November 2009

[Paulh_Boats]

Paul,

What temperature settings are you using (on/off)?

Same all year 5.5 on / 3.0 off

I've never found a steady-state difference of more than 1C along the pipes, so 3C off is ok. Also I'm sure we are frugal users of hot water (some days no shower or washing machine or dishwasher used).

The kids complain about the low flow shower, but the quote I heard on Radio 4 "Don't upset an environmental disciple" sums up my reaction.   
Should I be telling them "I told you so" if I'm still around in 2050? 

cheers
Paul

[desperate]

Desperate,

My secret is a large panel, small tank, short 10mm pipes and retro-coil that heats a small amount of water top-down. You either have a large volume of warm water or a small volume of hot water.

I'm convinced the ideal solution is retro coil in winter and bottom coil in summer.

-Paul

Paul
I run 60 tube into 216l so even higher tube to water ratio than yours , mind you my pipe run is about 8m each way of 12 mm and some bits of 22 and 15 to parallel up the panels, we definitely have a large vol of cooler water to play with, which in my mind maximises the energy harvest at the expense of usable temps. I have a spare boss in the top of the tank...... I can feel a sperryment coming on.

Desperate

[dhaslam]

A bad month, average 3.5 kwh per day.  Pre-heating the bottom of the tank  is probably the best use of the energy.  It is remarkable that on days when it hardly stopped raining there was still 1kwh showing.

A lot of the flooding may have been caused by the ESB trying to uses as much of the  flow as possible for hydro electricity.    At each stage of releasing flood waters it moved the floods farther down river.      The bridge at Portumna below was almost engulfed.      A change of wind direction might have brought the water level up to the bridge which would be unlikely to hold.    The next bridge to the north is still closed.   


   

[StBarnabas]

DH
yes my brother said things were bad on the Shannon. I am over in Dublin midweek and hope to pick the brains of Dr Eon O'Mongain re irradiance measurement - he is one of the world experts on the subject. Mixed month the good days have been low to mid 30ies but I have a 230L tank heated from the bottom. Bad days almost nothing.#Sean#

 

[langstroth2]

100% = Cylinder reached an average of at least 45C (i.e the top could be at 52C and the bottom at 44C) by 6pm, and therefore no gas boiler input was needed.
0% = no solar input or/and the HW was heated by boiler during the day.

(From ~early Oct figures a little biased as the boiler automatically always heats the HW after 6pm, so there some residual heat left in the cylinder the following day. April - Sep boiler generally off).

Summary for 2009.
KwH per day calculated based on energy input required to heat 140L of water from morning start to evening end average cylinder temp.
(40 tubes)

[rt29781]

Solar output from SW France.  The graph shows our PV output.  Our solar thermal output ir roughly 3 times the PV output.  November very cloudy so not good but normal for this time of year.

[rob26440]

Late entry for Nov..... Not been a bad month for sun considering the amount of rain in E. Berks.  Had some reasonable volumes of hot water.  (Apologies for the fuzzy pic.  Original is fine - don't know why it looks so bad when posted.  Using the magnifier makes it clearer.  Any suggestions to remove the fuzziness gratefully received.  Should it be a "dot something else" other than .gif?)