Today Jan told me she was going to roast my nuts before salting them as that made them tastier! I think something was also mentioned about a Brazilian. I’m not sure about this latter comment as I didn’t have my hearing aids in. Anyway, I told her I was quite happy with the roasted almonds and walnuts. (ladies, minds above the waist please!)
The pool solar water heater has been finished. I discovered the solar controller wouldn’t work without a 12V lead acid battery being attached. That was a nuisance as I originally planned the controller would run the water pump without the need for a battery. In the end I solved the problem by buying a cheap tiny 1Ah battery. It won’t run the pump but it does trick the controller into working.
The second issue was filling the system with water. I wasn’t sure the little aquarium water pump could do it and hadn’t installed a filler point at the top of the panels. In the end I used the garden hose to force water up the outlet. Once primed the 12V pump started discharging hot water. Very HOT water! There was steam rising off it. This water gets added to the water being returned to the pool from the filter which means the temperature of the returning water is raised slightly. The pump is rather noisy so something will need to be done about that.
Then I realised I’d strayed from my original concept. You can see the problem in the following rough drawing.
The large blue box are the solar panels and the smaller box is the pump. Green lines are the cold from the pool filter to the bottom of the panels. Red is the hot line back from the panels to the pool. When the pump turns off the water will drain from the panels back through the pump. This means there is no hot water at the top of the panels to be detected by the Thermocouple switch which activates the pump.
I had originally anticipated this and intended to install the pipes as shown below
If I had done the installation as planned then the water in the panels couldn’t drain back through the pipe. Unfortunately there was a brain fade moment when I thought I could save the cost of one elbow without realising I was creating a problem.
One solution is to fit a one way valve into the cold line. However I’ll probably rearrange the pipes as shown in the second drawing.
But not today as it’s again over 40C.
3 comments :
Looking at the top diagram, would the system not self syphon as seen in some narrowboats with back boiler arrangement ?
If its a sealed system will it drain down?
Alf the system doesn't syphon :-(
It does drain down!
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