Ian Stirling wrote:
Mary Fisher wrote:
There was such a hard frost last night that the frost-stat on the ch boiler
came on for a short time. There was thick ice on all the open water in the
garden and all roofs were white.

But it's been sunny today (although cold) and I did three machine loads of
washing and we still have a cylinder full of water at just short of 60C.

Scoffers can scoff away but we're very happy -it's just a foretaste of
what's to come :-)

What sort of panels?
I'm contemplating doing something with the old radiators, bus windows,
and polystyrene sheet that I've got lying around.
Currently I'm wondering how hot you could get with silly (say 5 panes)
amounts of glazing, with a system to suck air through the panes.
So that light absorbed in the panes is not lost.

Also wondering what the possible ratio of a fan assisted panels
radiator/panel size is.

Hmm sounds overkill to me. A one metre square panel that I made myself
works well enough to give 200 litres plus of water at 80C from around
five hours in the sun. Traditional construction of a single panel steel
radiator with an aluminium frame, polyurethane insulation, single glazed
in 4mm glass.

Did anyone see the Dick Strawbridge thing? His solar panel design was
utter pants, a double panel radiator using corrugated PVC glazing.