Quote:
Originally Posted by mort
Just a note, PVC is a good heat insulator, you should consider copper tubing for the solar collector.
-m
|
Garden hose will not last probably very long, but with that it is easy to gather enough heat to have shower. I know that at some places they run hose at hill and provide warm shower to camping area that way.
Copper can be expensive, but of course it could be also very good, also iron pipes should work rather well at least them become rather hot during day in a sun.
Putting collector to box with glass might improve efficiency quite a bit though and that is not huge amount extra work as mounting of box would be enough, no need to try to figure out how to make hose stay on place, well this applies only to roofs that are on angle, level roof is much simpler with hose.
I have used central water heating radiator as solar collector, painted black and put into box with glass top, sadly other projects got into way, but managed to test enough to find it working rather well. I did use Eheim aquarium pump with it, which perhaps is not most suitable to task. Only issue was that I should of done closed loop system, there was so much rust inside the old radiator that water was impossible to use for anything.
Radiator leaning against wall without water or any cover got above +40C during winter time, when it was -7C outside and there was bit of wind, so I guess that with such one could also do rather nice system.