Solar Roof Holes?
Whilst they reslate my roof I'm having scaffold bars attached and flashed to attach some Navitron solar panels, But where to put holes for the water pipes? Should they both be lower than the panels so that I can drain them? Or one above it and one below it?
I will be studying the water system etcetera when the roofing's done, and the scaffold is down, but have just realised I must leave a hole for the water pipes!
advice please...
[g]
Sensible to get the roof work done at the same time.
Which sort of panel? Evacuated tube or flat plate?
The tube type have a manifold that runs along the top into which the heat tubes project, so I'd expect a pipe hole each end at the top. Flat panel I'd expect diagonal oposite corners.
The navitron site is normally preety good isn't the information there, you'll need panel sizes anyway to get rough posistions for the mount anyway.
I installed a Navitron tube collector a couple of weeks ago with a RESOL "flowcon" pump station on a sealed loop of about 9 litres capacity.
In my case I have clay tiles so the holes were simple to drill. Pipes go up a couple of inches (parallel to roof) then down. Within the loft I have tails on both flow and return that terminate in a vent cap at the apex. Used 15mm copper with 19mm thick Armaflex for the circuit (about 12 metres loop length).
With the pipes going up any air is forced into 15mm pipe and easily pumped around. No problem.
When I first commissioned I used water and literally blew most air out of the system when filling it. It was easy. After a couple of weeks to make sure there were no leaks I refilled with glycol and water and to be honest bleeding this has been a hassle, but nothing insurmountable so long as your pump has enough "jaffa".
Using the SFB30-47 panel I yielded about 7 kWh yesterday. V impressed.
david
On Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:32:22 +0000 someone who may be "george [dicegeorge]" wrote this:-
Assuming tubes rather than a flat panel, at each end of the manifold, as already stated.
If the pipes run down slightly then the panel will automatically drain when you are fiddling with it. Provided the slope is not too great then any air should be forced round to the air bottle you have provided inside the house. Be careful what you use for the vent on this, if the panel suffers stagnation this will get very hot and the bottle and pipes could be filled with steam, or water at over 100C. The water will be forced down the flow and return by the steam bubble, having a gentle slope away from the panel means no more water will flow into the panel to be turned into steam.
You can fit the manifold while the scaffolding is up. Don't fit the tubes until the water system and its controls have been tested and shown to work. Then put the tubes in as the last operation.
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