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Bob F

hr(bob) wrote:
On Jan 4, 4:01 pm, RBM wrote:
On 1/4/2012 12:53 PM, JIMMIE wrote:

My son has a home that he added a solar water heater to a few years
ago. Works great , too great. The unit far exceeds his demand for
hot water. He wants to add some coils to his forced air HVAC system
so he can use the solar heated water to heat his home. He was
expecting there to be a coil he could place in his HVAC system but
cant find what he is looking for or knows what to ask/google for.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

We call that a "Hydro-Air" system. The hot water coils are inside the
air handler along with the cooling coils. I think he could make his
solar system assist the boiler, but I don't think I'd rube the air
handler to do it. Possibly if he T'd the solar loop into the boiler
loop where the go into the air handler, and set up some solenoid
valves, so whenever the thermostat called for heat, an aquastat on
the solar system would open it's solenoids as long as the water
temperature was hot enough. It would also have to turn on a
circulating pump for the solar loop. When the temperature isn't hot
enough, the aquastat would close a circuit, opening the solenoids
from the boiler loop and it's pump, and fire the boiler.
The problem with doing something like this, is that the only guy who
will know how to service it, is the one who built it. If anything
malfunctions, he could be without heat for a while

I did the reverse of that using cold groundwater to help cooling in
the summer. I used an old automobile radiator placed in the air
stream in addition to an A-coil that was part of a regular central
cookling system. I don't see why the OP couldn't try an auto radiator
and save a lot of $$$ over buying something else.

Just don't use household water pressure in an auto radiator.