he’s producing enough hot water for all his current domestic hot water needs and that everything apart from the circulator pump on the panel circuit can be switched off# 8)

Stoner – Member

On time, on budget. Of no interest to Kevin

Fair point. There always seems to be a pregnant woman hanging around in Kevin’s show as well. I don’t see one in your pics.

Edukator – Member

#waits for Stoner to realise that he’s producing enough hot water for all his current neighbours’ domestic hot water needs and starts supplying them.

FTFY

S’good that, innit? I mean, I don’t understand any of it, what with being an idiot and that, but it’s very impressive. Good to see folk trying out ways to save energy and stuff, but I can’t help thinking it requires so much extra paraphernalia, which needs to be manufactured and uses up other resources and energy. Then there’s the extra time spent installing it all.

Is the idea of ‘sustainable living’ simply little more than an illusion?

Elfin, you can generally use “cost” as a proxy for “embedded energy”. This looks like it’s got a short pay back so I’d expect it to save energy overall.

Forgive my scepticism, but I see a lot of projects of this nature around, but they invariably seem to require loads more extra equipment/materials/space etc. I’m totally behind any project that will genuinely help save on precious resources, but they very often seem to come at a pretty high cost, not least in terms of money, and don’t always seem to offer quite the rewards promised.

I am impressed to see some canal boat dwellers utilising solar panels, but don’t the panels themselves involve environmentally destructive processes in their manufacture?

Seems to be a fair amount of Robbing Peter To Pay Paul with ‘green solutions’.

When surely the answer would be to just work out how to use less energy, not find other ways to produce the same amount?

In energy and resources terms these things pay for themselves very quickly.

Insulation materials repay the energy needed to make and transport them within a year. Things made from biomass are a carbon sink and have no CO2 payback time in that the CO2 produced in production and transport is equivalent to the carbon they contain.

PV panels pay for themselves in energy terms in a year or two depending on where you live, and solar thermal is of the same order. Copper, aluminium, glass and steel are very easily recycled.

The next time you think of replacing a central heating boiler, immersion heater or anything that uses energy sit down and work out how much more the sustainable option will cost and how long it wil take to pay for itself in energy saved (or in terms of cheaper fuel used in the case of wood). You may find the eco option is cheaper as well as being sustainable.

Stoner’s system is the high-tech solution. My own is the low-tech one relying on thermosyphon for the water heater and me throwing logs on to heat the house (which doesn’t require much heating because it’s so well insulated). There’s a solution for every home if you look.

When surely the answer would be to just work out how to use less energy, not find other ways to produce the same amount?

Yes – but people won’t accept that. Improved energy efficiency can also be used to just get more without using less – refridgeration technology has improved, but fridges / freezers get more complex with more add-ons (eg American style) so they use the same energy as before.

Jevons Paradox can be drawn as a parallel to today – we use more energy, we develop more efficient appliances, so we get bigger and better appliances that give us more for the same energy rather than using less. It is the way of humans.

#waits for Stoner to realise that he’s producing enough hot water for all his current domestic hot water needs and that everything apart from the circulator pump on the panel circuit can be switched off#

way ahead of me there edukator.

Turned the boiler off a few hours ago to see how long I could go on solar alone! My problem is trying to stop the boiler firing when tank temp is low but solar energy is charging or expected to charge within a few hours. So thought Id just pull the plug and see what happened of the next few days. 🙂

There always seems to be a pregnant woman hanging around

Stoner Jr Jr born in July last year… 2 months before we moved in.

fred, as the others have said, capital cost is not a bad proxy for embedded energy. Since my decision process is all financially led, rather than bunny hugging led, then if the payback is expected to be substantially below the usable life of the system (which it is for wood burner, wood/pellet boiler, solar panels but NOT rainwater harvesting) then by extension it’s usually the case that overall CO2 emissions will, for the same level of consumption, be lower over time even when taking into consideration embedded CO2.

As it happens mine is still a relative simple system. Its just pumps, pipes and tanks. My neighbours is very much more complicated with all sosrts of computer controlled manifolds. Its a wonder to behold, but I cant help but worry about the ongoing maintenance cost and reliance on engineers.

All of mine is easily serviceable and repairable by me. I can service my boiler in an hour. And there’s only two or three parts that are likely to need replacing and they are not expensive and can be replaced by me in about 30mins.

There always seems to be a pregnant woman hanging around

Stoner Jr Jr born in July last year… 2 months before we moved in.

Ahh so perhaps there’s a connection between house remodelling generally and pregnancy. I always assumed it was Kevin’s influence.

My problem is trying to stop the boiler firing when tank temp is low but solar energy is charging

Maybe some sort of on/off switch on the boiler triggered by a little solar cell outside? If it’s sunny then the boiler doesn’t fire. I’m not sure how tuneable this would be.

I always assumed it was Kevin’s influence.

I’ll check with Mrs Stoner then 😉

I’m very impressed with everything you’ve done, also I’m forgiving you for calling me ‘love’. which is better than the stuff I’m usually called.

We had to give up on the solar panel route, due to our roof being wide enough but not long enough, also the surveyor said there would be a low noise level during the day, as I work in the attic, I felt this would drive me up the wall even with heavy rock toons blaring out of the wireless.

Veggie plots look good too.

Thanks.

Ive heard of people hanging them on a vertical wall, rather than a roof BTW.

Eating courgettes & lettuce from those beds for lunch now 🙂

Sun’s out now the rain’s gone through and the panel is showing a stable 68degs with the bottom of the tank having been raised in temp from 40 to 52 so far today. I think I might go and have my first “free” shower 🙂

I’d written off the idea of solar hot water given the high costs of systems but I’m quite tempted by this low tech, low cost approach. I think I need a bigger hot water cylinder though!

Murray, seriously check out the ideas and products on here http://www.solarproject.co.uk/ to work out inexpensive/simple systems.

A single 47mm panel, some 12mm tubing, 12v pump and either a s/h hot water cyclinder or your existing one…bobs your uncle for less than £500.

You know, I’m inspired to do something myself. I have an outbuilding with a south facing roof, big enough for a single panel. It has a cavity at the back that currently houses the remains of a header tank that supplied a large garden pond, and it has mains. It’s about 5 metres away from the house.

No-brainer?

You know, I’m inspired to do something myself.

Well I have no more pics or bits to add, so I think we need a new thread then woody!

Might be a little way down the list, after the extension and the veg patch, so come back this time next year maybe? 🙂

Thanks Stoner, have really enjoyed this thread and you have a lovely looking home

PV made in Dumfries
from this, glycol and a few other rare materials and costs a fortune in power to make!!

thanks swampi. that’s very kind.

Stoner

Any chance of an update?

How is it working in the height of summer? Are 3 panels enough? More than enough?

All the very best

David

Just re-read this thread and found it thoroughly interesting. Congratulations on your energy and vision Stoner, your installation makes my single panel look like a minnow in comparison.

For the record we still don’t have a clear idea how much ours is saving us. The reason is that we have a gas Aga,which Mrs Gti is always reluctant to turn off for the summer. This summer having been cool it hasn’t been turned off so the last gas bill was disappointingly high compared with the same period last year, when the Aga did get turned off. She has now agreed to turn it off for exactly the same number of days as last year (she records it!) so that we can make a fair comparison of our actual annual gas consumption.

After a relatively poor summer I’m beginning to realise that the debit from my 160 litre cylinder is high in comparison to the capacity of the panel; we have only had one boil at the end of April when it was very sunny. Anyway we are enjoying the smug glow of moral satisfaction that comes free with the system and a shower after an evening ride is that much more satisfying!

I have made some mods to the setup so will re-jig my Photobucket slide show and post the link on here soon for anybody interested in a less ambitious project than Stoner’s!

This is great 😀

I was wondering and I haven’t read all of the thread so maybe someone else has mentioned it already.

Could you place a reflective surface over from the collectors so that it catches the sun from a different angle, then channels it onto the thingamybobs ❓ and increases the effectiveness of the system.

Could you place a reflective surface over from the collectors so that it catches the sun from a different angle,

Not really – no. Given they are probably orientated due South, he is getting most of the available energy anyway. The minute differences he would get from anything else aren’t worth the cost.

Solar tubes being cylinders will collect energy whatever the angle of the sun around their circumference although of course the efficiency diminishes as the sun’s angle reduces from 90 degrees relative to their axis.

Update for Eyepic et al.

I turned the pellet boiler off on the 7th of July and had no other hot water heating source on other than the solar water system.

We have not run out of hot water since.

I check the thermal store temperatures everyday and they have not fallen below about 45degrees at the top of the tank. The tank doesnt stratify as well as Id hoped so it will often be 50 degrees at top and middle and maybe 40 at the bottom.

Because of this Im not sure how well the system will work in autumn when I turn the boiler back on as the hot water turbulence might raise the temp of the water at the bottom of the tank too high to be able to create sufficient differential at the manifold. Will have to experiment when I get there.

In the meantime the system is working a treat. Plenty of hot water – even at the end of and during 3 or 4 day overcast period. I think the only thing I might need to do is slow the CH pump/flow rate down as even on position one I think it’s a bit too fast.

And there’s nothing nicre than a long, hot, “free” shower 😉

+++

forgot to say some days we’ve had nearly half a ton of 75degree water in the tank! I think the highest solar only temp Ive seen on the tank (top thermometer) is about 80degrees. Bloody lovely.

Thanks for the feedback Stoner….

I am delighted that it seems to have been a success. I am most sorely tempted to go down a similar route (woodburner with back boiler plus solar).

Not sure what size heat store would be right (my place is a heck of a lot smaller than yours) but suspect 300l would be fine for me.

300l is probably fine.

the ones listed in here are a bit pricey I think for the size, especially once you add another solar coil to the boiler coil

http://www.cosi.co.uk/Woodstoveboilers.htm

Maybe you should have arranged the panels differently 🙂

http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2011/aidan.html