Parking lot collectors in Newsletter

croydoncorgi

Easy to see one major opportunity for this idea, so long as you've got BIG storage tanks for your hot water.  Say you're a motel operator:  the parking lot will be mostly empty during the heat of the day since your guests mostly turn up late afternoon / evening, so when the solar gain of the collector is at max, there won't be any automobiles to block the sunshine......

Wayco Wayne_2

A member of this web

named Mad Dog used his driveway as a solar collector. Was there any feed back from his project? WW

Charlie from wmass

I would think

you would need some massive heat storage as the use will be long after the sun is down for most users. nice place for a geothermal loop to pump out the heat in the summer. of course it would make a mean skating rink if used in the fall and early spring.

Mark Eatherton

I have a bumper sticker that says...

Friends don't let friends pour concrete without having plastic tubing in it...



If a snowmelt system is capable of delivering 150 btuh/ sq ft/hr to the surface when its melting snow, what's to keep it from recovering every solar BTU that ever falls on it? One word.



Storage.



Ground source heat pump technology provides the gateway from the btu's to get off the slab, but where are we going to put all those btu"s??



Think SEASONAL energy storage systems, like Drake Landing has demonstrated, along with numerous other entities from around the world.



If we are to make any of this stuff work successfully, we are going to have to completely change our attitudes as it pertains to the construction of homes, including but not limited to super insulation, controlled air changes, and incorporated thermal mass storage systems (wet and dry) along with waste heat recovery.



Insulate before you insolate...



As for Matt Sweeney's system, to my knowledge, he hasn't finished his project yet. I was assisting Matt in his initial design, then the economy went South...



Personally, I think it should be mandatory to have a GSHP DHW preheater connected to every snowmelt that was ever installed. Doing so would recover more free energy than the system would consume during snow melting.



I have seen slab temperatures at 135 degrees F in the Denver area, and temps as high as 120 degrees F in the mountains. I believe Mario Andretti uses his driveway to heat his olympic size swimming pool. If it works for him, it will work for us too:-)



ME