I'd like to send a BIG thank you to Bargeman, Antman and all others that have shared their knowledge with me and the forum in general. Without such freely and enthusiastically provided info my solar installation would not have been possible. It has (in part, I shall explain) been in faultless operation for some time now, and is performing fantastically.
Now the sad bit, we are having to repair the pool, so I've had to leave 60 of the total 90 tubes out for now and have set up a temporary heat dump to protect the DHW side (once the pool is back in order the full 90 tubes will be in place and the pool will be the 'heat dump').
Today the temporary heat dump came into play at 4pm as our tank had reached 65degC. That's a 259 litre thermal store from 30 tubes! Usage included a total of 5 leisurely showers and 3 lots of washing up since yesterday evening. I have installed a second tmv to supply our 'cold fill' washing machine at 40 degC. I've disconnected the butane bottle to the back up water heater, I don't thing we'll need it - very satisfying.
I've also installed a winter heat dump for when the pool is put out of commission, consisting of a 1500 by 600 double rad in the lounge, to provide useful day time warmth (it gets bloody cold at night here in Dec/Jan/Feb - we recorded minus 4degC on numerous occasions, any daytime heating gets us ahead for the evening), I just have to close a valve to the pool feed and open up a rad valve and it's switched over. We'll see how it performs/ if it will cope (daytime sunshine can still be strong here in winter, a couple of days I had my shirt off working outside in Jan!).
Only other challenge was that I couldn't get through to the roof space to run the flow and returns due to the concrete construction both above our false ceilings and under the roof tiles! So I had to take out a small section of wall at the eaves and run the pipes down inside it to enter the house above the false ceiling... Before winter I'll wrap a layer or 2 of bubble/foil insulation around those flow and returns to increase insulation, and I have the frost protection active on the BS3.
I'm not a plumber, so as I have said, this would not have been possible without all your help, thanks again,
Paul.
Manifolds with 30 out of 90 tubes in place, Thermal store and dodgy heat, temporary dump - I mean temporary dodgy heat dump:
