On Apr 20, 8:55*pm, Nate Nagel wrote:
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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replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.http://members.cox.net/njnagel

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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Cheap is maybe 40$, its used for hw recirculator systems, mine clamos
onto a hw pipe and I set the temp for it to kick out, im sure you
could engineer it to shut off when temp is low.