ACR Skyline solar water heater [RE-wrenches]

[Travis Creswell]

I've never worked on water heaters with "plastic" glazing.  I once did see a
SHW panel that had curved glazing and that had not yellowed (what was
that?).  100% of the air heaters I've worked on/seen had plastic glazing
that did not last.

I've used to keep a large roll of Filon(?) around for DIYer's who were
repairing their own system.

I agree with Bill and would add that you are wasting your time and your
customer's money to install a panel with plastic glazing.

>From what I've seen of the ACR prepackaged systems they aren't much cheaper
then pre packaged systems with "real" collectors.  So when you look at the
total cost of system using plastic glazing doesn’t save that much money and
is guaranteed to fail within 15 yrs.


Travis Creswell
Ozark Energy Services

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Loesch [mailto:solar1online at charter.net] 
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 12:19 PM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Cc: Travis Creswell
Subject: Re: ACR Skyline solar water heater [RE-wrenches]

Hi Bob,

You and the other solar thermal company have hit on the benefit and
liability of all twinwall polycarbonate glazed collectors.

Lightweight vs.
Reduced service life

All the plastics manufacturers limit their warranty to 10 years (for very
good reason). Not only is the plastic brittle after ten years in the sun,
but even if it doesn't crack on its own (mother nature will assist with
hail, etc.) it will discolor thereby degrading the performance even if it
does remain intact. Yes you can ship the two foot wide panels by UPS but
performance is based on surface area so you add another two foot wide panel
to get to the same size competition that ACR compares itself to at the end
of their specs web page.
http://www.solarroofs.com/going/features.html#features
To make the analogy to the pv world, would you rather put in two 75 watt
modules or one 150 watt?

I believe Travis used these (or similar) liquid collector panels at one
time. Perhaps he would care to comment? My experience with polycarbonate is
limited to applications involving hot air panels. Where are the AAA boys
when you need them?<G>

Bill Loesch
Solar 1 - Saint Louis Solar




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Clark" <bclark at solar-wind.us>
To: "RE-wrenches" <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 10:31 AM
Subject: ACR Skyline solar water heater [RE-wrenches]


>
>
> Wrenches:
>
> The Smothers Brothers notwithstanding, can anyone tell me how well the ACR
Skyline solar water heater works?
>
> I've been told (by another solar water heating company) that the collector
with the polycarbonate cover has not proven to be durable.
>
> Anybody out there know about this or any other performance issues?
>
> Bob Clark
> SolarWind Energy Systems, LLC
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
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