Solar Thermal storage [RE-wrenches]

Travis Creswell, Ozark Solar ozsolar at ipa.net
Tue May 10 19:25:36 PDT 2005


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Hello Geoff,

I installed a Tarm at my new shop this winter.  I elected to build my own
tank and heat exchangers.  It's quite a nice machine.  We did radiant with
outdoor reset/injection pumping plus a high temp loop for the joist heating
areas.  This summer's project is hooking up the 4'x10' collectors that I
have.  I've got 10 but I'm thinking I'll just go with 6.  I'm still trying
to determine the best way to tie into my 1250 gallon tank.

There is no easy answer that I know of.  Drain back would be the best but
I'm not familiar with the tank Tarm supplies to know if that is an easy
option.  Freeze protection should be fool proof.  A control failure (or pump
or power failure) typically means the pump quits running and the water
drains back into the storage tank.  Drain back is the most efficient, least
expensive and the only real way to properly control the inevitable summer
time tank temps that are way to high to deal with safely.

Give me call sometime and we can talk about. Way too much to type.

Travis Creswell
Ozark Energy Services, Inc.
417-623-6296



-----Original Message-----
From: Geoff Greenfield [mailto:Geoff at Third-Sun.Com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 10, 2005 4:33 PM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: Solar Thermal storage [RE-wrenches]

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I have a not so typical project, and I would really appreciate some input:

The customer has a (really complicated) Tarm wood gassifier with an 800
gallon atmospheric tank.  The Tarm has it's own treated water loop through a
double (parallel) immersed coil heat exchanger.  Also - there is a HE for
DHW pre-heat (actually it is valved to bypass the HW tank and brought down
with a mixing valve) and another HE for a closed radiant floor system. All
of these HE are 55 gallon drum sized coils of soft 3/4 copper pipe - I think
about 90' per coil.

So - all is well and the customer has a budget for (5) 48 SF flat plate
collectors - My question is about how to tie in?  I want to avoid opening
this tank - I am thinking of an external (flat plate) heat exchanger and the
appropriate check valves and pumps to make use of one of the existing coils
(Radiant) to store heat (and when radiant system is calling for heat to use
it directly).  The extra pump and HE are negatives, as is the "double" heat
exchanger loss.

Option B is to open the tank and use an HE with the storage water directly.

Option C is to charge the radiant system with glycol and integrate it with
the collectors.

Option D is to do an open drain back with the actual stored water running in
the collectors (risking a freeze should a control fail).

Option E is your better idea...

For a brighter energy future,

Geoff Greenfield
NABCEP Certified Energy Practitioner

THIRD SUN SOLAR & WIND POWER Ltd.
340 West State Street
Athens, OH 45701

www.third-sun.com
(740) 597-3111

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