Heating Help

« Back

solarbeam

Joined on March 19, 2011

Last Post on October 11, 2011

Contact User

confused

@ October 11, 2011 8:33 PM in SOLAR HOT WATER INJECTION LOCATION?

If you have 180F solar heated water available, and your boiler is set to 150F, why not inject any solar heated water in excess of 150F into the boiler returns? I was only asking is it better to inject in the returns or supply?

SOLAR HOT WATER INJECTION LOCATION?

@ October 5, 2011 6:23 AM in SOLAR HOT WATER INJECTION LOCATION?

My solar collector can collect an an average of 150,000 to 200,000 btus a day,with 160F- 180F water. This hot water is stored in a 360 gallon tank. What is the best location to inject this hot water into my oil fired boiler, which has a 80 gallon storage tank of its own? I was going to inject the hot water into the boiler system return manifold, and was wondering where the return to the solar tank should come from? I am installing a circulator pump to move this water, and an aquastat to only allow solar injection above a set temperature.

New Solar Thermal Design Help

@ April 23, 2011 7:24 AM in New Solar Tthermal Design Help

I live in Massachusetts. I am installing a one new style parabolic solar concentrator (www.solarbeam.us) to supply domestic hot water, space heating, and pool heating for my home. The concentrator puts outs out 13kw an hour of thermal hot water in full sun.

My concept is to send the primary heat to a 120 gallon stainless steel solar storage tank for domestic hot water, this tank with an internal heat exhanger. In the winter, once this first tank is satisfied, then send additional hot water to two 120 gallon storage tanks that will somehow supplement my current oil fire boiler for winter space heating, I have radiant baseboard heat now. In the summer, I will also purchase a pool titanium heat exchanger for the 28,000 gallon pool, and direct pool heating after the DHW is satisfied.

Questions:
1. What are better. Internal or external heat exchangers.
2. Tell me about the conduit for piping from outside collector underground to home. I see the double 1" stainless steel tubing with insulation and a wire. Should I put this in a 4" PVC conduit for added insulation, the run is 125 feet. I was told to stay away from PEX.
3. What size and style pool exchanger is recommended.
4. I was planning on two 120 gallon additional solar storage tanks for my space heating needs. I was told multible tanks are better than one big one, as it becomes to hard to heat one large tank?
5. Are stainless steel storage tanks worth the extra money?

Thanks

please copy your reply to 2000@vineyard.net

Solar Collector

@ March 22, 2011 2:29 PM in HELP A NEWBIE GET IT RIGHT - DHW AND SPACE HEAT

I did check our the Solarbeam, and spoke with some users. In fact, one user in Wisconsin said last week he was getting more KW hot water than what the company (solarbeam.us) claimed. I just want the most powerful collector available, as I only want to do this once, and not wish I got the stronger collector later....

I also think they look very cool. They will have their SRCC rating in 5-10 days, I was told.

Back to design.

So how does one determine the proper size storage tank(s) and number of tanks for solar DHW and Space Heating? Is there a program you experts use? This seems to be very important, as if the tank is to small you waste the extra solar thermals, and if the tank is to large, you can never get the tank water up to the desired temperature?

I was going to change over my current standard baseboard to the low temp baseboard that is called "Heating Edge", which will put out the same BTU's per foot at 90 degrees, as the standard baseboard at 180 degrees. It simply uses a double copper line and added fins.

Thanks everyone....

I am currently trying to design my first domestic HW and space heating solar system for my 3500 sq ft home. I found a collector that is very powerful, average of 35,000 btu's per hour in full sun (solarbeam.us).

The biggest question I have is what size storage tank. I am looking at an unpressurized tank of about 550 gallons, with 3 heat exchangers, one for solar collector, one for HW, and one for radiant baseboard.

Currently my home uses a 160K btu oil fired boiler with a tankless hot water exchanger built in. The house avaerages about 800 gallons of oil used per year, HW and Heat.

A tank company gave me this 550 gallon tank storage size, but do designers sometimes first send the solar closed loop hot water to a smaller tank just for domestic water, and then send any extra hot water to the bigger storage tank for space heating and backup?

I also just read about variable speed circulators.

Looking for advice.