solar tubes etc

[geoff]

Someone I know is determined to DIY himself a solar heating system and was asking where best to get the bits

Someone posted a useful website a while back, can someone post the URL please ?

[andrew]

Though why they qualify for that org.uk,,,

AJH (sorry about the e-mail Geoff)

[geoff]

No problem - If I was concerned, I wouldn't use a real address

[dwtowner]

I don't know what the previous link was, but

parts for DIY. When I bought and installed a panel about a year ago, they were extremely helpful, gave me lots of advice (before buying, and afterwards when I was installing), and have competitive prices.The kit is all good quality branded stuff (e.g., Resol), unlike some of the other DIY solar people who sell own-brand/unbranded kit.

dan.

[David Hansen]

On Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:33:05 -0700 (PDT) someone who may be [e-mail] wrote this:-

Good quality and a well known brand name don't always go together. It is sometimes quite the reverse. However, thanks for the link, it looks most interesting and I have bookmarked it.

[geoff]

cheers, I'll pass that one on too

[Peter Parry]

I was recently looking at two solar collector tubes which seemed to be so identical it was difficult to believe they came from different companies. One was unmarked but sold as a Chinese Import. The other was marked with a manufacturers name and "Made in Germany". It was of course well over twice the price of the first.

Talking to one of the buyers it turns out that the "German" kit was indeed the same Chinese import as the first and from the same factory. The glories of the EU allow the German company to import the Chinese collectors, "work" on them (attaching a 5mm ring of sticky tape and a "made in Germany" label) and resell them as "made in Germany".

[Dave Liquorice]

I suspect that happens far more often than most people think. Food certainly. Where would an average man on the street think the meat in "Wiltshire Cured Ham" marked "Produced in the UK" would come from? Wiltshire? Somewhere else in the UK? Somewhere else in the world?

The answer is any of those places, the "Produced in the UK" only refers to the process of producing the ham from pig meat, it has bearing on where that pig meat came from.

[Peter Parry]

Like the Spanish Olive Oil shipped to Italy so it can be bottled there and hence sold as "Italian Olive Oil" which commands a higher price?

[Andy Dingley]

I suspect most of it comes from Denmark. Our labelling rules allow Danish pig carcasses to be imported, then processed into finished meats in the UK and labelled as "UK product".

Solar tubes are almost all Chinese, although there's a market for flat panels from Germany, if you particularly want flat panels so as to catch the briefest of sunny intervals. China kept developing solar over the last 20 years when Europe pretty much gave up on it - they have a good product for it.

One of the few notable exceptions to this are Thermomax tubes from Northern Ireland, which are a high quality and sophisticated product. They also have a useful feature in that they'll avoid damaging overheating, even if they lose the water circuit. The downside of Thermomax is their high cost, and that Thermomax are unhelpful to deal with, especially if you have the temerity to suggest that you're considering another maker's tubes in comparison.

[Theo Markettos]

Or indeed olive oil 'Produced in UK'. Or maybe I did see some olive groves just north of the Dartford Tunnel...

Theo