ransley wrote:
On Apr 20, 5:26 pm, 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

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Why not make it work right, a aqua stat could keep the pump from
running until pipe is hot, so it would not pump on cloudy days. I use
a cheap unit bolted to a pipe on a recirculator system.

Where do you find a "cheap" one...? I'm seeing prices of $3-400 for a
simple controller with two thermocouples.

Find the
leaks.

I know where the leak *isn't* - anywhere I can fix. There's water
coming out the bottom of the tank, and it's not coming from any of the
fittings.

Going electric is more expensive than gas for maybe 98% of the
US. For single use I use a Bosch ng tankless that is more efficent
than about 98% of tanks made, Solar and cheap Tankless would likely
work for two people easily. I would not junk a solar set up.
alt.energyhomepower is where you will get answers from people off
grid.

I've got the solar feeding a conventional 40 gal. gas tank, which I
suspect is doing most of the work. Incoming water is about 60F; have
not seen output of solar tank over 90ish... ever. Got a nice big
collector too...

nate


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