Do It Yourself Solar Systems

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Permalink Reply by Walt Barrett on October 8, 2008 at 3:30am

Thanks Dennis,
The demo project sounds like a great idea. Our micro home is getting the roof and siding this week,
Walt Barrett

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Permalink Reply by Sue Gillispie on October 8, 2008 at 7:19am

Dennis,

Have you done any research into the wind turbines? One locally said that for 600 acres it would power 285,000 homes. Seems like communities could be energy self sufficient with a small wind farm.

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Permalink Reply by Larry Watts on October 13, 2008 at 6:56pm

I'm interested!

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Shaw on October 14, 2008 at 9:27pm

I did a previous post about building my own solar hot water heater in 1979. Just wanted to add an opinion, and you guys may come to the same conclusion if you do your homework.

My decision was to go with a "closed-loop" system to completely avoid problems in freezing weather. For all the solar newbies out there ...... you have two choices :

1. Design the system where the water itself is circulated directly through the collectors to be heated.

2. Design the system to run antifreeze (PROPYLENE glycol *NOT* ethylene glycol that we put in our cars!!!) to the collectors, then circulate it through a heat exchanger in the bottom of the solar water heater reservoir. This method requires the added expense of a special tank that has a heat exchanger, but well worth it in my opinion.

There are ways to automatically drain the water out of the collectors when freezing weather occurs, but those mechanisms can fail, and you wind up with a busted collector plate.

I just wanted the peace of mind knowing that the PROpylene glycol in the collectors was never going to freeze in the winter. A doctor friend of mine built his using the first design listed above, and his automatic drain devices allowed the water to stay in the collectors during a deep freeze one night, and his collectors were destroyed.

I circulated the PROpylene glycol with a 110 watt pump, which usually ran about 8 hours during the summer days. Better than the 4500 watt elements in my regular hot water heater.

With the tax incentive (in 1979), I figure it paid for itself after about 7 years. If your regular hot water heater uses natural gas, your payback will be quite a bit longer, because NG is a lot cheaper than electricity when it comes to heating water.

Good luck to everyone. It will be a labor of love, but on the tree of solar enthusiasm, a hot water heater is the lowest hanging fruit.

Chuck

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Permalink Reply by GW Nail on October 31, 2008 at 9:16am

Sign me up!

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