Seasonal Heating [RE-wrenches]

[sunwise]

Jim wrote: Has anybody tried running plastic tubes connected to solar
collectors underground 2-3 feet below a slab under a living space?

Yes, it is being done in WI.  The supply and return lines from the
collectors go to headers with a single SS ball valve for each loop on
the supply header.  In the system I worker on most recently there are
three shallow loops of 1/2 inch PEX tubing (300 feet each) in a six inch
bed of sand, one deep loop almost five feet down below the upper loops,
two shunt loops (one around the perimeter of the building and one buried
in the trench out to the ground mounted collectors, 6-4x8ft, about 40
feet away), and of course one "loop" over to the heat exchanger on the
SDHW tempering tank.

The shunt loops are used to dump the heat in spring and part of the
summer, the SDHW essentially runs year round, and the deep loop is
turned on in August.  The upper loops are turned on when the real
heating season approaches.

Bob Ramlow has done a number of these.  In WI, the deep loop is
important because November thru most of January is typically very
cloudy.  Bob refers to it as the Flywheel Heating System, you get it
spinning early while the sun shines bright.  The system I've been
involved in (home owner did much of the work and design) just went into
service this winter and the home is not yet insulated.  With the house
cold, the supply temp is coming off the collectors at about 90' and the
return temp is 50.  Two Hartel HEH-10 pumps plumbed in series circulate
the glycol solution powered by a 50 watt PV.  I'll let you know how it
works next year.

Kurt Nelson
SOLutions

-----Original Message-----
From: James Lamb, Middle Fork Engineering [mailto:j.lamb at pecorp.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 10:38 AM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: RE: Seasonal Heating [RE-wrenches]

Has anybody tried running plastic tubes connected to solar collectors
underground 2-3 feet below a slab under a living space.   to create a
seasonal heating system.
In mid-summer the solar collectors will start heating the ground under
the
slab and by the end of the summer the earth including the slab would
heat
up. In Fall the ground would still recieve heat from the solar
collectors
and the slab would heat the living space until December January?
Has anybody done this?
If so how well has it worked.
JIM LAMB 
Middlefork Engineering

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Simko [mailto:tom at skylinesolar.com]
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 9:30 AM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: Re: Solar Fluid Diversion [RE-wrenches]



 Allan,
Interesting info on the long term performance of the thermal valves,
keeping
it simple sure applies here. My thought was that they would also
complicate
the initial purging of the system, more valves, fittings etc.  For my
own
summertime heat diversion of my 6 panel space heating thermal system I
will
be using a MODINE hydronic heater I picked up at a yard sale recently in
like new condition for 30 bucks. During the summer I will simply reroute
my
existing supply and return lines, using ball valves, that go to my
radiant
floor from my 500 gallon storage tank to the fan forced heater, and an
existing timer will run the heater fan and circ pump for x amount of
hours
during the night, when its cooler, and vent the resulting hot air
outside my
shop. I think 3 or 4 hours a night ought to keep the storage tank at a
reasonable temperture for the summer, say 120 to 160, with no messing
with
the sealed glycol loop or covering of the panels required, difficult
with my
installation up 14 feet. For simple, cheap solutions to potentially
complex
problems I like to use the phrase:  crude.....but primitive.
   Looking at my WIRSBO radiant floor heat product catalog the other day
I
noticed they have 24 VDC motorized valve actuator's, good to know.
    

Tom Simko
Skyline Solar  


on 1/29/03 12:42 PM, Allan Sindelar at allan at positiveenergysolar.com
wrote:

> Wrenches,
> On the solar thermal topic of a thermally activated diversion valve, I
> forwarded Peter Talmage's message to Bristol Stickney, a local
colleague
of
> mine who has done such work for decades. His response is worth
sharing. It
> follows Peter's original post below.
> Allan at Pos E
> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Peter Talmage" <ptalmage at yahoo.com>
>>> 
>>> Another solution to draining out solar fluid is to use
>>> a thermally activated diversion valve to allow hot
>>> fluid to cool of in a loop of baseboard hydronic
>>> elements. The valve simply sits in the return line.
>>> The amount of diversion increases as the solar
>>> intensity rises. We use these in our systems to ensure
>>> that during the warmer months or when folks leave home
>>> for 2 weeks in the summer the heat transfer fluid
>>> stays nice and "cool". Check out   www.fpevalves.com
>>> and  www.rostravernatherm.com/ThermalValve.htm.
>>> 
>>> Yours,  Peter Talmage
> 
> Hi Allan,
> This is good information, although it is not a new approach. I did not
know
> that these valve models exist, and only the installers can tell us if
they
are
> reliable after at least 2 years of operation.
> 
> This approach to overheat protection is known as thermo mechanical
thermal
> diversion. Back in the early 1980's, I was involved with the importers
of
the
> French "Priosol" valve, which was one of the most accurate and precise
thermo
> mechanical diversion valves ever made. I personally installed dozens
of
them
> in similar heat control installations. The problem is that eventually
they
> always fail. The cooling port will stick open or shut. And so the
question
is:
> Will the failure be noticed before it causes cascade failure to the
pumps,
> valves and other components? And will the failure occur long before a
system
> designed without this valve, using some other approach?
> 
> The most reliable hydronic passive thermal diversion system may have
been
the
> Zomeworks "Tide Tank". This design never failed unless the boiler
fluid
leaked
> out completely below the level of the "tide tank". No parrafinnic
thermal
> valve can be expected to be as chronically trouble free.
> 
> I do not know how reliable these valves are in solar applications, but
I
would
> ask anyone with five years of maintenance and repair experience with
these
> valves to respond. I stopped using the Priosol valve after the first
two
years
> of enthusiastic promotion, because of maintenance and failure
consequences.
> 
> Bristol.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> 
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