Siting of panels for solar water heating

Peter Parry wrote:

On 18 Nov 2006 02:39:29 -0800, meow2222@care2.com wrote:
6 Legalise car engine conversion for greater mpg. The simplest way to do this is to close off one or more cylinders by removing rocker arms. Saves people money
A friend of mine once had a large old Cadillac which did this. It was as I recall a straight 8 6 litre engine which had the option of selection "ecomode" from the dashboard by switching to 4 or 6 cylinders which activated valve depressors. (
In true American car fashion the car had the handling of a barge and a shiny front bench seat, so a seat belt was necessary not for crash protection but to hold the driver in place when cornering. As America doesn't have roundabouts I don't think the designer considered corners to be important.
When using the ecomode with 4 valves selected the car would gradually slow down if being driven on level roads so you had to adopt a coast/burn technique. On gentle hills it would eventually come to a stop if 6 cylinder mode was selected. There was no discernable difference in fuel consumption between any of the modes but the vibration in anything other than 8 cylinder mode made driving it a different experience.

Heh, it didnt sound too healthy. I've driven such an engine, and it was fine on less cylinders, though certainly not as smooth.
NT

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes
But of more significant is new build, where any type of panel can be integrated into the roof, and replace some of the roofing cover material.
Evacuated tubes ??

I meant flat panels, whether for hot water, space heating or even pv. I'd say space heating is much more the way to go than hw.

It is important to work on these problems without getting too concerned about the pace things are moving, the majority of people simply do not have the money to do much of anything, and if it costs money to save money, they don't have the money unless they are in a position to borrow the money.
Yes, thats a common problem. Reality is there are very cheap ways to do things when needed. At one house I saw cardboard cavities on solid walls, that can be done for peanuts. Borax fire retardant �1, knife �1, wallpaper glue �1.
Yes - but I'm not sure that such insulation will last too long ?

Many decades, though probably not a century. I've unearthed card boxes from the 1940s before and they were still strong enough to not have collapsed in such a situation. Including some bicarb in the fire retardant neutralises free acid and makes them last longer.

Plastic film secondary glazing is fairly cheap, though reuse of old glass is a much better bet.
But needs some sort of frame making.

No, frames just look nicer. Basic plastic framing glass is also very simple and cheap.
NT

In message , John Beardmore writes

In message , Joe Fischer joe@westpointracing.com> writes On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 raden wrote:
if the A-380 is ever used by airlines, fuel use all over the world will go up.

I certainly didn't

Fuel per passenger will come down.
Are you sure this isn't just a weak attempt at a protectionist argument ?

-- geoff

In message , John Beardmore writes

In message , raden <raden@kateda.org writes ...
with energy consumption
... which needs a cunning plan, not people turning off their TVs and disconnecting phone power supplies
I must admit - I can't get excited about phone power supplies, but TVs on standby are another matter if they are dissipating 10 watts or more.
And then you go out nd see all the office blocks and shops with their

lights on all night, the road lighting etc ...
-- geoff

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes Joe Fischer wrote:
Kit mounted atop single storey flat roofs has significant advantages.
Hmmm... Flat roofs are notorious for their leaks. As an installer they make me nervous as it's much harder to satisfy your self that the roof is intact before work starts and after you've finished. You neither want to do damage, or be a scapegoat !

Yes, it is poss though to mount panels on the wall without climbing onto the roof itself, and use a white roof surface to add reflection. Access costs go right down this way. Many diyers dont mind doing this, but would say no to climbing onto the tile/slate roof 2 or 3 floors up.

FWIW its quite possible to use a controller that detects leaks and shuts off one section of a parallelled system. This would improve reliability, reduce ongoing costs, and extend system lifetimes. But this is only going to be cost effective when the equipment reaches mass production.
Probably better to make kit that won't leak in the first place ?

There is no such thing as kit that can never leak. And youre making an assumption there, sometimes it is better to use cheaper materials and work around their shortcomings. 3rdly payback depends on system lifetime. And 4thly, hot air panels avoid all these problems in the first place.

Its not too hard to retroinsulate old houses.
Depends how far you want to go. It's certainly not as good as making them better in the first place.

2 different things, both of which need to be done.
NT

On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:44:52 +0000, John Beardmore wrote:

One development in the UK is state intervention in the market to accredit installers and equipment.

A great pity the accreditation didn't involve actual testing of devices to prove they worked and that their performance was at least close to the sellers invariably vastly overstated claims.
Neither of the only two "accredited" toy windmills in the UK has had to pass any performance test at all and the makers hopelessly over inflated performance claims for them now come appear to come with government approval (which of course may well be a poisoned chalice in its own right).
-- Peter Parry. http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/

On 19 Nov 2006 01:36:41 -0800, meow2222@care2.com wrote:

Joe Fischer wrote: On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 raden wrote: In message x Joe Fischer joe@westpointracing.com> writes And I am not convinced there is a problem,
There we are, that's the problem
Septics who (in the face of overwhelming evidence) aren't convinced there's a problem
I hope there is a problem with your spelling ability.
But if the problem is global warming due to something man is doing, then the thing to do is get the news media to give the current world average or mean temperature on the news and weather every day so everybody is aware of the increase in real time. Joe Fischer
How that has much to do with the solution I dont know. But one thing's for sure, its always someone elses fault. NT

The solution really needs to focus on renewable energy, and that should help with any global warming problem, if there is one.
But there is likely to be no solution to rising sea level, even without undersea volcanos or mountain building, sediment runoff from the worlds rivers will eventually cause sea level to rise, it is inevitable. In the immediate future, global warming is not the scary thing, volcanic activity on the continent of Antarctica should be the most feared thing by property owners in low lying coastal areas.
And second, maybe volcanic activity in Greenland.
Joe Fischer

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes

raden wrote: In message , SJC writes
Solar thermal panels for space heating is one of the ways we can save lots of fossil fuels in the future.
Sorry, this is UK.d-i-y, not alt.bad jokes
as practical, as they say, as a chocolate teapot
where are you going to get meaningful heat from at 7am ?
from the gas CH system. Why do you think a solar system would have to output heat 24 hrs a day to save fuel?
I see 7am or thereabouts, as the time when you really need heating to be

working - bringing the house up to a liveable temperature for the day
-- geoff

On 19 Nov 2006 01:43:53 -0800, meow2222@care2.com wrote:

Anthony Matonak wrote: What you might view as advancement in regulations others might view as over-regulation. You may view our (USA) regulations as behind the times while others may view it as offering more freedom and a less intrusive, even totalitarian, government.
I had heard, though its not my area of knowledge, that US codes dictated certain ways buildings could be built, and nowt else was permitted.

I am not aware of any "US" code, the federal government must leave certain things native to individual states up to those states and local government, according to the constitution.
There is a national electrical code, and a number of things the federal government is involved in, but local codes control buildings, and local (city, usually) government issues the building permits.

In the UK otoh, no building method is stipulated, one only has to meet an excessive amount of performance regulations, and with the more esoteric building types, prove one has met them.

Outside city limits in the US, people are often free to build anything, but the power companies may not turn power on in new construction without an inspection.

Roofs and flammability are a real issue here, with a lot of house fires and terraces being very popular. If we had cedar roofs there would be many more deaths - we learnt that the hard way in 1666.

My, you have a long memory. :-)
Cedar "shakes" are popular in the southwest US, but fire insurance is extra.

The US has several times the land per person, making this much less of an issue there I would expect. NT

In row houses, there is a problem, and I guess it is row houses or buildings built to the lot line and in contact or close enough for fire to jump is likely the reason for the problems in 1666.
Most local governments here require a certain distance between houses, and inspection and performance, so that there is not a lot of buildings unfinished.
At the moment, a number of places are in turmoil, with some organization like a league of cities exerting influence and pressure to get some standardization in not only construction, but also maintenance and appearance, with nuisance ordinances as leverage.
Connecting buildings can save energy, but a good designer will put a fire wall all the way up from the ground to well above the roof.
Joe Fischer

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes John Beardmore wrote: In message , SJC writes
Solar thermal panels for space heating is one of the ways we can save lots of fossil fuels in the future.
I really doubt it !
Whys that?
Because I strongly suspect that there will be cheaper ways to achieve the same thing,

I'm all ears as to what those are. I've not yet found anything cheaper or with better payback than solar flat plate speace heating. (with one possible exception that I dont like)

because the UK doesn't have that many cold but bright days,

No need, we have enough insolation to make it work and pay its way. Space heating performs significantly differently to the more well known dhw because the output temp is much lower, and much more efficient mesh absorber panels can be used.

because the sun doesn't shine when we need space heating,

the sun shines every day, and there is a simple way to use it to provide evening heat.

because passive solar design is more cost effective.

Unfortunately that one is too vague to know what you mean

http://www.builditsolar.com/ & http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm
Yes - and there has been some good work done at one of the Glasgow universities, and there is a Nu Aire system on sale in the UK that we have looked at installing for somebody, and the Carbon Trust have waxed a bit lyrical in some of their training about merging all sorts of streams of low grade heat to heat space, but all of these things seem to require a lot of capital cost and super insulated buildings to be viable,

maybe, but none of that is applicable to the solar space heating I'm referring to.

and they also require buildings to use, in some cases, whole walls as solar collectors which again rather begs the question, would passive solar be cheaper ?

would what passive solar design be cheaper than what? Cheaper to install, run, or what?

It also raises planning issues, which knowing the UK, may take decades to resolve.

Perhaps in some circumstances, but not across the board.
NT

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes
A decently designed solar space heating system would not be using water in the first place. Picking hydronic for space heating is pretty much a design death blow.
Secondly, an entirely different method would be used to maintain temp after dark.
I suspect the notion was that the water would be a heat store.

Thats a dead duck way to design solar space heating, so no.

There is a comfort zone, not just one fixed temp at which people are cosy. Heat to as high in that zone as solar power provides, and you have n hours after sundown of sufficient warmth. N depends on design details.
If you go down the high thermal capacity route.

Brick/block houses typically have enough, and we've got lots of those here.
NT

Joe Fischer wrote:

On 18 Nov 2006 02:47:08 -0800, meow2222@care2.com wrote:
Triplewall construction only gives a 2nd cavity, and this can be achieved at far lower cost in other ways.
I was thinking of getting more mass inside the insulation, masonry only has a specific heat about half that of water, but 100,000 pounds of concrete inside the insulation would mean that 50,000 BTU would have to be lost for the temperature to drop one degree.

Right. Is that much needed though?
NT

On Sun, Peter Parry wrote:

On 18 Nov 2006 02:39:29 -0800, meow2222@care2.com wrote: 6 Legalise car engine conversion for greater mpg. The simplest way to do this is to close off one or more cylinders by removing rocker arms. Saves people money
A friend of mine once had a large old Cadillac which did this. It was as I recall a straight 8 6 litre engine which had the option of selection "ecomode" from the dashboard by switching to 4 or 6 cylinders which activated valve depressors. (

That was only in 1981, and I sent GM a copy of my patent application for running an ICE on a fraction of it's displacement in 1979, only my application used direct cylinder or port fuel injection to accomplish it. I don't know if GM had the valve 4-6-8 design before 1979, or if they just worked around my fuel injection system. I abandoned the application because there were already 6 Japanese electronic fuel injection patents that did the same thing, even though mine was mechanical.
But now I think GM has brought the fractional displacement back, they must have come up with better computer controlled valves.

In true American car fashion the car had the handling of a barge and a shiny front bench seat, so a seat belt was necessary not for crash protection but to hold the driver in place when cornering. As America doesn't have roundabouts I don't think the designer considered corners to be important.

What do you mean we don't have roundabouts, of course we do, Shaker Heights, Ohio has one in the square.

When using the ecomode with 4 valves selected the car would gradually slow down if being driven on level roads so you had to adopt a coast/burn technique. On gentle hills it would eventually come to a stop if 6 cylinder mode was selected. There was no discernable difference in fuel consumption between any of the modes but the vibration in anything other than 8 cylinder mode made driving it a different experience.

At the right speed, running on fractional displacement should give better fuel consumption, and they would not have brought it back this year unless tests show that. But it is a futile attempt to delay the complete switch to hybrid electric. I don't know if Ford or GM own any electric motor plants, but if not, it is time they bought some.
Joe Fischer

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes John Beardmore wrote:
I suppose thats true of professional installs on rooftops, I'm thinking more of diy installs, where the cost for a decent area of tubes is way above that of flat panels,
But that's my whole point. At least in the UK, the prices are now pretty similar.

Youre talking navitron? When I last looked their cost per sqm was an order of magnitude above flat panels.

Flat panels can give much better performance at ground level or on a flat roof, as 1 or 2 reflectors are easily added to give anything from 1-2 suns.
Not sure why the same can't be true of ET systems ?

Tubes are concentrating collectors, so shining extra sun/sky light at them from an angle 90 deg off direct sun just wont have a big effect.

Equipment on a flat roof ditto, mounting the panel either at an angle from roof to wall or else flat on the wall, reflector below.
I guess the bug bear with that is getting end users to keep the reflectors clean, especially if they are flat.

Why would you need users to clean panels mounted flat against the wall but not ones on a rooftop?
NT

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , cynic writes
I was dubious about the effectiveness of having the panel vertical so I have used 4 "L" brackets to mount it to the wall. If I find it lacks performance when the spring comes round I can simply extend the bottom brackets with mild steel bar.
You should certainly be able to boost it some.

With vac tubes it makes no difference whether theyr flat to the wall or not, as long as the tubes run horizontally. One simply rotates the tube to face the incoming sun angle, and each tube sees exactly the same regardless of panel mounting position. This holds true so long as the panel mounting angle isnt so far off that tubes start to shade each other.
NT