[Greenbuilding] Evacuated tube collectors?

[Karen Bushey]

You may want to contact these guys:
Clear Mountain Solar Store in Claremont, NH
http://www.usasolarstore.com/pages/stores/clearmountain.php

They just installed an evacuated tube system (Sunda) on my roof in northern 
VT - and it was definitely generating heat during the winter.
I think that they work with several different manufacturer's collectors.

- Karen Bushey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Speireag Alden" <speireag at gmail.com>
To: <greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 9:46 PM
Subject: [Greenbuilding] Evacuated tube collectors?


> Hallo, all.
>
>     The time has come to put in the first solar hot water collectors.
> These will eventually generate some amount of solar pre-heat
> year-round, with overcapacity through the summer, when excess will
> heat the ground around and under my earth-bermed house, AGS-style.
>
>     The house is in west-central New Hampshire, so the system must be
> utterly resistant to cold temperatures, and it would be very nice if
> it could generate some amount of heat during December, when days are
> short and often cloudy.  So I'm interested in evacuated tube
> collectors.
>
>     A bit of research turns up two types which seem promising:
>
>     http://www.solarthermal.com/
>
>     http://www.sssolar.com/
>
>     Does anyone have any experience with these?
>
>     Does anyone have other recommendations?
>
>     I want to be pretty simple on controllers.  I'm thinking that
> I'll put one temperature gauge right where the pipe enters the
> ground, inside the insulation jacket, and another at the manifold for
> the solar collector.  Between them, I want to put a controller which
> will compare temperatures, and when the panel is warmer than the
> pipe, close the circuit on a solar-panel in-line pump hook-up.
>
>     Although I like tinkering, I see no need to re-invent the wheel
> and I have plenty of other things to do, so I'm willing to look at
> off-the-shelf solutions for the control stuff, if someone can point
> me to them.
>
>     Eventually, I will expand the system such that the hot water from
> the collector will be routed first to the house storage, and then
> when that is hot enough, to heat the interior of the house via the
> radiant floor, and when that is hot enough, to dump the heat into the
> ground around the house.  So there will need to be several sensors
> and switch valves.
>
>     Can anyone guide me toward a good solution?
>
> -Speireag.
>
> -- 
> Fill the molten glass.
> Sit with singing summer frogs.
> Think on Jack's wedding.
>
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