Nate Nagel wrote:
Hi all,

this has been discussed here before, mostly because I expected this
thing to crap the bed years ago, but every time I got close to replacing
it suddenly my floor was dry for another year or so. I have an indirect
solar water heater in my basement, and I think it has, for real this
time, reached the end of its useful life. My inner greenie says, of
course, to replace it, but I'm not thinking that that is really an
economically good idea... my gas bills even in the winter are never
over $200 a month; in the summer it's practically nothing. Even on a
sunny summer day the output temp. of the solar never seems to get over
85-90F (very shady lot) in the winter I wonder if it even helps at all.
There's no controller on the thing just a time switch running a pump so
I wonder if on a cold, overcast day if the darn thing isn't sucking heat
out of my water supply and dumping it into the atmosphere :/

I remember doing research into this a year or two ago and found that the
tank alone would run me over a kilobuck. For that price, when you
figure in installation as well (I could probably handle it, if I knew
how to charge the loop between the tank and the collector, but I doubt I
actually *would*) as well as an electronic controller with tank and
collector thermocouples (seems the only way to really make it work
efficiently) I don't see a reasonable payoff period... probably by the
time it'd paid itself off the tank would again be 20 years old and near
death.

Am I wrong...?

I'm tempted to rip it out, take the tank to the dump, and put the rest
of the setup on craigslist as "haul it away! Use it for whatever the
hell you want, I don't care!"

(the extra floor space in the basement would be nice, too...)

nate


Forgot to mention my other idea:

1) buy new 40-gallon electric water heater appx. the same size as solar
one (which is obviously just a modified electric anyway)

2) remove shell from old one, save copper coil wrapped around tank,
discard rest

3) disassemble new tank, slip coil over tank, reinstall shell, fill
space between with lots of Great Stuff(tm) (or just stuff old fiberglass
back in there) Laugh maniacally at having just spent $400+ on something
and immediately voided the warranty.

4) install my "new" indirect solar tank

what do you think the odds are that a brand new Rheem 40 gal. tank (the
internal tank, that is) is the exact same size as a 20 year old one?

seems a lot of mucking about for not much benefit, still...

nate

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