Solar help please!

mb_2

Solar temps can be far higher than the pex can handle.
Insulated soft roll copper run through corrugated pipe should do fine. Fittings should be silver soldered. Buderus makes a pre insulated twin lineset with sensor wire.
buderussolar.com

Rich L.

Solar-geo-radiant

I have geo water to water in my house now and have been seriously considering adding solar to the equation.

Here's how I envision doing it: 5 ton water to water heat pump with 50 gallon buffer tank (existing). Add a storage tank with 2 heat exchanger coils internal to it, such as the Superstor Solar.

http://www.htproducts.com/literature/lp-196.pdf

One coil tied to the buffer tank as an injection loop. Add heat as needed (W1) when solar tank is warm enough, to meet ODR buffer tank settings. Have a summer shut down means (WWSD) to keep from adding hot water to the buffer in cooling mode. Have manual isolation valves to "lock out" heat in the summer.

If buffer tank is satisfied and heat is still coming from solar, dump in preheat DHW tank (geo desuperheater hooked up to it now) by way of the second tank loop heat exchanger.

The solar itself would be hooked up to the Superstor Solar tank with a glycol solution.

Controls should be interesting!

One more dumb question I'd like to mound my collectors on the ground. What are people using to get that heat into the mechamical room? Standard pex with insulation? Insulated copper? I see Caleffi has a insulated flexible stainless tubing, does anyone have experience with that? If I'm 15 feet away from the house should I bo below ground to the house? Overhead? Really not sure how to approach this end of things!

What am I missing> Please pick it apart! it's much easier to change while still on paper than after the project's under way.

Thanks for the help, Rich L.

Rich L.

Solar-geo-radiant

I have geo water to water in my house now and have been seriously considering adding solar to the equation.

Here's how I envision doing it: 5 ton water to water heat pump with 50 gallon buffer tank (existing). Add a storage tank with 2 heat exchanger coils internal to it, such as the Superstor Solar.

http://www.htproducts.com/literature/lp-196.pdf

One coil tied to the buffer tank as an injection loop. Add heat as needed (W1) when solar tank is warm enough, to meet ODR buffer tank settings. Have a summer shut down means (WWSD) to keep from adding hot water to the buffer in cooling mode. Have manual isolation valves to "lock out" heat in the summer.

If buffer tank is satisfied and heat is still coming from solar, dump in preheat DHW tank (geo desuperheater hooked up to it now) by way of the second tank loop heat exchanger.

The solar itself would be hooked up to the Superstor Solar tank with a glycol solution.

Controls should be interesting!

One more dumb question I'd like to mound my collectors on the ground. What are people using to get that heat into the mechanical room? Standard pex with insulation? Insulated copper? I see Caleffi has a insulated flexible stainless tubing, does anyone have experience with that? If I'm 15 feet away from the house should I go below ground to the house? Overhead? Really not sure how to approach this end of things!

What am I missing> Please pick it apart! it's much easier to change while still on paper than after the project's under way.

Thanks for the help, Rich L.

jp_2

btu's in march?

how many btu's per day do you expect to harvest in march?

Wayco Wayne_2

Rich.

Sounds feasible. You should talk to my friend Mark Utz, form the other thread on solar and Geo. He called Oven trop and they said there was a contractor in California assisting Ground Source HP with Solar. He didn't think to ask for a name or E-mail though. My small contribution for you is something I learned about the tanks. The Superstore is a good example of the normal tank with 2 HX's. The upper as you can see is a little above the middle of the tank and it's function is as a back up heat exchanger to input heat from a boiler if solar isn't providing enough capacity. The optimum place for output, or extraction of heat is at the top of the tank. There is a solar tank company called Vaughn that will put the HX wherever you want it, and will give you one at the top if you wish. I'm sure there are others but I havent discovered them yet.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Rich L.

collection in March

I'd like get from 30 - 50% of my required heat load, on average for the year. I guess it will be determined by the type and quantity of collectors. Is this reasonable?

Rich L.

Hi Wayne

Thank you Wayne, I'll check them out. I was also thinking that maybe I should use the lower tank loop for the solar collector. This way I'd have the solar tank and the DHW pre heat tank for "solar storage.

jp_2

time to play

with some numbers!

first, what is your heatload?

how many panels do you consider feasible?

how many btu's can be collected per panel per day in your area?

Unknown

I know heating the top of a tank is kind of in vogue and simple, but remember it also kills half of your available storage capacity for solar collected BTUs.

another way to say that is you need a tank twice a big if you heat the top.

twice as big as what? now that's the question

hot_rod

after you determine your load

come up with emitters to allow you to heat at the lowest possible temperature, this will keep collector efficiency up.

Then use one of these websites to see what type of solar gain you can expect in your area. www.srcc.com or the national weather site.

Then narrow down a panel brand and style and look up the output at the Srcc site.

When you read the output list it is thousand of btu/ panel per day, in this case a 6X4 at 90 delta t between return fluid and ambient would produce 14,000 btu per DAY, not hour.

You can run a lot of calcs and probably end up somewhere in the 20-30,000 BTU per 4X8 panel per day for DHW or space heat temperatures, depending on your location..

Then determine how many panels it would take to cover the % of the load.

Storage sized to carry you through a day or more, based on the square footage of panel.

www.retscreen.net has a free calculator also to help with sizing and economics.

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