[Greenbuilding] STSS - was "heat pump advice"

[David Delaney]

Well, after googling for this new tank material, STSS, I 
find that STSS refers to Sven Tjernagel Solar Systems. 
Apparently Mr.  Tjernagel used to construct storage tanks 
for large amounts of solar heated water by folding a single piece of 
EPDM roofing material into a plywood box, or a steel 
cylinder -- a culvert section on end, for example.

Mr.  Tjernagel also used EPDM sheets to site build solar 
water heaters. From a Nick Pine post of 30 May 1996 17:32:53 
-0400:

>Or you could try making something attached to the north wall 
>of the sunspace with a single large piece of EPDM rubber, a 
>bladder, folded at the bottom, with silicone caulk and a 2x4 
>sandwich to seal the side edges and a piece of dark painted 
>sheet metal to keep it from bellying out too much to the 
>south. Sven Tjernagel has site-built about 700 large 
>collectors like this over the last 20 years for commercial 
>uses, for hotels and car washes, each being up to 10' tall x 
>50' long, with a materials cost of about $1/ft^2...

Such a collector might be able to freeze without damage.

David Delaney, Ottawa

At 12:14 PM 03/11/2006, Nick Pine wrote:
>Kevin Zippel <zippelk at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>... I have a ~2500sf farmhouse in zone 5b, Finger Lakes region New York. 
>>Our house has average insulation, except the attic which we just bumped up 
>>to R70.  The house had ducted air heating via a propane furnace, which we 
>>promptly shut off and went with woodstove heat.  The house is in a 
>>floodplain and there is a free-flowing artesian well on the side of the 
>>house.  Without a pump, the water comes out at 5 gal in ~6.5min, or ~3/4 
>>gpm, or ~45 gph.  Would it be possible/reasonable to run that through a 
>>water-to-air heat pump (likely with supplemental pumping from the well) and 
>>run the air directly into my existing ductwork?
>
>Cooling 375 pounds per hour of 45 F water to 35 would be 3750 Btu/h, but how 
>about solar heating with a COP of 1000 or more, vs 3 for a heat pump?
>
>Binghamton gets 610 Btu/h-ft^2 on a south wall on an average 26.5 F December 
>day, more than Rochester, with 560, where I designed a system to solar heat 
>a 1200 ft^2 addition with R30 walls with a 240 ft^2 twinwall polycarbonate 
>sunspace wall and 144 ft^2 of single air heater glazing inside that with 64 
>ft of fin-tube pipe near the top to heat a 1000 gallon STSS tank in the 
>basement, in a kind of thermal cogeneration. If all goes well, on an average 
>day, warm sunspace air will heat 2400 pounds of water in 4" PVC pipes under 
>a foil-covered cathedral ceiling, and a slow ceiling fan and a room temp 
>thermostat and an occupancy sensor will keep the room 70 F. The water will 
>cool to about 60 F by dawn, with a 50 F night setback. On a cloudy day, we 
>will pump some tank water up through the ceiling pipes, and the tank will 
>also heat DHW with a pressurized copper coil. My TMY2 simulation shows 100% 
>solar space heating in an average year, with a min tank temp of 91 F in 
>mid-December.
>
>Nick 
>
>
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