Heating Help

Fortunate

@ May 6, 2011 8:57 AM in Broken evac tube.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head as far as copper in the water, I remember Kevin saying in an earlier post that when he drilled a hole in the pipe, he found water and some copper particles. Maybe that's their formula.
RT

Kevin in Denver

@ May 5, 2011 4:13 PM in Broken evac tube.

I E-Mailed my contact @ SUNRAIN in China and I asked him if he could tell me what they use for the liquid in their heat pipes. I really didn't believe that he would tell me but he did reply in two different E-Mails. Please excuse his broken english but in the first E-Mail, he said this:
I am sorry for can not tell you what fill in the heat pipe, it is our company technical secret. we test the whole heat pipe in -13F and the heat pipe is no problem. So I hope you do not worried for it any more.

In the next E-Mail he said this:

I have contact with our technician, the liquid in heat pipe is special liquid, though it froze in 30F, but the structure for the solid without destroy for the heat pipe, the solid is different with common ice. so please do not worried on it.
 
I think he's trying to say that the composition of the liquid, even though it freezes @ 30 F, it doesn't expand like regular ice. Is that what you get out of it Kevin or is he saying something else?
RT

Kevin

@ May 4, 2011 7:01 PM in Broken evac tube.

Interesting. I wonder what the new formula contains!!!!!!
RT

New Heat Pipes. Up and running again!!!!!!

@ May 4, 2011 1:32 PM in Broken evac tube.

I got 50 brand new heat pipes from SUNRAIN out of China the other day. There is a little difference in the way the heat pipes are manufactured compared to the old heat pipes. The bottom end more or less comes to a point instead of the end being crimped to hold the fluid in. Maybe this was where their issues came from. I installed the new heat pipes and what a difference that made. In one day of heating, my 80 gallon storage tank went from about 100 F to 157 F. They sent me enough to replace all the heat pipes but I only replaced the ones which failed so far. I'll just check on them every so often to see if anymore fail. I checked on sending the old pipes back to them. If I went with FEDEX, it was going to cost about $180.00. So I E-Mailed SUNRAIN and said it was not going to happen and if they wanted these pipes bad enough, they would have to pay the shipping. They replied back and  said to simply keep the bad pipes. I'll sell them to the junk man for the copper.
RT 

Pook

@ April 23, 2011 9:27 PM in Broken evac tube.

It's not just a matter of changing the pipe. It's a piece of copper tubing a little smaller than 1/4". At the top is a condensing bulb which fits snugly into a socket in the main header at the top of the collector and it's plated with NI. It's around i inch diameter. There is a small amount of liquid inside the pipe and it has some type (supposedly antifreeze) which keeps it from freezing. Also there is a slight vacuum in the pipe. This allows the liquid to boil at a much lower temperature. I'm told it boils at 86 degrees F.
RT

Kevin

@ April 23, 2011 9:20 PM in Broken evac tube.

All they said was that 2 years ago, they changed the formula for the liquid which would allow it to be used in colder climates. I've got the feeling that there was anything in the fluid to keep it from freezing. They shipped the replacement heat pipes yesterday and asked me to ship the bad ones back to them so they could analize them.
RT

Thanks Kevin,

@ April 22, 2011 7:21 PM in Broken evac tube.

I removed all the pipes today that were just a liitle warmer than the others and everyone of them the heat pipes were split from freezing. I like your idea about trying to remove the grommet first with a pair of needle nose pliers. I'll try that the next time. I received an E-Mail from SUNRAIN in China today and they said they would be shipping out 50 new heat pipes hopefully today.

by-pass

@ April 21, 2011 12:58 PM in Simple question

Seeing that pretty much all my hot water is now being heated by solar, what I did was install a by-pass so the hot water doesn't go thru the gas heater. If we get 3 or 4 days of cloudy weather, I merely have to swap a couple of ball valves putting the heater back in line. Any idea what kind of temperature this ECO switch will take before it possibly fails?

RT

Anyone have an idea?

@ April 19, 2011 11:54 AM in Broken evac tube.

What do most installers use to lubricate the glass tube (if anything at all) where it passes through the rubber grommet at the top of the manifold in order to make it easier to remove a glass  tube later on? I used liquid detergent and I've found that it worked great in the installation but after it dries out, it acts like a brake ban. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.
RT

Kevin,

@ April 16, 2011 10:01 AM in Broken evac tube.

Was that heat pipe manufactured by SUNRAIN out of China?  If you got it from SUNMAX/SILICON Solar here in the us then the chances are it was made by SUNRAIN.
I learnt a valuable lesson. When I installed my tubes back 3 years ago, in order to help sliding it into the rubber grommet at the top, I lubricated the rubber with liquid dish detergent. It worked great for the install. I now found out that that was the wrong thing to do. Over time, the liquid dries out and now it acks like a brake band making it very dificult to remove the tube. I had to spray penetrating oil around the rubber grommet . That help a little but not much because it wouldn't flow uphill. What do you pros use if anything at all to help with the installation and would help during removal later on? I thought about using a high temp grease like you would use in automobile wheel bearings. I don't believe it would have any effect on the rubber because wheel bearings also have a grease seal  and it's has rubber.

To Kevin in Denver

@ April 15, 2011 3:52 PM in Broken evac tube.

I purchased the collectors in June of 08 and got up it up and running around September of 08. So it's less than 3 years old. I'm hoping that they fixed the problem with heat pipes 2 years ago. Maybe that was an  issue back then and that forced them to make changes. I get the feeling that they've been aware of this problem for some time now because he didn't seen hesitant to replace most of my heat pipes. You're right about the expansion. .002" is nothing. Thanks for your input and suggestions.
RT

Things are looking up!!!!

@ April 15, 2011 9:42 AM in Broken evac tube.

I had been communicating directly with SUNRAIN in China via E-Mail when I  first found the problem back in January.  At that time, they said they would send me a new heat pipe but the cost for the pipe plus shipping was out of this world so I ended up going to SUNMAX/SILICON Solar.
I continued my conversation with SUNRAIN via E-Mail last night and they replied this morning.  They started out by saying that it was not unusual to have to change out all the heat pipes every 3 to 5 years the way they were designed back then. I'l bet you dealers weren't aware of that!!! Now, they're saying that 2 years ago, they upgraded their heat pipes with a different antifreeze solution which would lower the freezing point and hopefully  they should last longer. He said that they should be good for -25 to -35 degrees Celcius. I conducted a test on one of my new heat pipes las night. I coiled it up as small as I could without kinking it and put it in my freezer making sure all the liquid was at the bottom. I just took it out and measured the OD at the bottom and there was no swelling/expansion at all.
 Now the good thing. SUNRAIN said they would replace my damaged heat pipes at no cost to me. I sent them my address so now we'll see if they follow through with it. Things are looking up.
I fell bad for anyone who had a system installed more than two years ago and they live in a very cold climate in the winter. They may be surprised if they inspected their heat pipes.
RT

To Kevin in Denver and Fortunate

@ April 14, 2011 7:18 PM in Broken evac tube.

First I want to thank both of you for some good information. Now for the bad news. I went outside today and pulled 2 of my tubes that was just a trace warmer than some of the others. Guess what, both had heat pipes which were split at the bottom. I counted all the one's that were  a little warm and I've got a total of 24 out of 50 that are bad. Not good. I called the person I purchased the units from and he knew that something was wrong with his system because over this winter, he was only getting about 40%  of hot water from what he use to get. He went out and counted his which were warm. Out of 175 tubes, he has 130 which appear to be bad. He is no longer in business now because SUNMAX or SILICON Solar took over the entire distributorship in the US for SUNRAIN which is out of CHINA. He sold me (2)   25 tube collectors. He also sold another 41 to other people in this area. Now we don't know what to do. He's going to call SUNMAX tomorrow and see if they can do anything for us and also to let them know that they have a very serious problem. I wouldn't buy any collectors from SUNMAX or SILICON Solar until this issue get's resolved. Sunrain advertises on their Website that their units are compatible in cold climates. WRONG!!!!! Anyone have any ideas how we can handle this?
RT

To Kevin in Denver

@ April 10, 2011 8:01 PM in Broken evac tube.

Kevin,
If I get a chance one day this week, I'll pull a couple of the tubes and check out the heat pipes. I'll let you know what I find. Thanks for your input
RT

To Kevin in Denver

@ April 9, 2011 12:38 PM in Broken evac tube.

Kevin,
I changed out my broken evac tube yesterday with a new tube and a new heat pipe. While I was up on the roof, I checked a few of the tubes to see if any were warm loike you recommended. About half of them was just a touch warm as compared to the other half. Maybe a couple of degrees that all. They haven't changed color so I know they haven't lost their vacumm. If a heat pipe lost it's vacumm, how would that make the glass get a little warmer than all the other tubes?
RT

t

@ April 9, 2011 12:36 PM in Broken evac tube.

rotating

@ March 3, 2011 7:35 AM in covering a evac tube system

Thanks for your reply Mark. I can't rotate mine. The evac tube glass is clear the full 360 degrees. Turning them wouldn't do anything. Thanks anyway.
rt

cover

@ March 2, 2011 7:48 PM in covering a evac tube system

I already have a battery backup. I tied the pump into my battery backupo for my pellet stove. It has two deep cycle batteries.

rene

TO ABSolar

@ March 2, 2011 7:42 PM in Broken evac tube.

You are right. The tube is suppose to change color when the vacuum is gone. I talked to the guy I purchased the system from tonight and he said the SUNRAIN SOLAR out of china told him that there is a small amount of alcohol in the fluid. This not only keeps the water from freezing, it also lowers the boiling point of the fluid. Silicon Solar also told me that they buy there systems fron SUNRAIN. It may have been just a manufactures defect in the heat tube when it was extruded which may have caused it to split. Like someone said earlier, the alcohol may have evapoprated from the water then the water may have froze causing the split. Who knows!!!. I received 3 new heat pipes fron Silicon Solar today. Now I'm just waiting for the snow to melt off my roof so I can get up there and install the new evac tube and the new heat pipe. There's about 18 inches of snow up there. Spring is coming but not fast enough for me.

Rene

heat pipe

@ February 27, 2011 4:33 PM in Broken evac tube.

I understand that the fluid boils at 86 degrees went it's in a vacuum.

RT

evac tube

@ February 25, 2011 9:40 PM in Broken evac tube.

Thanks Kevin.
 I thought all this time there was something in the water to keep it from freezing. I hope it's not just water. It gets awfully cold at times up here in New hampshire. I did contact Silicon Solar and ordered 3 heat pipes. They're real cheap.
 I just may try your expirement and I will try to see if there are any other tubes which aren't working using your idea. I also thought that it the glass tube lost it's vacuum, the pipe would not stay clear.
rt

cover

@ February 21, 2011 10:36 AM in covering a evac tube system

Thanks Hot Rod,
I kinda like the idea of some sort of cover. I don't like the idea of removing 50 evac tubes with heat pipes off a  extension ladder. 30 years ago I would have done it without even thinking about. I'm not getting any younger. 62 now.
You talk about heat load during winter months. I'm concerned about loosing power for a few days which would not be uncommon for us in New Hampshire and the fluid just boiling away through the high point vent at the collector.