Today's solar heated water in Leeds

 

There has been at least one person who's doubted that in cloudy England we
could get any useful hot water from a solar panel.

Well, we've had no sun at all today and it's not really all that warm. Even
I have put on jeans and sweat shirt instead of shorts and short sleeved
shirt.

Yesterday we had a Build-your-own-Pizza party for ten of us to celebrate the
first firing of the stone built bread oven. We started in the afternoon and
finished at about 11 pm, eating and drinking most of the time (not jus
pizzas). It was cool and raining part of the time but we'd erected a canvas
cover so stayed outdoors. There was a LOT of washing up which couldn't be
done in the dishwasher and we were too tired to do it last night.

So this morning I had a marathon washing up session and was quite surprised
that there was plenty of hot water to do the job, especially since last
night I'd put on the hot water supplied washing machine to launder the large
linen tablecloth which of course had wine spilt on it.

I've just noticed that the cylinder temperature now is 45C (113F) despite
having even no Yorkshire sun.

No doubt there will be those who won't believe this but tough, those are the
facts.

I hope gb10 reads this.

Mary

 

I've seen some hot air solar units and water units for that matter that
will heat water or air in the winter on a cloudy day. I think a lot of
people think solar electric when they think solar anything. What often
gets ignored is the depth of the cloud cover. Thinner cover means more
solar radiation reaching the ground. Just because we be seeing clouds
don't mean it ain't gonna get warm. Learned that in redneck school, I
did.

 

 

Mary Fisher wrote:

As a rtelative newcomer to the group , what type of collector/ system do
you have Mary..... Flat plate or tubes, home made or bought?
I'm down in Wales, just built a flat plate system and trying to get the
circulation rate down / temperature up. Its beginning to seem to me that
building a collector is one half of the job, optimising its output at
reasonable cost seems to be the other half.  I Know Leeds reasonably
well, my Mum lives up there, it gets cold in the winter.
Steve the grease

 



Would you describe your system in detail, and the problems you're having
in 'tuning' it? I'm planning to build a solar water heating system and
your experience would be a great help.

Thanks,

brian mitchell