2.52 kwp and 50 tube thermal

[greentangerine]

PV installed (professionally) January, solar thermal (diy) in February.

Very happy with the performance of both.

[Billy]

Nice,

suppose all that pv powers the satellite and the security light (low energy of course) and what are all those aerials for?  Nah, just joshin, well done, it looks like you have an ideal roof for it.

Billy, oh and welcome.

 

[Tigger]

Wow, 50 x 58mm tubes, have you got a swimming pool or do you take a great many baths

[greentangerine]

Three kids who seem to be in the shower constantly (and the security lights are low energy - rubbish illumination though).  Aerials are TV, FM and DAB.  Roof is more or less exactly south facing with effectively no shading when it matters for the PV.

[desperate]

Nice one mr GT well worth some good vibes


Desperate

[Cornish Dragon]

Good looking system there GT......
keep up the good work....

CU
CD

ps sorry guys for not posting (especially Noel)
as often as I have. For some reason Firefox
is taking a Russian roulette approach to
interactivity on the net for me !

[StBarnabas]

Welcome
Roof not quite full yet? But solar water and PV like my system. You need to monitor performance - would love to compare notes...
Sean

[bar]

Hi

very tidy and efficient looking installation.

are you monitoring output?

could you provide indications of costs for both systems to help aspiring solar wannabes to appreciate

well done

Bar

[greentangerine]

2515 kwh to date since installation on 19th January 2010.  Installed cost was £12500 for the PV (but got the £2.5k low carbon grant back to reduce it to £10k).

Solar thermal cost just under £3k, all DIY.  Heats a 300l gledhill torrent thermal store and has provided a large proportion of our hot water.  

Just about to install a 11kw woodburner (with 3kw back boiler) which will also plumb into the thermal store.

[billythesquid]

looks very good and is very green but thats alot of money

Tony

[greentangerine]

Added a woodburner to the thermal store last month - very happy with how it's heating it.

[carrick]

Thanks for your pictures. I have been watching this forum for a while to learn about the subject with a view to designing a solar/woodburning/thermal store system for my house. Whenever I think I've grasped one new idea, some complication turns up but a picture really can be worth a thousand words.

So, prompted by your last picture, I hope you don't mind me asking some basic questions in the hope of further enlightenment.

1. You appear to have thermal store and woodburner on the same floor level with a laddomat or equivalent between them. Would this setup work by gravity without the laddomat? It seems a pity to be unable to fire the stove hard (for safety reasons) in a power cut, just when you probably want the heat.

2. Does the heat leak radiator turn on and off controlled by those wires, or are you losing some heat there all the time? Can you elaborate? And in a power cut, would that one radiator take all the output of the stove, or would you need to throttle back a bit (see 1)?

3.The return to the stove doesn't come from the very bottom of the store. Does this mean that part of the store is "dead space" where you can't store heat? Could you pull water up from the bottom with a pumped system, or would it work better if it was possible to raise the store up so that it was  higher than the boiler connections?


Well that's probably enough dumb questions for starters. Thanks again for the pictures.

[greentangerine]

Answers below ...

1/ There is gravity flow with the Thermovar - there is a constant rise on both the flow and return from the burner to the store.  However, having experienced the Thermovar unit, I'd recommend using a loading valve of some description bwtween the store and burner.  See 2/ as well re: the heat leak rad but I can probably burn hard with care and attention in the event of a power cut, especially if I manually isolated the heat leak radiator.  Just need to keep an eye on the thermal store!

2/ The heak leak radiator has a normally open valve on the return.  The flow of power is flue stat -> tank overheat stat, then to both Thermovar and heak leak valve.  So, once the flue gets up to temperature, the flue stat gets triggered.  This then goes through the tank overheat stat (set at 95 - don't want it boiling) and then to the Thermovar to switch it on.  It also closes the valve on the heak leak rad at the same time.  I didn't originally have the valve on the heat leak but found that it was heating up during 'normal' operation.  When the flue stat is off or the pipe stat cuts the power, I have gravity flow to the heat leak rad. If there's a power cut, same applies.

3/ Basically yes with respect to thewoodburner but it is heated bu the solar coil.  My store has designated ports for various things and I used the ones labeled for the wood burner.  There is a 28mm port below the return for a system boiler and a 22mm one for use with underfloor heating.  I was tempted to use the lower 28mm one but I wouldn't have had gravity flow from the wood burner as it is below the return on the woodburner.  Given I have the loading unit maybe I should have just gone with that but then I'd have no heat flow in the event of a power cut. The DHW heat exchanger coil doesn't begin at the bottom either though but it is below the woodburner return.   The solar coil is right at the bottom so the water there tends to be about 30 degrees or so at this time of year, sometimes much higher.

[greentangerine]

Added another 15 tubes to the solar themal system last week ...