Adjustments to hand-made solar hot water systems

This is a "videmail" communication from Solar Cities founder T.H. Culhane in Germany to field coordinators Hana Fathy of the Christian Zabaleen community and Mahmoud Dardir of the Moslem Darb El Ahmar community answering questions on how to adjust the panel angle and the cold water pipe in the hot water barrel to make the do-it-yourself solar hot water systems we build there function properly. To transcend cultural and language barriers, as well as time and space, we use Google Sketchup, Google Earth and other freeware to better transmit ideas and information.

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[tculhane]

Hi swahili77, thanks for the comment!  We futzed around with the connection from the cold tank to the hot tank for some months. What is not shown in the sketchup model, but is critical, and was the deciding factor is that the cold water pipe connects to the hot water tank through a FLOAT VALVE (kind of like what you have in your toilet, only side mounted) so it has to go into the top of the hot water tank.

[tculhane]

Then, after the valve, we have an elbow and a pipe (polypropylene) going down to the bottom of the INSIDE of the hot water tank. We find it works just fine, with limited heat loss (otherwise you could insulate the internal pipe.) I've posted pictures of the system here:

solarcitiesDOTblogspotDOTcomSL­ASH2008SLASH03SLASHsolar-citie­s-in-darb-al-ahmar-resultsDOTH T M L

Sorry I can't just paste in the address! Hope the pictures help explain. Or just search for "Zahran" in my solarcities blog

[SolarXpert]

Nice solar panels. Just got my 3x6 solar cells and all my solar accessories from solar-deals(.)com. They have a huge sale! 4 days only. DIY solar panel kit $99. PV frames $39. Solar panels $129. Make your own solar panels and find all your diy solar products at solar-deals(.)com.

[CTOL1]

Thank you for this!

Any further developments?

[swahili77]

Nice use of sketchup!

Clear, with the exception of the pipe coming from the cold tank. Is that pipe running INSIDE the hot tank, or just important to connect near the bottom of the hot tank?