East West System in Maidstone Kent

[tim_h]

Hi all, Ive been lurking on here for years and have been meaning to put up pics of my installation for ages. Whilst I don't post very often I regularly read the forum and the discussions and advice I've read have been invaluable in helping me to design the systems.

The system was installed in 2 stages, firstly in August 2008 I put a Navitron 20 * 58 tube panel onto my rear extension flat roof feeding a retrofit coil in the existing ~110l cylinder.





I found the system worked OK, but we could not store enough hot water for our needs ( Me and Mrs tim and 3 children under 4 years) also having the panel at the rear of the house and facing south it was shaded by the house from ~3pm.
 




Blue squares are the panel locations. The one on the right is on the flat roof facing south and the one on the left is facing just past west, installed in phase 2 of the installation....

[tim_h]

...In summer 2009 I decided to add to the system, both to increase the collector size and to increase the storage capacity. I also wanted to dump our aged Baxi Bermuda back boiler (just the pilot light on this was using roughly 5kWh gas per day) and replace it with a condensing boiler located in the loft. I had found a friendly local plumber who agreed to install the boiler if I did the pipe runs (except the gas).

After following various threads regarding thermal stores, I chose to install a Newark thermal store cylinder 216 litres with boiler coil, solar coil, DHW coil and additional tappings for wood burning stove to add at a later date using the old pipes from where the Baxi back boiler came out....



I had found a local solar installer who wanted to shift some stock and was able to buy an additional panel for a price that I could not refuse..... I did buy the flashing kits from Navitron though!



Got to say, the £100 I paid to have this scaffold put up was the best money I've ever spent, I had planned on using ladders and an alloy sectional tower, but having a proper scaffold, with enough room to work on safely, without it wobbling about made such a difference to my confidence whilst on the roof...if I don't feel confident, then I'm a danger to myself!... on the other hand, my mate Bod scampered all over the roof almost without a care...



The panel frame was held in place using Navitron perforated stainless strap, wrapped around the tile battens. These probably would have better fixed to the rafters, but access inside the roof was quite restricted due to the loft conversion and the inside of the rafters having insulation added and covered over with hardboard on the inside. The battens felt solid and when all bolted down the frame was absolutely rigid..












I decided to pack some silicone rubber pieces between the frame and the tiles just where they touched to prevent any creaking when things warm up in the sun....




More pics to come....
I can't be the first to have noticed that the speell checker does not recognise the word Navitron....

[tim_h]

Next step was to get the pipes in through the roof, the tiles were drilled using a diamond hole saw in a tub of water for the water cooling....




To seal the pipes through the holes I probably would have been OK with silicone sealant and some FlashBand sticky flashing, but I wanted to make sure the holes I'd made in the roof would never leak.  So I decided to get the solar flashings from navitron. These are a well made solution, with nice soft silicone skirts for the pipes and a small one for the sensor cable...

[tim_h]

Back indoors the tank plumbing to the tank cupboard was progressing.

Here is a view looking up the roof from the inside, from the centre of the tee goes up over the pirlin down the insid of the roof before turning up to go out of the hole in the tile. The set on the right goes to a manual air vent.




Down to the panel...




And down to the tank cupboard....

[tim_h]

We had a bit of trouble sqeezing the new thermal store into the old tank cupboad, we even had to remove the door stop beads and saw some insulation from the rear of the tank to get it to sit deep enough into the cupboard. Even then I had to relocate the expansion vessel and mixing valve assembly, using a couple of elbows to allow the cupboard door to shut....






The expansion vessel for the system also had to be moved to the other side of the tank cupboard and I had to add the second pump for the second panel. The original solar system pump is behind the new one...



After suffering from the buzzing NRV on the original system (as dicussed on by others on recent posts: http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,10484.0.html), I decided to use a Swing Check Valve (seen to the left of the new pump), this has worked flawlessly since installation.




Got to say, using plastic pipe clips to support the wieght of the pump was a really bad idea! These have now been replaced.



More to come......

[hjd10]

Looks like a really nice install.   

Howie

[tim_h]

Thanks Howie.   

After filling the system and bleeding the air out, I left the system with the pressurised to 1 bar overnight to check for leaks.

Next day the pressure was still good, so next job was to insulate the manifold connections, for these I used some extra thick Armaflex with pieces of an old car tyre inner tube glued on top to prevent the birds pecking at the armaflex.  For really tidy insulation the best thing I found is the armaflex glue, so much neater than gaffer tape. 

[tim_h]

Now I was finally able to get the tubes in. There was no way I was going to take the whole box of tubes up the ladder in one go and I didn't fancy carrying each one up one at a time 
So I opted for the bit of gutter pipe on a piece of rope trick, just need someone at the bottom to load each tube and keep rope held whilst I pull so the tube doesn't swing into the scaffolding...

Dave had gone back to work, so Mrs Tim stepped in to assist....




And safely hauled to the top, just 17 more to go...



These tubes are similar in appearance to the tubes in my Navitron panel on the flat roof at the back. Most obvious difference was the old skool chemistry lab style cork bung at the top instead of the aluminium on the Navitron. Here can be seen the application of some heat transfer paste.





After a quick squirt of some silicone lubricant into the manifold rubber cups, the tube was pushed home.






The bottom rail clips on this panel are stainless spring clips that take just that bit more force to clip in place than I was comfortable with exerting onto the glass tube. Luckily I didn't find out how much force it take to break a tube!








And with all tubes in...

[Pat_]

Thanks for pix!

[tim_h]

I'd got the tubes in and was starting to tidy up, when my neighbour approached me to ask about the system ... the usual questions... "How much electricity does that make?" and "Will it do the heating in winter?", but then he asked what the bright orange bits were for, I did have to admit that the pipe flashing collars were a bit "larey" in contrast to the light grey lead sheet... I said I'd see what I could do to tone them down a bit...

Here are my attempts at camouflage with a couple of spray cans... espresso brown and matt black if I remember right, it looks a bit gloss in the picture, but has  weathered in more now....

[tim_h]

Cheers Pat

[Richard Owen]

Nice install.

One tip from one who's been there:

Make sure that all the pipes to the mixing valve on the tank are well insulated. If not, it produces a nice thermo-syphon to cool your tank.

[tim_h]

Thanks Richard, all pipework is well insulated now, just need to take some more photos...

I did also add a swing check valve into the vertical pipe below the mixing valve, following a tip you very helpfully gave back in september in this thread: http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,8463.0.html

I've got to say, theres so many useful tips and advice I've picked up from reading this forum, trouble is most of the time I can't remember where I've read things or who to thank! So cheers all!   

[desperate]

Tim

That anti-pecker inner tube dodge is great, I'm gonna do that next time, I've been using Denso and chicken wire
NOT pleasant.

Desperate

[tim_h]

Thanks Desp, I'd love to take credit for the inner tube idea, but it was copied from industrial lagging I'd seen at one of the factories we work at.
I imagine the denso tape can make a sticky mess, I've seen the fitters use it and have done my best to avoid it!!