el sid question (and CPVC woes) [RE-wrenches]

[Dan Rice]

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Jay,

Have you used CPVC on thermal systems in the past?  I recently finished
repairs on a thermal system cobbled together by a homeowner and several
local plumbers. The biggest source of trouble (aside from the backwards
check valve in the collector loop) was leaking CPVC-to-threaded adapters.
The collectors are plumbed with copper, as are the pumps and heat exchanger.
The pipe home run between the collectors and the pump assembly is CPVC, with
adapters at each end. The CPVC-to-threaded adapters were two pieces units -a
glue on CPVC part bonded to a threaded brass (male or female) part. After
some thermal cycling, these adapters always leaked at the joint between the
brass and CPVC sections. I tried one piece all-CPVC male connectors threaded
into female threaded copper connectors, thinking that the plastic male
thread would seal into an unyielding metal female thread. No success -the
CPVC threads leaked too (closed system, 50 % propylene glycol at around
15-20 psi). I did find some three-piece CPVC-to-thread adapters that are
built
similar to a pipe union, with a rubber gasket and a collar joining a flanged
CPVC piece to a brass threaded piece. Unfortunately, I could not obtain
these in 1", which is the existing system pipe size. (I'm sure they exist,
somewhere). These seem to be most promising, because they use a gasketed
connection between plastic and brass.
Anyway, because the collectors are ground mounted and the CPVC is insulated
and buried across the yard, the owner didn't want to spend the $ to dig up
the pipe and replace it with copper. I finally resorted to 5" lengths of 1"
automotive heater hose and hose clamps joining  the CPVC to copper pipes
(close to the same O.D.) -it works, but it's not particularly elegant, (nor
is the rest of the piping on this one).

If you know of a source of 1" CPVC adaptors known not to leak, please pass
that along. If you haven't used CPVC in the past for such an installation,
I'd suggest going copper throughout -the extra $ up front is worth the
savings in hassles, in my (albeit limited) experience. Not to mention the
potential problems with overheating stagnating collectors and temperatures
in excess of 200 F causing CPVC failure. I'm hoping I never get that call
back.

Dan Rice
Abundant Sun, LLC.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jay Peltz, Peltz Power" <jay at asis.com>
To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 7:34 AM
Subject: Re: el sid question [RE-wrenches]


Hi Brad thanks,

What about using 2 x 20 watt panels instead of 1 x 40 watt?

And I'm guessing that the 20v is a hard limit.  That could be a
problem on some cold winter morniings here?

Are the smaller units more resistant to this?
I hook the smaller units in series or parallel?

My system (yet to be completed) will have 4 3x7' glass/copper
collectors on it.  They will be below the tank and be around oh
around 50' of piping away.

I'm going to use 3/4" pipe , combination of CPVC, and copper pipe.

   I've sized this system to produce much energy in the winter months.

I'm still working on a automatic covering system that will shade the
panels when the tank gets hot enough.

thanks,

jay

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