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Solar Water Heating With Black Poly


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#1 mattt

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 03:37 PM

I guess kind of an experiment / semi DIY to see what heat transfer i get from around 90m of 25mm black poly i had laying around.

Pumping into my current outdoor pool... which is 6,500L i dont really think i am going to make much impact... but we will see.



Due to the length i found it easiest to just lay the entire hose out... prettymuch around the house. and then start to coil it up. I went as tight as possible before it kinked.
You will want atleast two people to give you a hand for either keeping the coils snug and tight / pulling more hose etc. Aswell as grabbing various sections of pipe and holding them so you can tape them together.

Not really until the end of the coil we came up with a reasonable way to bind them together... If you try and tape from the inner coil to the outer, it will just buckle unless you brace it.. i couldnt be bothered doing that. I found that by binding 3 - 4 together in say 1/4 or 1/5th segments then adding another few coils and then binding 3 - 4 more segments. but this time bind them between the previous segmented areas and include one of previous pipes that has already been taped it was much more stable... I'll draw a quick diagram because that barely makes sense to me reading that back!


put a couple of elbows on, both ending in the same direction as i want the pipe to end up.

and finally, chucked up on the roof, draping down to my pump and pool. To get it up there we used an old piece of MDF board that was a dartboard backdrop or something... and just raised it and slid it off like a pizza.

It took about 5 mins for the water to make it up and around the 90m or so of coil and back down. (10,000L per hr pump) it was bloody hot when it came out!
i'll monitor temps and see if it makes much difference to this large volume of water.

#2 dazzabozza

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 03:56 PM

Great project Matt. I'll be watching closely.

Daz

#3 Cawdor

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 04:29 PM

I think the tricky part is to determine the optimal flow of water required to heat it properly if you need a continuous flow of hot water (as opposed to just wanting a bucket full for example).

#4 Kieran

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 04:58 PM

Looking good! I've been using this method to heat the water for showers at the family beach shack at Lucky for years smile.gif Nothing so nice and neat though!

The next step up from this that I sometimes see as an energy auditor is the evacuated metal piping with a heat exchange for hot water showers.

Edit: Might be worthwhile looking into a really basic heat exchange system if you're gonna pump tank water though those pipes. Might save you one day when a fitting goes or the pipe dies or the whole thing blows off in a storm. Nothing fancy smile.gif just not copper pipes if you're gonna have invertebrates.

#5 lawdog

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 05:09 PM

Have a look here for calcs that may be helpful. Seems to be all about minimising heat loss rather than heat Gain.

http://rimstar.org/r...ater_diy_fp.htm

or Here

http://www.builditso...ool_heating.htm

#6 Dr_Pat

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 05:44 PM

Looking good man. Particularly interested in seeing how the thermostat is going to be set up though and how constant the water temperature could be kept. Cheers

#7 Krystal

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 08:35 PM

Matt stop beating me to these things wink.gif Wanna come do mine?

#8 ice

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 08:44 PM

If you put it on a black pond liner to keep the heat soak it will probably heat up a bit faster too bro. Also insulating the line after its heated going back to the tank would probably save you a few degrees smile.gif

Looks good man!

#9 Ivan Sng

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 08:47 PM

Dr_Pat, I think the temperature will not be a problem because I have a feeling Matt is going to keep barramundi the pool. They love the hot spa...

And Matt, maybe you want to come help me put one on my shed as well for my barra...

#10 mattt

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 09:40 PM

Happy to help out, maybe you wanna see if this does anything at all 1st? haha biggrin.gif

#11 Ivan Sng

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 09:56 PM

QUOTE (mattt @ Nov 14 2010, 09:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Happy to help out, maybe you wanna see if this does anything at all 1st? haha biggrin.gif


Yes that is true as well... but my tank is only 1000L so, it should work fairly well... only thing is that the weather is warming up pretty quickly as well... well let me start thinking about how to get this done first...

#12 mattt

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Posted 14 November 2010 - 10:05 PM

i think it would be pretty effective on 1000L

#13 Rosco

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Posted 17 November 2010 - 05:38 PM

You might find this interesting

SOLAR HOT WATER 2 DIY USING BLACK WATER HOSE SOLAR WATER HEATER SUN POWER

#14 Barf

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Posted 18 November 2010 - 12:55 PM

might have already been mentioned but dont forget a non return valve of some description if its going to be higher than the tank / pond

#15 ruffaz

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Posted 23 November 2010 - 07:04 PM

as far as a termostste is concerned have you thought about not being concerned about the heat let it build up to what ever you can and use a chiller to keep it in check ? also what have you decided to do about the winter months the winter is what has stoped me from doing a huge out door set up in perth it would be interesting to know.

what i thought about was going to a salvage yard and geting a second hand instant gas heater and running it of bbq gas ?

#16 werdna

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Posted 24 November 2010 - 08:42 AM

Getting a chiller would kind of defeat the purpose of going solar, may as well throw some aquarium heaters in there.


#17 Dr_Pat

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Posted 02 December 2010 - 09:22 PM

Ruffaz: x2 to Werdnas comment and I know a one chap who already uses gas heaters with thermostats to heat his fish room. They hook up to mains gas and, for a big setup, are quite efficient. The solar idea outlined here would be no good for an outdoor setup during winter but I would still expect it to make a reasonable difference to the power bills if used for a fish room (ie a tank in an enclosed space) even in winter...but it'd probably need help from another heater at times.

#18 dazzabozza

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Posted 08 December 2010 - 07:14 PM

Any updates Matt?

#19 mattt

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Posted 08 December 2010 - 09:19 PM

been a bit slack and just let it run.. i was taking the temps and wacking them in a spreadsheet... but i gave up after 4 days!. Temps hovering on 22 for the last week. When we had the 30 - 35 days a couple weeks back it was up at 29 - 30deg. the barra loved it. Pretty hard to guage effectiveness when the weather changes daily... and for the size i would say its more suited for something around 1,000L

#20 MilkyJoe

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Posted 27 December 2010 - 03:48 PM

Im quite interested interested in doing something similar myself. Just wondering if anybody had an idea on the sort of thermostat I would need?

Do you think something like this could be used with a pump connected to the heating terminals? LCD Digital Temperature Controller

Thanks, Kieran.




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