October 2007 temperatures

[Paulh_Boats]

30x48mm tubes facing south east, 120L tank, short 10mm pipework.

Thursday 4th Oct, 100% sunshine
Cylinder top
8am 37C          7pm 65C            

Friday 5th Oct, 100% sunshine
Cylinder top
8am 52C      1:45pm 78C

Panel
8am 6C        1:45pm 93C !


Quite amazing results for 1st week of October.

-Paul

[jason]

 Hi
just swiched the boiler off again  hope we can squeeze another week of sun shine  cylinder 70oC, panel 76oC @14:30
solar kettle 44oC@ 12:00 good pre heat for a round of wets refiled and buy 14:00 66oC
solar pv maitaining 50v all day and the windmill has just started turning can things get much better

jason

[niles]

Blimey.  I only have 20, they're SE facing, and there's a bit of tree shading in late afternoon - and I'm getting nowhere near that good a result.  TDC controller says it's had 125kwh of heat since 30 Sep, but on any given day, it's only raised the tank temp by 4 or 5 deg.

[Ivan]

If you keep your piperuns short and low dead-volume it will really help. Paul_Boats has used 10mm copper pipe, and has short piperuns. I am sure it really helps at this time of year.

If you haven't already upgraded, I'd strongly recommend doing the TDC3 update (see separate thread) - it will provide better cold-weather performance.

[Paulh_Boats]

30 tubes/120L

Wednesday 17th Oct

Cylinder top
8am 41C      1:30pm 65.4C

Cylinder middle
8am  ?         1:30pm 57.4C

Panel
8am 8C        1:30pm 72.4C


Note that the panel can generate over 70C ....  the boiler is programmed on for just 10 minutes at 7am with the tank thermostat set to low 40s. That is just enough for a low-flow shower or 40C wash cycle. However the solar panel can still add more heat during the day. Its quite likely that tomorrow morning the boiler will not switch on, if the tank is near 70C late afternoon.

This seems to be a successful hybrid for Autumn, where the boiler stops the water getting cold but the solar panel saves gas after a sunny day.

-Paul

[Paulh_Boats]

30 tubes/120L

Friday 19th Oct

Cylinder top
8am 54C      1:30pm 76C

Cylinder middle
8am  ?         1:30pm 67C

Panel
8am 5C        1:30pm 91C

Also PV panels were generating 49 Watts at one point, highest in the summer was 90 Watts.

Its still amazing that the solar panel generates so much heat, but we needed the central heating on for half an hour to take the chill off the house.

-Paul