The house was purchased early 2007 but without any guarantee of operation of the solar system. The license dates from 1981. So it was a house well in advance for its time (and even now) ...
Photo taken during the whole 1ere visit, December 2006: 2 glazing began to slide, before the intervention the windows were still down ...
Technical construction data
- Surface 65m²
- Tilt: 40 °
- Orientation (axis of the ridge): axis 80-260 °, the normal to the panels is therefore in the axis 350-170 °.
- Latitude: 49.9 ° N
- Single glazed panels 5mm jointed
- Hebco brand sensor (maybe it's them: http://www.hebco-thermique.com/ ?) there are 2 sensors "in series" per "column" of windows. Or 18 * 2 = 36 sensors.
- Liquid: water
- drain back system
- storage: about 70 000 L thermal buffer (flooded room in the concrete cellar) see this topic: Concrete Solar Thermal Buffer Optimization
- multicellular pump (2): 660 W Guinard Kietis 4000
- regulation: simple comparator on 2 PT100 probes, the "hot" probe is simply placed 20 cm from the window under the glass.
The "cold" probe is immersed (in a thermowell) in the buffer at a depth of approximately 2m.
Some performances
I only made one step at the beginning for the moment:
- Flow (according to P and curve): 4000 L / h
- Cp: 4,18 kJ / ° CL
- T ° input: 19,6 ° C
- T ° output: 30,5 ° C
- Delta: 10,9 ° C
- Power: 50,62 kW
- Power recovered by m2: 780 W
- Power Pump: 660W
- COP: 76,7
Not bad for "crappy" panels (according to current pros) that are 20 years old, right? Obviously, these performances drop a little when the temperature rises.
Today, 1er may 2008 despite a very long winter, the buffer is at 36.2 ° C (peak at 37.5 ° C after 3 days of good weather last week).
Pictures of the intervention
a) Principle of the assembly of the panels:
- The sensors are placed directly on a bitumen coating (itself placed on Ytong slabs so isolated, a little, by the very structure of the house)
- They are divided into 2 with 2 collector at half height. I do not know why, surely the limited length of copper tubes of low or even the dilation?
- Each "element" is mounted in "flexible" with hoses and serflex as seen below. Presumed reason: the significant expansion of the elements.
- Each "column" of glazing consists of 2 uprights (well 1,5 for purists) of aluminum profile (identical to the profile used for Greenhouses or verenda).
- The windows are placed on the profile and overlap gradually to block their sliding (the bottom window pushes the glass from the top to the stop glass)
- Dimension of each pane (not overlapping): 63 * 135 cm
- The glass stops were made of gardening thread some of which were already HS (see photos).
- The whole is joined by "rubber" gaskets still in good condition after 20 years (they have retained their flexibility and have not cracked).
Our intervention was therefore to replace all the garden cables (even intact ones) with aluminum glass stops from 5 to 10 cm. (we see one on the 1ere photo between the very first window of the bottom and the 2ieme), to go up the windows which had slipped and to improve the waterproofness where it was possible.
Photo taken before the intervention (we can clearly see the sliding of 2 windows)
b) A glazed sensor removed (a lot of dust I was cleaning it), at the top we can see the recess of the profile where the glass comes:
c) Photo of the low collector, we can see the flexible assembly for the dillation (and facilitate assembly also I think) and the bituminous coating:
d) Bibi at work (not assured of course ... at the top of the ladder
) next to the double chimney (for a stove and a wood boiler).
e) "Final" result after 3 working days:
Here I am for your questions.
One day will still have clean the sensors (not the windows but the sensors themselves) ... but that means it will remove (at least) 2 windows for each column: so a lot of work for not much as a gain given the current performance.
Edit, addition in 2022: this solar installation is coupled with this 70 m3 thermal buffer in a flooded room in the cellar (there was a little lack of water in the photo taken in 2007...a slight lack of maintenance... )
more info: Solar-thermal / thermal-solar-buffer-optimization-and-repair-t4517.html
...it's 280 °