Question:
Is it worth the bother? Playing a RI Fender Deluxe (1×12)… Actually put Ted Weber recommended 25 watt speaker in it, and it belched a plenty… Anyway, put trhe stock 100 watter back in with some tubes from LV and the thing is really decent for miking and gigging. Anyway, I’m thinking about going Point to point kit and have Torres put it in… I could use some feed back. Thanks, danny
Response:
The only advantage I see is to increase reliability, if you’re a real road warrior, or to increase ease of mods, if you’re a modder. But otherwise, why fix it before it’s broken?
Response:
> Is it worth the bother? > Playing a RI Fender Deluxe (1×12)… Actually put Ted Weber recommended 25 > watt speaker in it, and it belched a plenty… Anyway, put trhe stock 100 > watter back in with some tubes from LV and the thing is really decent for > miking and gigging. > Anyway, I’m thinking about going Point to point kit and have Torres put it > in… I could use some feed back. > Thanks, > danny
Most folks will tell you to stay away from Torres… RI Deluxe upgrades. Looks like you’re in Connecticut and I think Mikey is in Maryland. Must closer than Torres and a much better reputation…
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Is it worth the bother? > Playing a RI Fender Deluxe (1×12)… Actually put Ted Weber recommended 25 > watt speaker in it, and it belched a plenty… Anyway, put trhe stock 100 > watter back in with some tubes from LV and the thing is really decent for > miking and gigging. > Anyway, I’m thinking about going Point to point kit and have Torres put it > in… I could use some feed back. > Thanks, > danny > Most folks will tell you to stay away from Torres… > RI Deluxe upgrades. Looks like you’re in Connecticut > and I think Mikey is in Maryland. Must closer than > Torres and a much better reputation…
Yes go with Mikey. Here is a detailed site with one of his rebuilds. http://waynereno.com/DRRI_Rebuild_Easy_Print.htm
Response:
> Is it worth the bother? > Playing a RI Fender Deluxe (1×12)… Actually put Ted Weber recommended > 25 > watt speaker in it, and it belched a plenty… Anyway, put trhe stock 100 > watter back in with some tubes from LV and the thing is really decent for > miking and gigging. > Anyway, I’m thinking about going Point to point kit and have Torres put it > in… I could use some feed back. > Thanks, > danny
Danny, pulling the PCB and swapping in a PTP board will give an improvement in tone, since you’ll be able to use much higher quality components and you’ll be able to make changes and modifications that would be very difficult on the PCB. BUT, to make the best use of spending the money and time necessary to swap out the board, you’ll want to swap out the stock tranny’s and replace with Mercury Magnetics, or another high quality transformer manufacturer. This will give you the best possible tone. Going through all of the effort to replace the board but not replace the output transformer for example, which is a VERY important part of the amps tone, would be a waste IMHO. The power transformer sets the stage for the entire amp, and has a lot to do with the feel of the amp, power reserves, etc. To do this right, I suggest that you have the amp rebuilt. Get rid of the PCB and ribbon cables, get a nice PTP handwired board installed, but also replace the stock tranny’s with Mercury Magnetics. The improvement in tone is just astounding. Shoot me an email offline and I’ll email you a pdf that I put together with some pics and comments from some of my previous rebuild clients. That will give you a variety of opinions from different players and what you can expect. I use and recommend a Weber 12F150, but a 50W version, undoped. My Weber is an earlier version of the 12F150 called the C12N. I’ve also recently picked up a Jensen Neo, but haven’t played with that one yet. Fender’s are notorious for belching/farting/speaker flubbing. Part of the reason is that the caps in the PI are trying to reproduce frequencies down as low as 7 Hz. Obviously, your speaker is going to have around a 50 or 60Hz cutoff, so you get the flubbing/belching/farting thing going on. I modify the PI on my rebuilds to eliminate this problem, and don’t have any belching/farting problems at all, even with the amp running full bore. Mikey
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Is it worth the bother? > Playing a RI Fender Deluxe (1×12)… Actually put Ted Weber recommended > 25 > watt speaker in it, and it belched a plenty… Anyway, put trhe stock 100 > watter back in with some tubes from LV and the thing is really decent for > miking and gigging. > Anyway, I’m thinking about going Point to point kit and have Torres put it > in… I could use some feed back. > Thanks, > danny > Danny, pulling the PCB and swapping in a PTP board will give an improvement > in tone, since you’ll be able to use much higher quality components and > you’ll be able to make changes and modifications that would be very > difficult on the PCB. > BUT, to make the best use of spending the money and time necessary to swap > out the board, you’ll want to swap out the stock tranny’s and replace with > Mercury Magnetics, or another high quality transformer manufacturer. This > will give you the best possible tone. Going through all of the effort to > replace the board but not replace the output transformer for example, which > is a VERY important part of the amps tone, would be a waste IMHO. The power > transformer sets the stage for the entire amp, and has a lot to do with the > feel of the amp, power reserves, etc. > To do this right, I suggest that you have the amp rebuilt. Get rid of the > PCB and ribbon cables, get a nice PTP handwired board installed, but also > replace the stock tranny’s with Mercury Magnetics. The improvement in tone > is just astounding. Shoot me an email offline and I’ll email you a pdf that > I put together with some pics and comments from some of my previous rebuild > clients. That will give you a variety of opinions from different players and > what you can expect. > I use and recommend a Weber 12F150, but a 50W version, undoped. My Weber is > an earlier version of the 12F150 called the C12N. I’ve also recently picked > up a Jensen Neo, but haven’t played with that one yet. > Fender’s are notorious for belching/farting/speaker flubbing. Part of the > reason is that the caps in the PI are trying to reproduce frequencies down > as low as 7 Hz. Obviously, your speaker is going to have around a 50 or 60Hz > cutoff, so you get the flubbing/belching/farting thing going on. I modify > the PI on my rebuilds to eliminate this problem, and don’t have any > belching/farting problems at all, even with the amp running full bore. > Mikey
What do you (Mikey) think of Weber amp kits? Do you have any experience with their tranny’s? It might be worth getting a new kit and putting it together instead of rebuilding a Fender.
Response:
> What do you (Mikey) think of Weber amp kits? Do you have any experience > with their tranny’s? It might be worth getting a new kit and putting it > together instead of rebuilding a Fender.
Hi Karl. I haven’t used Weber’s tranny’s so I can’t comment on them. I haven’t built any of their kits, but I’ve used their chassis’ for some scratch Tweed builds. I like their Tweed chassis’ but I can’t comment either way on their kits. The thing with kits, is that you get what you get. You get the trannys, components and parts that the kitmaker put together. That may be good, it may not. I think that kits are a great idea for beginner’s or for the guy that just wants to put an amp together quickly, or as a project, etc. Personally though, I’ve been doing this for several years now, and I’ve accumulated hundreds of tubes, thousands of feet of Teflon wire, thousands of resistors, capacitors, other components, parts and so on. I use Mercury Magnetics tranny’s, love em’, so I became a dealer. At this stage, I personally prefer to build my own boards, select my own components, etc. I’m really not interested in building a kit, but that’s me. Kits may make sense for other players and builders, and they definitely have a place in the overall scheme of things. But, I like doing things myself where possible, and I like to plan out my amps using components/parts that I select, incorporating idea’s that I’d like to try and so on. If you’ve never built an amp before, a kit might be a great way to go. Check around some of the other forums on the net, check Weber’s forum. You’ll see other guys that have bought Weber amp kits and will share their opinions. Mikey
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> What do you (Mikey) think of Weber amp kits? Do you have any experience > with their tranny’s? It might be worth getting a new kit and putting it > together instead of rebuilding a Fender. > Hi Karl. I haven’t used Weber’s tranny’s so I can’t comment on them. > I haven’t built any of their kits, but I’ve used their chassis’ for some > scratch Tweed builds. I like their Tweed chassis’ but I can’t comment either > way on their kits. The thing with kits, is that you get what you get. You > get the trannys, components and parts that the kitmaker put together. That > may be good, it may not. I think that kits are a great idea for beginner’s > or for the guy that just wants to put an amp together quickly, or as a > project, etc. > Personally though, I’ve been doing this for several years now, and I’ve > accumulated hundreds of tubes, thousands of feet of Teflon wire, thousands > of resistors, capacitors, other components, parts and so on. I use Mercury > Magnetics tranny’s, love em’, so I became a dealer. At this stage, I > personally prefer to build my own boards, select my own components, etc. I’m > really not interested in building a kit, but that’s me. > Kits may make sense for other players and builders, and they definitely have > a place in the overall scheme of things. But, I like doing things myself > where possible, and I like to plan out my amps using components/parts that I > select, incorporating idea’s that I’d like to try and so on. If you’ve never > built an amp before, a kit might be a great way to go. Check around some of > the other forums on the net, check Weber’s forum. You’ll see other guys that > have bought Weber amp kits and will share their opinions. > Mikey
In general, I’m not a fan of guitar amp kits. I ordered the Gerhart Gilmore and Ardmore kits to support a former AGA contributer. Those are the only kits I’ve used. I doubt that I’ll ever order another kit. Kits can be convenient but… …are they really worth it? My experience with Weber for recones and new speakers has been great. I hope the kits (and components) measure up. Folks new to building should visit AX84.com. They’ll get the support they need. Techs and engineers should be able to build from scratch without issue.
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> > What do you (Mikey) think of Weber amp kits? Do you have any experience > > with their tranny’s? It might be worth getting a new kit and putting it > > together instead of rebuilding a Fender. > Hi Karl. I haven’t used Weber’s tranny’s so I can’t comment on them. > I haven’t built any of their kits, but I’ve used their chassis’ for some > scratch Tweed builds. I like their Tweed chassis’ but I can’t comment either > way on their kits. The thing with kits, is that you get what you get. You > get the trannys, components and parts that the kitmaker put together. That > may be good, it may not. I think that kits are a great idea for beginner’s > or for the guy that just wants to put an amp together quickly, or as a > project, etc. > Personally though, I’ve been doing this for several years now, and I’ve > accumulated hundreds of tubes, thousands of feet of Teflon wire, thousands > of resistors, capacitors, other components, parts and so on. I use Mercury > Magnetics tranny’s, love em’, so I became a dealer. At this stage, I > personally prefer to build my own boards, select my own components, etc. I’m > really not interested in building a kit, but that’s me. > Kits may make sense for other players and builders, and they definitely have > a place in the overall scheme of things. But, I like doing things myself > where possible, and I like to plan out my amps using components/parts that I > select, incorporating idea’s that I’d like to try and so on. If you’ve never > built an amp before, a kit might be a great way to go. Check around some of > the other forums on the net, check Weber’s forum. You’ll see other guys that > have bought Weber amp kits and will share their opinions. > Mikey > In general, I’m not a fan of guitar amp kits. I ordered the Gerhart Gilmore and > Ardmore kits to support a former AGA contributer. Those are the only kits I’ve > used. I doubt that I’ll ever order another kit. > Kits can be convenient but… > …are they really worth it?
In general, they can be. But, most are not. I have had my share of Torres modified amps walk in my shop. Not to mention the http://timeelect.com/hackmarshall.htm that had come in here Tu. I’m just finishing up an old Fender tweed Twin Amp where I had to make a parts board for it. Because, the mod expert cut off the end of the board that terminated the power supply wiring and PI parts to add in his mod. The owner who got it wanted it put back stock. He heard that I had made up original rivet boards to de-mod some old Fenders I had done in the past around my area. I had a Toreros modified Twin Reverb that had come in that when the mod was removed, with all the GOOP that covered it, there was nothing left for original components left in order to put it back stock. In the catalog of mods that are available, most of them are polished turds hatched by mod guru wanna be’s, and don’t really don’t IMPROVE the original claim to fame of the amplifier. Most mods are done for the owner who purchased the WRONG AMP FOR THE JOB, for one reason or another. Poor judgment on the part of the owner, accounts for most of the de-mods I have performed through the years. But here, with the reissue amps, that is a totally different story, and I’m glad the Mike is doing his part in this new area. ANYTHING that improves a polished turd, I can get behind in a heartbeat. So, in principle, of all the reasons to modify and amp, I’m in favor of you hooking up with Mike, as Regards, Rich Koerner, Time Electronics. http://www.timeelect.com Specialists in Live Sound FOH Engineering, Music & Studio Production, Vintage Instruments, and Tube Amplifiers
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> > Is it worth the bother? > > Playing a RI Fender Deluxe (1×12)… Actually put Ted Weber > > recommended > > 25 > > watt speaker in it, and it belched a plenty… Anyway, put trhe stock > > 100 > > watter back in with some tubes from LV and the thing is really decent > > for > > miking and gigging. > > Anyway, I’m thinking about going Point to point kit and have Torres put > > it > > in… I could use some feed back. > > Thanks, > > danny > Danny, pulling the PCB and swapping in a PTP board will give an > improvement > in tone, since you’ll be able to use much higher quality components and > you’ll be able to make changes and modifications that would be very > difficult on the PCB. > BUT, to make the best use of spending the money and time necessary to > swap > out the board, you’ll want to swap out the stock tranny’s and replace > with > Mercury Magnetics, or another high quality transformer manufacturer. This > will give you the best possible tone. Going through all of the effort to > replace the board but not replace the output transformer for example, > which > is a VERY important part of the amps tone, would be a waste IMHO. The > power > transformer sets the stage for the entire amp, and has a lot to do with > the > feel of the amp, power reserves, etc. > To do this right, I suggest that you have the amp rebuilt. Get rid of the > PCB and ribbon cables, get a nice PTP handwired board installed, but also > replace the stock tranny’s with Mercury Magnetics. The improvement in > tone > is just astounding. Shoot me an email offline and I’ll email you a pdf > that > I put together with some pics and comments from some of my previous > rebuild > clients. That will give you a variety of opinions from different players > and > what you can expect. > I use and recommend a Weber 12F150, but a 50W version, undoped. My Weber > is > an earlier version of the 12F150 called the C12N. I’ve also recently > picked > up a Jensen Neo, but haven’t played with that one yet. > Fender’s are notorious for belching/farting/speaker flubbing. Part of the > reason is that the caps in the PI are trying to reproduce frequencies > down > as low as 7 Hz. Obviously, your speaker is going to have around a 50 or > 60Hz > cutoff, so you get the flubbing/belching/farting thing going on. I modify > the PI on my rebuilds to eliminate this problem, and don’t have any > belching/farting problems at all, even with the amp running full bore. > Mikey > What do you (Mikey) think of Weber amp kits? Do you have any experience > with their tranny’s? It might be worth getting a new kit and putting it > together instead of rebuilding a Fender.
Karl, I think the answer is that different things work for different people differently. I don’t mean to sound trite. I read Mikey’s reply and think it should be understood in the context of Mikey. Mikey has a business doing R&R rebuilds using quality components that have been selected and perfected to a particular end. It’s quite clear to me that Mikey delivers a product that can’t be beat. Nevertheless, in business, the goal is to produce a predicted result, both in terms of input (parts, labor, etc) and output (what the consumer receives). Otherwise, he can’t make a profit and stay in business! When you are a hobbyist (like me) there is little, if any, motivation to be able to replicate the work. I’m not selling it to anyone, and I almost don’t care if it even works! (Not actually so, but I think the point is clear.) Kits are good for a hobby build. It makes it easy to get a decent product with a reasonably predicatable result. I’ve bought a lot of small parts from Weber (pots, resistors, caps, jacks, etc.) and they are all what I’d term medium quality or better; decent stuff, but you won’t get mustard caps at his prices. BTW, his prices are very good. My impression from looking at the pix is that chassis is OK from Weber. But, what Mikey says, we really don’t know anything about the trannies. I’d predict decent, but not high-end like MM or Heyboer (maybe Hammond knock offs?). I built one kit, a Gilmore Jr., a fine amp that I like very much. (MM trannies!). But the other 3 homebrews were scratch builds using a great deal of recycled parts. Did I replicate the sound of what they were modeled on? I have no idea and don’t care, but these all turned out to be decent amps. The last homebrew was a JTM45, and it turned out great. The monster trannies come from a derelict Arkay FL30. It took me perhaps 6 months to accumulate all the parts, little by little. It probably cost me $250 to build the thing. Compare that to the Weber 6M45 kit. I think I did well, but what I did just isn’t for everone. So, you’ve got to make a choice. There is no wrong way to go. Just adjust your expectations and motivation accordingly. If you do this for a hobby, make sure you don’t take the fun out of it and you keep it within your budget. If you haven’t built an amp before, a kit is probably a great idea because it covers lots of things you won’t think of in your planning. From my perspective, I can’t see building another kit. If you are building to save money, that is mostly falacy. The cheapest route it to harvest derelict parts of good quality. That takes a great deal of time and patience. Probably the next most economical route is to rebuild an old amp that is way past it’s prime (or get an undesirable brand that can be converted). If you gig, (I don’t), IMO you need something that you can get serviced in a hurry — a one-off is the wrong route. Regards, Phil
Response:
Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. Clarke – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Is it worth the bother? > Playing a RI Fender Deluxe (1×12)… Actually put Ted Weber recommended 25 > watt speaker in it, and it belched a plenty… Anyway, put trhe stock 100 > watter back in with some tubes from LV and the thing is really decent for > miking and gigging. > Anyway, I’m thinking about going Point to point kit and have Torres put it > in… I could use some feed back. > Thanks, > danny
Response:
Oh yessss, using round wire (especially covered with COTTON, not the plastic stuff they use new), gives a MUCH rounder tone. Much, much better than the flat tone you get from the PC board traces and ribbon cables….. 
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Is it worth the bother? >Playing a RI Fender Deluxe (1×12)… Actually put Ted Weber recommended >25 >watt speaker in it, and it belched a plenty… Anyway, put trhe stock 100 >watter back in with some tubes from LV and the thing is really decent for >miking and gigging. >Anyway, I’m thinking about going Point to point kit and have Torres put it >in… I could use some feed back. >Thanks, >danny > Danny, pulling the PCB and swapping in a PTP board will give an improvement > in tone, since you’ll be able to use much higher quality components and > you’ll be able to make changes and modifications that would be very > difficult on the PCB. > BUT, to make the best use of spending the money and time necessary to swap > out the board, you’ll want to swap out the stock tranny’s and replace with > Mercury Magnetics, or another high quality transformer manufacturer. This > will give you the best possible tone. Going through all of the effort to > replace the board but not replace the output transformer for example, which > is a VERY important part of the amps tone, would be a waste IMHO. The power > transformer sets the stage for the entire amp, and has a lot to do with the > feel of the amp, power reserves, etc. > To do this right, I suggest that you have the amp rebuilt. Get rid of the > PCB and ribbon cables, get a nice PTP handwired board installed, but also > replace the stock tranny’s with Mercury Magnetics. The improvement in tone > is just astounding. Shoot me an email offline and I’ll email you a pdf that > I put together with some pics and comments from some of my previous rebuild > clients. That will give you a variety of opinions from different players and > what you can expect. > I use and recommend a Weber 12F150, but a 50W version, undoped. My Weber is > an earlier version of the 12F150 called the C12N. I’ve also recently picked > up a Jensen Neo, but haven’t played with that one yet. > Fender’s are notorious for belching/farting/speaker flubbing. Part of the > reason is that the caps in the PI are trying to reproduce frequencies down > as low as 7 Hz. Obviously, your speaker is going to have around a 50 or 60Hz > cutoff, so you get the flubbing/belching/farting thing going on. I modify > the PI on my rebuilds to eliminate this problem, and don’t have any > belching/farting problems at all, even with the amp running full bore. > Mikey
Mikey, is that PI fix one of your "secrets", or can you share it? I have a Princeton Reverb that does the same thing.
Response:
> Mikey, is that PI fix one of your "secrets", or can you share it? I have > a Princeton Reverb that does the same thing.
What year PR? If it’s a collectible, you may want to leave it stock. Or, if you do try this mod, keep the original caps so that you can put them back in if needed. This is a simple mod and is reversable. Change the 2 – .1uF PI caps to .047uF. You can also try .056 or .068, but I use .047uF. Usually, when I make a change in one part of the circuit, I usually try to make a compensating change in another part of the circuit, to try to balance out the change. To compensate for this PI cap change, I increase the size of the coupling cap that runs from the 220K mixing resistors into the PI, from .001uF to .0047uF. Mikey
Response:
> Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a > printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most > people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been > corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? > I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an > excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. > Clarke
You know, you’re right. This is an example of Point to Point. http://timeelect.com/ampeg815.htm Regards, Rich Koerner, Time Electronics. http://www.timeelect.com Specialists in Live Sound FOH Engineering, Music & Studio Production, Vintage Instruments, and Tube Amplifiers
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a > printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most > people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been > corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? > I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an > excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. > Clarke >You know, you’re right. >This is an example of Point to Point. >http://timeelect.com/ampeg815.htm >Regards, >Rich Koerner, >Time Electronics. >http://www.timeelect.com >Specialists in Live Sound FOH Engineering, > Music & Studio Production, >Vintage Instruments, and Tube Amplifiers
What’re those three things between the speaker, and the chassis that look like thin rods? You have an arrow pointing to one of them in the bottom picture. Pete — That’s extracurricularific! –StrongBad
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a >printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most >people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been >corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? >I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an >excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. >Clarke > You know, you’re right. > This is an example of Point to Point. > http://timeelect.com/ampeg815.htm > Regards, > Rich Koerner, > Time Electronics. > http://www.timeelect.com
Yes, and one level up the food chain from that "real" Point to Point is the "terminal strip" construction that some don’t consider to be real PTP, but I like it anyway! Look at the inside of this late 1960s Sunn Sonoro: http://catoosatrading.com/images/sunn/sunn_sonoro_inside.jpg That is a beauty in simplicity thing to me. Despite a few possible disadvantages, I like that form of construction about as well as the earlier true PTP. Regards, John King
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->> Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a >> printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most >> people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been >> corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? >> I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an >> excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. >> Clarke >You know, you’re right. >This is an example of Point to Point. >http://timeelect.com/ampeg815.htm >Regards, >Rich Koerner, >Time Electronics. >http://www.timeelect.com >Specialists in Live Sound FOH Engineering, > Music & Studio Production, >Vintage Instruments, and Tube Amplifiers > What’re those three things between the speaker, and the chassis that > look like thin rods? You have an arrow pointing to one of them in the > bottom picture.
They look like they connect the knobs in the top chassis to the pots in the bottom chassis. I can’t find a schematic for the 815 on Schematic Heaven. Anywhere else I should look?
Response:
> Yes, and one level up the food chain from that "real" Point to Point > is the "terminal strip" construction that some don’t consider to be > real PTP, but I like it anyway! Look at the inside of this late 1960s > Sunn Sonoro: > http://catoosatrading.com/images/sunn/sunn_sonoro_inside.jpg > That is a beauty in simplicity thing to me. Despite a few possible > disadvantages, I like that form of construction about as well as > the earlier true PTP. > Regards, > John King
Good point John. I have a Sunn Solaris that’s wired similar to the Sonoro, except it has a lot more components and wiring. But, a lot of guys say that amps built with terminal strips are real point to point. IMHO, using terminal strips is no different than using G10 and turrets. The example pics that Rich showed is real PTP, where the componets connect directly between attachment points. Most terminal strip construction that I’ve seen, has the components spanning the terminals, then hookup wire runs from the terminal to the destination point. To me, that’s no different from attaching components between turrets on a board, then running hookup wire from the turrets. True PTP construction is like what Rich’s pic shows, components connecting directly between destination points, like a socket pin and a pot for example. Mikey
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> >> Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a > >> printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most > >> people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been > >> corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? > >> I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an > >> excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. > >> Clarke > >You know, you’re right. > >This is an example of Point to Point. > >http://timeelect.com/ampeg815.htm > >Regards, > >Rich Koerner, > >Time Electronics. > >http://www.timeelect.com > >Specialists in Live Sound FOH Engineering, > > Music & Studio Production, > >Vintage Instruments, and Tube Amplifiers > What’re those three things between the speaker, and the chassis that > look like thin rods? You have an arrow pointing to one of them in the > bottom picture. >They look like they connect the knobs in the top chassis to the pots in >the bottom chassis. >I can’t find a schematic for the 815 on Schematic Heaven. Anywhere else >I should look?
There’re sets of wires on each side of the chassis so I’m thinking that those wires are what connect the controls at the top of the cabinet. I figure that one set of wires is for the on/off switch, and pilot light, and the other set of wires is for audio. And you can see the speaker wires going down to the left side of the chassis too, so I guess it can’t be that. Those rods don’t look like an electrical connections to me. Pete — That’s extracurricularific! –StrongBad
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a >>printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most >>people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been >>corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? >>I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an >>excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. >>Clarke > You know, you’re right. > This is an example of Point to Point. > http://timeelect.com/ampeg815.htm > Regards, > Rich Koerner, > Time Electronics. > http://www.timeelect.com > Yes, and one level up the food chain from that "real" Point to Point > is the "terminal strip" construction that some don’t consider to be > real PTP, but I like it anyway! Look at the inside of this late 1960s > Sunn Sonoro: > http://catoosatrading.com/images/sunn/sunn_sonoro_inside.jpg > That is a beauty in simplicity thing to me. Despite a few possible > disadvantages, I like that form of construction about as well as > the earlier true PTP. > Regards, > John King
Hey, that was my first amp project. Back in ‘68! Take a look. Built while I was in Trade school. Sitting on a pair of CTS bass 15’s. Covered by the upholstery shop for $15.00. Yes, that’s a real 50’s strat. Sold it for $150.00 when I bought my ‘72 ES-335. Boy was I stupid back then! http://home.comcast.net/~seluckey/1st_strat.jpg Pic quality is poor. It’s a scan of an old polaroid.
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Mikey, is that PI fix one of your "secrets", or can you share it? I have >a Princeton Reverb that does the same thing. > What year PR? If it’s a collectible, you may want to leave it stock. Or, if > you do try this mod, keep the original caps so that you can put them back in > if needed. > This is a simple mod and is reversable. > Change the 2 – .1uF PI caps to .047uF. You can also try .056 or .068, but I > use .047uF. > Usually, when I make a change in one part of the circuit, I usually try to > make a compensating change in another part of the circuit, to try to balance > out the change. To compensate for this PI cap change, I increase the size of > the coupling cap that runs from the 220K mixing resistors into the PI, from > .001uF to .0047uF. > Mikey
It’s a hacked-up silverface that i ‘restored’. It had the "world famous Torres Prince-Tone and dual-stage master" mod…now GONE.
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a >printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most >people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been >corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? >I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an >excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. >Clarke > You know, you’re right. > This is an example of Point to Point. > http://timeelect.com/ampeg815.htm > Regards, > Rich Koerner, > Time Electronics. > http://www.timeelect.com > Specialists in Live Sound FOH Engineering, > Music & Studio Production, > Vintage Instruments, and Tube Amplifiers
My brown-vinyl Gibson Falcon is the same way.
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>Tag board design is no more point to point circuitry than using a >>printed circuit board. Hand wired perhaps but it is not PTP. Since most >>people have never seen real PTP the use of the terminology has been >>corrupted. Does Torres call his board Point to Point? >>I have built a Mission 5E3 kit, with trannie upgrades, it was an >>excellent project with great materilas and support from Bruce. >>Clarke >You know, you’re right. >This is an example of Point to Point. >http://timeelect.com/ampeg815.htm >Regards, >Rich Koerner, >Time Electronics. >http://www.timeelect.com >Specialists in Live Sound FOH Engineering, > Music & Studio Production, >Vintage Instruments, and Tube Amplifiers > What’re those three things between the speaker, and the chassis that > look like thin rods? You have an arrow pointing to one of them in the > bottom picture. > Pete > — > That’s extracurricularific! –StrongBad
thing those are extensions to the control-knobs mounted on the other side of the speaker…?
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->Yes, and one level up the food chain from that "real" Point to Point >is the "terminal strip" construction that some don’t consider to be >real PTP, but I like it anyway! Look at the inside of this late 1960s >Sunn Sonoro: >http://catoosatrading.com/images/sunn/sunn_sonoro_inside.jpg >That is a beauty in simplicity thing to me. Despite a few possible >disadvantages, I like that form of construction about as well as >the earlier true PTP. >Regards, >John King > Good point John. I have a Sunn Solaris that’s wired similar to the Sonoro, > except it has a lot more components and wiring. But, a lot of guys say that > amps built with terminal strips are real point to point. IMHO, using > terminal strips is no different than using G10 and turrets. The example pics > that Rich showed is real PTP, where the componets connect directly between > attachment points. > Most terminal strip construction that I’ve seen, has the components spanning > the terminals, then hookup wire runs from the terminal to the destination > point. To me, that’s no different from attaching components between turrets > on a board, then running hookup wire from the turrets. True PTP construction > is like what Rich’s pic shows, components connecting directly between > destination points, like a socket pin and a pot for example. > Mikey
Yup, I agree with that definition of true PTP wiring. BTW, here is a picture of the inside of a Solarus that I had some months ago, and as you say, they are much the same construction technique; with one exception; they used a board for the tremolo and reverb drive circuits. A bit more cluttered than the Sonoro or Sorado, but still not as dense as some construction: http://catoosatrading.com/images/sunn/sunn_inside2.jpg http://catoosatrading.com/images/sunn/sunn_inside1.jpg Mine had been modified with a switch replacing one of the front inputs which bypassed the trem circuit; because it was in series in the preamp circuit and caused a tone and gain bottleneck! With the trem defeated, the amp had a MUCH more hot preamp and drive! With an added capacitor to quiet down some noise, I thought it was a very worthwhile mod. BTW, the previous mentioned Sonoro was KT-88 powered and 60+ watts, this Solarus was EL34 powered and more like 40+ watts. I really preferred the JJ KT-88s, but both were cool and tasty amps with good to great punch! Regards, John King
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Question:
I just moved into a house with an older Ruud solar/electric water heater. Because the roof had to be replaced, I had the solar panels taken down and have not put them back yet. I’ve disconnected the solar-panel pipes from the water heater and capped them off. (I’m considering whether to reconnect the panels, but mount them in the yard rather than on the roof, or abandon them.) The water heater, even set at about 140 degrees, is producing only warm water, and even that doesn’t last. I’m wondering if the solar panels are REQUIRED for hot water. This wouldn’t make sense, in that if you had a long stretch of rainy days, you wouldn’t have hot water, even with the panels attached. As far as I can tell, there is only one element. Where the element would be at the bottom of the heater, there is a panel, but it opens to the solid tank, not an electrical connection. Any feedback would be appreciated.
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> I just moved into a house with an older Ruud solar/electric water > heater. Because the roof had to be replaced, I had the solar panels > taken down and have not put them back yet. I’ve disconnected the > solar-panel pipes from the water heater and capped them off. (I’m > considering whether to reconnect the panels, but mount them in the yard > rather than on the roof, or abandon them.) > The water heater, even set at about 140 degrees, is producing only warm > water, and even that doesn’t last. I’m wondering if the solar panels > are REQUIRED for hot water. This wouldn’t make sense, in that if you > had a long stretch of rainy days, you wouldn’t have hot water, even > with the panels attached. > As far as I can tell, there is only one element. Where the element > would be at the bottom of the heater, there is a panel, but it opens to > the solid tank, not an electrical connection. > Any feedback would be appreciated.
I would go ahead and hook them back up and see what happens. Just make sure you insulate the pipes well. The only other option that I can see is replaceing the hot water heater.
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Maybe you just have a bad thermostat or heating element. Capping off the coils should just make it work like and electric I would think.
I just moved into a house with an older Ruud solar/electric water heater. Because the roof had to be replaced, I had the solar panels taken down and have not put them back yet. I’ve disconnected the solar-panel pipes from the water heater and capped them off. (I’m considering whether to reconnect the panels, but mount them in the yard rather than on the roof, or abandon them.) The water heater, even set at about 140 degrees, is producing only warm water, and even that doesn’t last. I’m wondering if the solar panels are REQUIRED for hot water. This wouldn’t make sense, in that if you had a long stretch of rainy days, you wouldn’t have hot water, even with the panels attached. As far as I can tell, there is only one element. Where the element would be at the bottom of the heater, there is a panel, but it opens to the solid tank, not an electrical connection. Any feedback would be appreciated.
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> I just moved into a house with an older Ruud solar/electric water > heater. Because the roof had to be replaced, I had the solar panels > taken down and have not put them back yet. I’ve disconnected the > solar-panel pipes from the water heater and capped them off. (I’m > considering whether to reconnect the panels, but mount them in the yard > rather than on the roof, or abandon them.)
Abandon them? Heresy 
. Put them back up… > The water heater, even set at about 140 degrees, is producing only warm > water, and even that doesn’t last. I’m wondering if the solar panels > are REQUIRED for hot water. This wouldn’t make sense, in that if you > had a long stretch of rainy days, you wouldn’t have hot water, even > with the panels attached.
Your water heater coil is probably shot. And when the panels were there, they made enough heat that you didn’t notice. Now they’re gone, and for the first time ever, the tank has to carry the entire load itself, and can’t. Dirt common thing for electric coils to fail. They’ll likey have them for sale at the local HomeDepot, both the tank (brand new, ~300$) or the coils themselves (~50$). > As far as I can tell, there is only one element. Where the element > would be at the bottom of the heater, there is a panel, but it opens to > the solid tank, not an electrical connection.
Probably just a single element tank only designed to work with a SDHW system. Pretty common. > Any feedback would be appreciated.
Easy problem to fix: Get the electric heating coils replaced, either yourself, or call a plumber. Might be cheaper to replace the tank altogether, though, plumbers ain’t free . And get those panels back in production!!! DJ
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Question:
It looks like $/BTU that water is the least expensive way to store heat. It’s also denser storeage than most everything except phase change. So… What about inexpensive water stores? Insulation for that? I would think fiberglass would not be so desireable unless it could be well sealed. Polyiso? One store or multiple. And what do you do about keeping the water from getting rank? Cheers, Jeff
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Jeff. I found a plastic industrial tank, meant for above grade. 4,500 gallons, for $2,500. This seems like the best option for me. Tough, large volume, insulating by wrapping with 10" of eps foam. The top is a little irregular. It is 8′ diameter and 10′ tall. Heat exchange will be long piece of 3/4" copper (soft). I guess probably 100′.
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> Jeff. > I found a plastic industrial tank, meant for above grade. 4,500 > gallons, for $2,500. This seems like the best option for me. Tough, > large volume, insulating by wrapping with 10" of eps foam. The top is > a little irregular. It is 8′ diameter and 10′ tall. > Heat exchange will be long piece of 3/4" copper (soft). I guess > probably 100′.
Hi, One thing to check on the large poly tanks is whether the temperature capability is good enough for your application. I am planning to basically 1) dig a hole in the ground, 2) surround the hole with a rectangle of roughly 2 by 10 treated lumber to act as a top sill or curb(bottom of 2by10 on ground and top 10 inches above ground), 3) line the hole and sill with at least 4 inches of rigid foam with the corners and edges sealed with the polyurethane foam in a can, 5) line the foam with an EPDM liner. I am thinking of constructing the cover like a SIP. This seems pretty cheap. — Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
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Gary. Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking along the same line, but I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very hard, glacial till and will make a large, square box quite nicely. How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take before smashing down or I guess at the sides for that matter. Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. Eric
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The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you would take a square of material and fold up the corners. No seems. The side pressure is not that great and dependant on the depth (I made a hot tub at one time). Anyone have the density of water per cubic foot? Questiom remain about the resistance of the liner to bleach or chorline or whatever is needed to keep the tub from turning into a swamp. Cheers, Jeff – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking along the same line, but > I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. > Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very hard, glacial till and > will make a large, square box quite nicely. > How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take before smashing down > or I guess at the sides for that matter. > Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. > Eric
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Gary. > Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking along the same line, but > I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. > Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very hard, glacial till and > will make a large, square box quite nicely. > How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take before smashing down > or I guess at the sides for that matter. > Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. > Eric
Hi, As Jeff points out, the EPDM can be used for roofing, but is it also commonly used for pond linings. Shops that sell supplies for building ponds sell it by the foot off 12 or 15 ft wide rolls. I think that is runs roughly $1 per sqft. I believe it to be good for temps as high as 180F — but, you might want to do a confirmation on that. The rigid foam boards are good for quite a bit of bearing. I think that Nick has said up to 30 psi(?) — that would be about 60 ft depth of water, so should be OK I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt. I’ll then just cut 2 inch thick foam board pieces to fit, using at least two layers. And, using the polyurethane foam in cans to seal the joints. I figure that the foam board will just deflect until it is supported by the dirt walls and bottom. — Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
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One cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds and contains 6.25 gallons anywhere in the world except the USA. message > The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you would take a square > of material and fold up the corners. No seems. > The side pressure is not that great and dependant on the depth (I > made a hot tub at one time). Anyone have the density of water per cubic > foot? > Questiom remain about the resistance of the liner to bleach or > chorline or whatever is needed to keep the tub from
turning into a swamp. > Cheers, > Jeff > Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking
along the same line, but > I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. > Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very
hard, glacial till and > will make a large, square box quite nicely. > How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take
before smashing down – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> or I guess at the sides for that matter. > Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. > Eric
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I often wondered what the insulation value of clear gravel would be with all the air space. This could make a good second layer if insulation outside of the "hard box" perhaps and as a backfill to the styrospan rigid insulation. I understand these polyethylene containers can become soft when warm so metal banding or cables may be in order at a few key spots down the circumference of a tank.
> Gary. > Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking
along the same line, but > I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. > Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very
hard, glacial till and > will make a large, square box quite nicely. > How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take
before smashing down > or I guess at the sides for that matter. > Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. > Eric > Hi, > As Jeff points out, the EPDM can be used for roofing, but is it also > commonly used for pond linings. Shops that sell
supplies for building – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> ponds sell it by the foot off 12 or 15 ft wide rolls. I think that is > runs roughly $1 per sqft. I believe it to be good for temps as high > as 180F — but, you might want to do a confirmation on that. > The rigid foam boards are good for quite a bit of bearing. I think > that Nick has said up to 30 psi(?) — that would be about 60 ft depth > of water, so should be OK > I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape > with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt. I’ll then just cut 2 > inch thick foam board pieces to fit, using at least two layers. And, > using the polyurethane foam in cans to seal the
joints. I figure that > the foam board will just deflect until it is
supported by the dirt – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> walls and bottom. > — > Gary > www.BuildItSolar.com > "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects > —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com –
Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- > http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in
the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups > —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total
Privacy via Encryption =—-
Response:
> One cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds and contains > 6.25 gallons anywhere in the world except the USA.
Something doesn’t look right….weight one gallon water… 8.33 lbs…. http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/gasoline.shtml think that should be 7.5 gallons not 6.25….except where you are….<grin>… have fun…..sno > message > The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you > would take a square > of material and fold up the corners. No seems.
– Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it This tag line is generated by: SLTG (Silly Little Tag Generator)
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One cubic foot of water at 25C contains 62.24536 pounds of water. > One cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds and contains > 6.25 gallons anywhere in the world except the USA.
Something doesn’t look right….weight one gallon water… 8.33 lbs…. http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/gasoline.shtml think that should be 7.5 gallons not 6.25….except where you are….<grin>… have fun…..sno > message > The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you > would take a square > of material and fold up the corners. No seems.
– Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it This tag line is generated by: SLTG (Silly Little Tag Generator)
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>… EPDM can be used for roofing, but is it also commonly used for pond >linings. Shops that sell supplies for building ponds sell it by the foot >off 12 or 15 ft wide rolls. I think that is runs roughly $1 per sqft.
The roofing stuff comes in 10′ and 20′ wide rolls x 50′ or 100′ long and costs about 30 cents/ft^2. >I believe it to be good for temps as high as 180F —
I’m told it will last 5-10 years at 180 and indefinitely at 170. >The rigid foam boards are good for quite a bit of bearing. I think >that Nick has said up to 30 psi(?) —
Up to 130 F for Styrofoam, or 350 for polyiso. >I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape >with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt.
You might make a tank about 3′ deep x 4′ wide that way, by folding up a single piece of 10′-wide EPDM. Nick
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>>I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape >with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt. > You might make a tank about 3′ deep x 4′ wide that way, by folding up > a single piece of 10′-wide EPDM.
so, for vertical walls and 4′ long, 48 cubic feet and a bit less than 3000lbs. With a 20degree F cycle, nearly 60,000 BTU One big "tank" or several smaller ones? It’s easier to heat a smaller tank to a usefull temp and valves are cheap. Or is that more trouble than it might be worth? Cheers, Jeff – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Nick
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I’ll summarize my notes so far. We’ve not concluded our thermal store design. Just plain water is the way to go. I looked at rocks, and even a tank filled with rocks and water (thread was last year, IIRC). The rocks make a mess. I wouldn’t mess around with antifreeze — in the quantities required it is expensive, and though a drainback collector wastes pump energy, this turns out to cost very little. Linear polyethylene tanks are rated to 130 F. Cross-linked polyethylene tanks are rated to 140 F. Fiberglass tanks are rated to 150 F. For storing solar heat from a glazed flat plate collector for use in a radiant floor, the XPE tank limits you to about 350 BTU/gallon. The usual quoted prices are about $1/gallon, but even at $0.50/gallon, if natural gas is $1.20/therm, it costs about $125 to store $1 worth of heat. You will need to cycle the tank to empty several times a year to make it worthwhile (with current fuel costs). The good thing about these tanks is that they are easy to specify, since they come from a factory which guarantees the specs. Engineers like them for that reason. Anything built on site will necessarily be more design intensive and more difficult to guarantee. EPDM rubber is commonly used for roofing and for pond liners. The roofing stuff is rated to 300 F *for that application*. I don’t know if the roofing stuff is different from the pond liner stuff, and I certainly wouldn’t try putting a 300 F liquid against it at pressure. But my guess (i.e. I’m going to try it) is that EPDM will hold even 200 F water to many feet of head. EPDM will tolerate bleach or many other household chemicals that you might use to avoid freezing or biological activity. At $0.39/ft^2 EPDM is quite practical, even for tanks that get completely cycled just a few times each year. The insulation is more difficult. There are two kinds of foam, EPS (polystyrene), and polyisocyanurate (or polyurethane). The former is the blue or pink board, or the pipe insulation. It comes in 10, 15, 20, and 30 psi grades (good for 5, 7, 10, and 15 foot-deep cisterns), and is commonly used under the slabs of buildings, in which application it must sustain these loads indefinitely while soaked in ground water and exposed to termites. It is only rated for about 170 F (180 F short-term), which is unfortunate but not a large loss of capability for a glazed flat-plate collector. A concern I have is that a fold in an EPDM liner in direct contact with a horizontal seam between two foam boards could expand into that seam. Since the boards are quite buoyant in water, over time hydrostatic forces could partially eject the insulation from the pit and strain the EPDM liner. Some sort of cover over the seams (e.g. 1 foot wide 1/2 inch plywood) might mitigate this issue. The polyisocyanurate and polyurethane foam is the stuff that comes in cans, or is mixed on site, and is used in roofing. It can handle high temperatures. It is not clear to me that it can handle large sustained loads or direct contact with ground water. Belowground and aboveground tanks can be built of ferrocement, i.e. shotcrete or gunnite, like a swimming pool. But thermal stores want to be a different shape than a pool (deeper for width), and there are OSHA limits on what the guys can work on. Basically, OSHA doesn’t want the unsupported dirt caving in and burying the guy lining the tank. A shotcrete tank would probably have the insulation on the outside of the tank, which is to say it would be placed in the hole first. I talked to some engineers and pool contractors about this idea and came away with the impression it would cost $1/gallon, about the same as a factory-built XPE tank. In-ground tanks can also be built of cement blocks. Once again, there are OSHA issues with deep narrow holes, but if you don’t mind risking your life to save a buck you could probably DIY since cement block construction is unskilled (but note that building code requires an engineer to approve any retaining wall taller than 4 feet). The obvious shape for such a tank is cylindrical, since that makes the sides arched against hoop stresses from ground pressure, which is a defect-tolerant shape. If a DIY project, I’d think it would be easier to build the cement block wall before installing insulation, since you’d get the dangerous bit over with quicker. A cylindrical shape will be more difficult to fold a flat EPDM liner into. The footing for the cement blocks must also be designed, dug and poured, which might be nontrivial and risky. A variation on this theme is to use sloped walls. Concrete blocks with notches designed for particular offsets are available. These walls can be quite steep (12-in-1), require no mortar, and can be built to code without footings to arbitrary height, since the soil behind the wall takes the load. You’ll have to deal with varying (possibly fractional) numbers of blocks around the increasing circumference as you go up, and you’ll have a larger cap on top. In-ground tanks can be built without retaining walls, but then the slope has to be quite shallow (1-in-2 or even less), so that spanning the top is a problem and the shape requires a lot of insulation. Spanning the top of the tank is an issue. You start with another EPDM sheet anchored sufficiently to hold up the overlying EPS insulation. The tank space will need to be vented to atmospheric pressure so that it doesn’t suck this EPDM sheet down. One big advantage of building the tank in the basement is that you were going to span that space anyway. An outdoor tank has to be capped in some way that keeps rainwater from degrading any structure, and prevents people from overloading the cap. Public facilities usually have a roof surrounded by a chain link fence — really ugly. A few notes on building the tank in the basement: the basement walls must be able to support the lateral pressure of the water, and you need a way to vent any water evaporating from the tank before it condenses into your living area. EPS foam specs: http://www.fpcfoam.com/techdat-rigid.html
Response:
>>>I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape >>with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt. > You might make a tank about 3′ deep x 4′ wide that way, by folding up > a single piece of 10′-wide EPDM. >so, for vertical walls and 4′ long, 48 cubic feet and a bit less than >3000lbs.
With a 10′x16′ piece of EPDM, which can stretch about 100%. This might work for 60 degree walls. > With a 20degree F cycle, nearly 60,000 BTU
Yup. >One big "tank" or several smaller ones?
Gary might make his shed tank 20′ long, with a 10′x24′ piece of EPDM and 240 ft^3 storing 240×62(170-80) = 1.3 million Btu of useful heat. Nick
Response:
That’s exactly what I posted.
> One cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds and contains > 6.25 gallons anywhere in the world except the USA. > Something doesn’t look right….weight one gallon water… > 8.33 lbs….
http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/gasoline.shtml > think that should be 7.5 gallons not 6.25….except where > you are….<grin>… > have fun…..sno > message
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> > The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you > would take a square > > of material and fold up the corners. No seems. > — > Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it > This tag line is generated by: > SLTG (Silly Little Tag Generator)
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… > The insulation is more difficult. There are two kinds of foam, EPS > (polystyrene), and polyisocyanurate (or polyurethane). The former is > the blue or pink board, or the pipe insulation. It comes in 10, 15, > 20, and 30 psi grades (good for 5, 7, 10, and 15 foot-deep cisterns),
Seems like 30 psi bearing should be good for 30psi/0.433psi/ft = 70 ft depth of water? What am I missing? Gary — Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
Response:
> …<attribution lost>… > The insulation is more difficult. There are two kinds of foam, EPS > (polystyrene), and polyisocyanurate (or polyurethane). The former is > the blue or pink board, or the pipe insulation. It comes in 10, 15, > 20, and 30 psi grades (good for 5, 7, 10, and 15 foot-deep cisterns), > Seems like 30 psi bearing should be good for 30psi/0.433psi/ft = 70 ft > depth of water? What am I missing?
You do have to add the weight of the cistern itself. This might be substantial if it is made out of concrete but I can’t imagine that it would be that substantial. Perhaps they are just keeping a safety factor of some 400%? Anthony
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Gary> Seems like 30 psi bearing should be good for 30psi/0.433psi/ft = 70 ft Gary> depth of water? What am I missing? I screwed up and divided where I should have multiplied. You’re right. Good for 20, 30, 45, and 70 foot deep cisterns. Even if the concrete is inside the insulation, it doesn’t dominate the weight load. I consider this a bad thing, since I’d prefer my concrete to stay put while I’m adding water. If I’ve got 6 inches of EPS, it’ll settle half an inch at max design load (=10% compression). What might be good or bad is that the concrete will take all the hoop stress and the surrounding insulation will transmit none of it to the dirt, since the concrete is so much stiffer than the foam. On the other hand, if the foam is inside the concrete, the equivalent tank will open a half-inch gap between the bottom insulation and the side insulation as I load it with water. The liner has to span that gap, under pressure and at temp, forever, which sounds to me like a failure mode. It might be a good idea to build the corners out of much stronger foam to minimize this gap. For a (10 foot)^3 = 7500 gallon cistern with 4" thick concrete walls, the concrete is about 15% of the volume, one-third the weight, and 7% of the heat capacity. Opinions: Concrete-inside-foam seems like the right design for a stand-alone cistern. Foam-inside-concrete seems like the right design for a cistern in the basement, in any climate with simultaneous heating and cooling loads, as otherwise there is a great deal of heat loss through the basement structure. Foam-inside-offset-blocks seems like the right design for a DIY stand-alone cistern. It would be nice to get some benchmark public-domain cistern designs criticized and refined to the point where a licensed engineer could sign off on them, and get prices quoted and published. That way people would have something they could base their own designs on with confidence. It might be challenging to avoid overdesigning the thing, given the lack of site context.
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Why do you need concrete at all? I am thinking the box of foam could be made and sent in a larger dirt box in the floor. Some angled pieces against the corners to fill the gaps created as the foam is compacted. As you fill the liner in the box with water, you back fill the space between the foam and the earthen walls. It will take 12 or 20hrs to fill up, I think.
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Eric> Why do you need concrete at all? This is a very good question. The answer is: safety and code compliance. You may have issues with that but I’m unable to use non-code-compliant solutions. The big problem I see is the cover. The maximum slope with bare earth walls is, I think, 1-in-2. A 10k gallon cistern ends up 5 feet deep with a 8 foot diameter base (plus more for the insulation). The top is 28 feet in diameter. That’s big, and hard to locate. Worse yet, spanning that distance with SIPs is hard. You end up with SIPs much thicker than you need. With offset block walls, the maximum slope is quite steep, something like 12-in-1. A more practical design with 12" wide blocks might be 12-in-2, really 12-in-12/2/pi, so that you have an extra block in each course. Now a 10k gallon cistern is 10 feet deep, with a 12 foot diameter bottom and a 16 foot diameter top (plus more for insulation). Still hard to span, but definitely possible. I think SIPs are a great idea here, but note that you have to weatherproof the top surface and make sure you drain the thing away from the bearing points around the periphery. And, I’m not at all sure how you would build this thing safely (OSHA compliant). Potentially you could dig a 38-foot diameter pit with 1-in-2 walls, cut the bottom 4 feet to 12-in-2 slope, then backfill as you build out of the hole-within-a-hole. But then you are relying on the backfill supporting your hoop stresses, which doesn’t sound right. Somehow, folks build basements for houses without cutting wide slopes and backfilling, so there must be a way. I suspect, however, that basements work because they are big enough that the crew has a place to step back if the sides start coming down. Another problem with offset block walls is that you’d need to interface the foam to the stairstep surface of the walls. My guess is that you’d trowel in great gobs of mortar. Bad idea. Another possibility is getting a custom block. I don’t know how much it costs to get a custom mold for these blocks made, but I suspect it’s not so much for a solid block. A custom mold could give you nice features like a true 12/2pi offset, rounded angled sides to take the load, angled faces to fit against the foam nicely, and slots for circumferential rebar/grout. Given the size of the (big) XPE tank market, a site-built in-ground masonry and EPDM tank kit that costs way less than $1/gallon might be a big seller to the non-solar crowd. Maybe there’s a business here. Heck, maybe someone could sell molds to folks who want to build big tanks, and those folks could take the molds to a local cement-block manufacturer. Hmm.. how much would a 10k tank of blocks cost? ~350 blocks $300 35×35′ EPDM $690 20×20′ EPDM $156 18×18′ SIP cover $1000? If the labor was a few thousand for the backhoe and mason, this could come in substantially less than $5000. And it’s a better tank: spills move slower, double-wall construction possible (two layers EPDM and a sump between), easily insulated, tolerates higher temp than fiberglass for XPE, tolerates chemicals, variable sizes, very large sizes are totally feasible, in ground…
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Hi Iain, I am in the process of building some solar space heating for my house: http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/InWorkshop/SolarShed/solarsh… It will have a "hole in the ground" style 500+ gallon heat storage tank in the garden shed floor (well insulated). I have a simulation, and have run it with a 500 gallon tank and a 1000 gallon tank. The rough results are as follows: Climate: SW Montana (8000 deg-days) Collector area: 240 sqft House heat loss: 350 BTU/hr-F House effective thermal mass: 6000 lb Collectors: Flat Plate, selective coating Solar Fractions by month for the two tank sizes: Month 500gallon 1000 gallon 10 0.81 0.94 11 0.36 0.39 12 0.23 0.23 1 0.24 0.24 2 0.31 0.32 3 0.48 0.5 4 0.62 0.64 The larger tank does a bit better in the warmer months of the heating season. But, when you look at total BTUs produced by the system with the two tank sizes, its not very great — about 5%: Total solar BTUs: with 500 gallon tank: 20.4 MBTU with 1000 gallon tank: 21.2 MBTU I’ve also run it with evac tube collectors, and the differences are small. The simulation uses the hour by hour TMY weather file for Helena, MT, and the collector output is calculated based on the efficiency curve, sun in, Tambient, and Tstorage. So, I am not seeing much difference between 500 gallons of storage and 1000 gallons of storage. I am wondering how you got to 10,000 gallons? Is there that much difference because of climate or other factors? Or, did I screwup somewhere? I should add that since the pictures at the link above were taken, we got 14 inches of snow over Thanksgiving Gary – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Eric> Why do you need concrete at all? > This is a very good question. The answer is: safety and code > compliance. You may have issues with that but I’m unable to use > non-code-compliant solutions. > The big problem I see is the cover. The maximum slope with bare earth > walls is, I think, 1-in-2. A 10k gallon cistern ends up 5 feet deep > with a 8 foot diameter base (plus more for the insulation). The top is > 28 feet in diameter. That’s big, and hard to locate. Worse yet, > spanning that distance with SIPs is hard. You end up with SIPs much > thicker than you need. > With offset block walls, the maximum slope is quite steep, something > like 12-in-1. A more practical design with 12" wide blocks might be > 12-in-2, really 12-in-12/2/pi, so that you have an extra block in each > course. Now a 10k gallon cistern is 10 feet deep, with a 12 foot > diameter bottom and a 16 foot diameter top (plus more for insulation). > Still hard to span, but definitely possible. I think SIPs are a great > idea here, but note that you have to weatherproof the top surface and > make sure you drain the thing away from the bearing points around the > periphery. > And, I’m not at all sure how you would build this thing safely (OSHA > compliant). Potentially you could dig a 38-foot diameter pit with > 1-in-2 walls, cut the bottom 4 feet to 12-in-2 slope, then backfill as > you build out of the hole-within-a-hole. But then you are relying on > the backfill supporting your hoop stresses, which doesn’t sound right. > Somehow, folks build basements for houses without cutting wide slopes > and backfilling, so there must be a way. I suspect, however, that > basements work because they are big enough that the crew has a place to > step back if the sides start coming down. > Another problem with offset block walls is that you’d need to interface > the foam to the stairstep surface of the walls. My guess is that you’d > trowel in great gobs of mortar. Bad idea. > Another possibility is getting a custom block. I don’t know how much > it costs to get a custom mold for these blocks made, but I suspect it’s > not so much for a solid block. A custom mold could give you nice > features like a true 12/2pi offset, rounded angled sides to take the > load, angled faces to fit against the foam nicely, and slots for > circumferential rebar/grout. > Given the size of the (big) XPE tank market, a site-built in-ground > masonry and EPDM tank kit that costs way less than $1/gallon might be a > big seller to the non-solar crowd. Maybe there’s a business here. > Heck, maybe someone could sell molds to folks who want to build big > tanks, and those folks could take the molds to a local cement-block > manufacturer. > Hmm.. how much would a 10k tank of blocks cost? > ~350 blocks $300 > 35×35′ EPDM $690 > 20×20′ EPDM $156 > 18×18′ SIP cover $1000? > If the labor was a few thousand for the backhoe and mason, this could > come in substantially less than $5000. And it’s a better tank: spills > move slower, double-wall construction possible (two layers EPDM and a > sump between), easily insulated, tolerates higher temp than fiberglass > for XPE, tolerates chemicals, variable sizes, very large sizes are > totally feasible, in ground…
– Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
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Gary, Nice writeup. I hope to do something like that for my house. How did I get to 10k gallons? – Northern California climate, 2000 degree-days/year – 1300 ft^2 of R-2.1 windows. That’s a lot. – CA Title 24 requires expensive windows, small windows, or solar thermal, and solar thermal is cheaper than expensive windows. – few hundred cfm of fresh air – house loses ~700k BTU/day in January, 1450 BTU/hr-F – 35x 40 ft^2 flat plate collectors = 1400 ft^2 area. The house roof is designed for them. Angle is too low: 22 degrees… but that fits in the height limit (28 feet). – weather station shows that we see 2-week stretches of cloudy weather during the winter at this site At $1/gallon, the best tank size for this house is about 2000 gallons (about two nights worth of heat). But if the incremental cost of the tank is around $0.30/gallon, the best tank size rises to around 4000 gallons. This analysis presumes current fuel costs. It is very expensive to rip out a built tank and build another larger one. If fuel prices rise, the optimal tank size rises too. The question I asked myself is, how much am I willing to pay for a hedge against future fuel price increases? The answer is: a couple thousand dollars. Now note that the extra tank volume has some usefulness even now, so that my marginal loss for extra tankage is pretty low. A couple thousand dollar hedge ends up being a pretty big tank. This could all be quite stupid if the big tank ends up losing lots of heat because of insulation failures. The collectors cost too much as well, and only make sense because they heat the pool for seven months of the year as well. Maybe more, as I’ve tried to be conservative with the analysis. Feedback on your design: – Under "pros", you claim not to need an expansion tank. Why not? Are you assuming your storage tank will be only partly full, and the ullage space will act as your expansion tank? – Given your collector area and house losses, you need only store heat overnight. Extra tankage just makes your collectors a little better in midwinter, and helps for a few weeks in spring and fall. How steep are the walls of your hole in the ground?
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hi guys, what about using some mix of low temperature melting salts? something like NH4NO3 ( used in countyside, low price easy to find) with some other salts to get a low euthetic point? have you any experience in it? regards fil – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> It looks like $/BTU that water is the least expensive way to store > heat. It’s also denser storeage than most everything except phase change. > So… What about inexpensive water stores? Insulation for that? I > would think fiberglass would not be so desireable unless it could be > well sealed. Polyiso? One store or multiple. > And what do you do about keeping the water from getting rank? > Cheers, > Jeff
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Gary, Two other questions about your design: – How much insulation around the pipes taking water to and from the house? Have you calculated the losses here? – How much insulation around your tank? I found I needed a huge amount. You should get by with less, but I’m still curious what you got.
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hi guys, what about using some mix of low temperature melting salts? something like NH4NO3 ( used in countyside, low price easy to find) with some other salts to get a low euthetic point? have you any experience in it? regards fil I have not done it, but item 5 on this link mentions it: http://www.allanstime.com/SolarHome/index.html – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> It looks like $/BTU that water is the least expensive way to store > heat. It’s also denser storeage than most everything except phase change. > So… What about inexpensive water stores? Insulation for that? I > would think fiberglass would not be so desireable unless it could be > well sealed. Polyiso? One store or multiple. > And what do you do about keeping the water from getting rank? > Cheers, > Jeff
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Question:
It looks like $/BTU that water is the least expensive way to store heat. It’s also denser storeage than most everything except phase change. So… What about inexpensive water stores? Insulation for that? I would think fiberglass would not be so desireable unless it could be well sealed. Polyiso? One store or multiple. And what do you do about keeping the water from getting rank? Cheers, Jeff
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Jeff. I found a plastic industrial tank, meant for above grade. 4,500 gallons, for $2,500. This seems like the best option for me. Tough, large volume, insulating by wrapping with 10" of eps foam. The top is a little irregular. It is 8′ diameter and 10′ tall. Heat exchange will be long piece of 3/4" copper (soft). I guess probably 100′.
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> Jeff. > I found a plastic industrial tank, meant for above grade. 4,500 > gallons, for $2,500. This seems like the best option for me. Tough, > large volume, insulating by wrapping with 10" of eps foam. The top is > a little irregular. It is 8′ diameter and 10′ tall. > Heat exchange will be long piece of 3/4" copper (soft). I guess > probably 100′.
Hi, One thing to check on the large poly tanks is whether the temperature capability is good enough for your application. I am planning to basically 1) dig a hole in the ground, 2) surround the hole with a rectangle of roughly 2 by 10 treated lumber to act as a top sill or curb(bottom of 2by10 on ground and top 10 inches above ground), 3) line the hole and sill with at least 4 inches of rigid foam with the corners and edges sealed with the polyurethane foam in a can, 5) line the foam with an EPDM liner. I am thinking of constructing the cover like a SIP. This seems pretty cheap. — Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
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Gary. Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking along the same line, but I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very hard, glacial till and will make a large, square box quite nicely. How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take before smashing down or I guess at the sides for that matter. Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. Eric
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The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you would take a square of material and fold up the corners. No seems. The side pressure is not that great and dependant on the depth (I made a hot tub at one time). Anyone have the density of water per cubic foot? Questiom remain about the resistance of the liner to bleach or chorline or whatever is needed to keep the tub from turning into a swamp. Cheers, Jeff – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking along the same line, but > I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. > Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very hard, glacial till and > will make a large, square box quite nicely. > How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take before smashing down > or I guess at the sides for that matter. > Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. > Eric
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Gary. > Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking along the same line, but > I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. > Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very hard, glacial till and > will make a large, square box quite nicely. > How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take before smashing down > or I guess at the sides for that matter. > Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. > Eric
Hi, As Jeff points out, the EPDM can be used for roofing, but is it also commonly used for pond linings. Shops that sell supplies for building ponds sell it by the foot off 12 or 15 ft wide rolls. I think that is runs roughly $1 per sqft. I believe it to be good for temps as high as 180F — but, you might want to do a confirmation on that. The rigid foam boards are good for quite a bit of bearing. I think that Nick has said up to 30 psi(?) — that would be about 60 ft depth of water, so should be OK I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt. I’ll then just cut 2 inch thick foam board pieces to fit, using at least two layers. And, using the polyurethane foam in cans to seal the joints. I figure that the foam board will just deflect until it is supported by the dirt walls and bottom. — Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
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One cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds and contains 6.25 gallons anywhere in the world except the USA. message > The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you would take a square > of material and fold up the corners. No seems. > The side pressure is not that great and dependant on the depth (I > made a hot tub at one time). Anyone have the density of water per cubic > foot? > Questiom remain about the resistance of the liner to bleach or > chorline or whatever is needed to keep the tub from
turning into a swamp. > Cheers, > Jeff > Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking
along the same line, but > I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. > Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very
hard, glacial till and > will make a large, square box quite nicely. > How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take
before smashing down – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> or I guess at the sides for that matter. > Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. > Eric
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I often wondered what the insulation value of clear gravel would be with all the air space. This could make a good second layer if insulation outside of the "hard box" perhaps and as a backfill to the styrospan rigid insulation. I understand these polyethylene containers can become soft when warm so metal banding or cables may be in order at a few key spots down the circumference of a tank.
> Gary. > Thanks for posting that. I have been thinking
along the same line, but > I can’t find anybody whoe can make such a custom liner. > Is this a custom ’sock’? My ground here is very
hard, glacial till and > will make a large, square box quite nicely. > How much weight can the bottom sheet of foam take
before smashing down > or I guess at the sides for that matter. > Who make EPDM liners? Time for another google search. > Eric > Hi, > As Jeff points out, the EPDM can be used for roofing, but is it also > commonly used for pond linings. Shops that sell
supplies for building – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> ponds sell it by the foot off 12 or 15 ft wide rolls. I think that is > runs roughly $1 per sqft. I believe it to be good for temps as high > as 180F — but, you might want to do a confirmation on that. > The rigid foam boards are good for quite a bit of bearing. I think > that Nick has said up to 30 psi(?) — that would be about 60 ft depth > of water, so should be OK > I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape > with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt. I’ll then just cut 2 > inch thick foam board pieces to fit, using at least two layers. And, > using the polyurethane foam in cans to seal the
joints. I figure that > the foam board will just deflect until it is
supported by the dirt – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> walls and bottom. > — > Gary > www.BuildItSolar.com > "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects > —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com –
Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- > http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in
the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups > —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total
Privacy via Encryption =—-
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> One cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds and contains > 6.25 gallons anywhere in the world except the USA.
Something doesn’t look right….weight one gallon water… 8.33 lbs…. http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/gasoline.shtml think that should be 7.5 gallons not 6.25….except where you are….<grin>… have fun…..sno > message > The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you > would take a square > of material and fold up the corners. No seems.
– Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it This tag line is generated by: SLTG (Silly Little Tag Generator)
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One cubic foot of water at 25C contains 62.24536 pounds of water. > One cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds and contains > 6.25 gallons anywhere in the world except the USA.
Something doesn’t look right….weight one gallon water… 8.33 lbs…. http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/gasoline.shtml think that should be 7.5 gallons not 6.25….except where you are….<grin>… have fun…..sno > message > The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you > would take a square > of material and fold up the corners. No seems.
– Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it This tag line is generated by: SLTG (Silly Little Tag Generator)
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>… EPDM can be used for roofing, but is it also commonly used for pond >linings. Shops that sell supplies for building ponds sell it by the foot >off 12 or 15 ft wide rolls. I think that is runs roughly $1 per sqft.
The roofing stuff comes in 10′ and 20′ wide rolls x 50′ or 100′ long and costs about 30 cents/ft^2. >I believe it to be good for temps as high as 180F —
I’m told it will last 5-10 years at 180 and indefinitely at 170. >The rigid foam boards are good for quite a bit of bearing. I think >that Nick has said up to 30 psi(?) —
Up to 130 F for Styrofoam, or 350 for polyiso. >I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape >with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt.
You might make a tank about 3′ deep x 4′ wide that way, by folding up a single piece of 10′-wide EPDM. Nick
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>>I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape >with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt. > You might make a tank about 3′ deep x 4′ wide that way, by folding up > a single piece of 10′-wide EPDM.
so, for vertical walls and 4′ long, 48 cubic feet and a bit less than 3000lbs. With a 20degree F cycle, nearly 60,000 BTU One big "tank" or several smaller ones? It’s easier to heat a smaller tank to a usefull temp and valves are cheap. Or is that more trouble than it might be worth? Cheers, Jeff – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Nick
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I’ll summarize my notes so far. We’ve not concluded our thermal store design. Just plain water is the way to go. I looked at rocks, and even a tank filled with rocks and water (thread was last year, IIRC). The rocks make a mess. I wouldn’t mess around with antifreeze — in the quantities required it is expensive, and though a drainback collector wastes pump energy, this turns out to cost very little. Linear polyethylene tanks are rated to 130 F. Cross-linked polyethylene tanks are rated to 140 F. Fiberglass tanks are rated to 150 F. For storing solar heat from a glazed flat plate collector for use in a radiant floor, the XPE tank limits you to about 350 BTU/gallon. The usual quoted prices are about $1/gallon, but even at $0.50/gallon, if natural gas is $1.20/therm, it costs about $125 to store $1 worth of heat. You will need to cycle the tank to empty several times a year to make it worthwhile (with current fuel costs). The good thing about these tanks is that they are easy to specify, since they come from a factory which guarantees the specs. Engineers like them for that reason. Anything built on site will necessarily be more design intensive and more difficult to guarantee. EPDM rubber is commonly used for roofing and for pond liners. The roofing stuff is rated to 300 F *for that application*. I don’t know if the roofing stuff is different from the pond liner stuff, and I certainly wouldn’t try putting a 300 F liquid against it at pressure. But my guess (i.e. I’m going to try it) is that EPDM will hold even 200 F water to many feet of head. EPDM will tolerate bleach or many other household chemicals that you might use to avoid freezing or biological activity. At $0.39/ft^2 EPDM is quite practical, even for tanks that get completely cycled just a few times each year. The insulation is more difficult. There are two kinds of foam, EPS (polystyrene), and polyisocyanurate (or polyurethane). The former is the blue or pink board, or the pipe insulation. It comes in 10, 15, 20, and 30 psi grades (good for 5, 7, 10, and 15 foot-deep cisterns), and is commonly used under the slabs of buildings, in which application it must sustain these loads indefinitely while soaked in ground water and exposed to termites. It is only rated for about 170 F (180 F short-term), which is unfortunate but not a large loss of capability for a glazed flat-plate collector. A concern I have is that a fold in an EPDM liner in direct contact with a horizontal seam between two foam boards could expand into that seam. Since the boards are quite buoyant in water, over time hydrostatic forces could partially eject the insulation from the pit and strain the EPDM liner. Some sort of cover over the seams (e.g. 1 foot wide 1/2 inch plywood) might mitigate this issue. The polyisocyanurate and polyurethane foam is the stuff that comes in cans, or is mixed on site, and is used in roofing. It can handle high temperatures. It is not clear to me that it can handle large sustained loads or direct contact with ground water. Belowground and aboveground tanks can be built of ferrocement, i.e. shotcrete or gunnite, like a swimming pool. But thermal stores want to be a different shape than a pool (deeper for width), and there are OSHA limits on what the guys can work on. Basically, OSHA doesn’t want the unsupported dirt caving in and burying the guy lining the tank. A shotcrete tank would probably have the insulation on the outside of the tank, which is to say it would be placed in the hole first. I talked to some engineers and pool contractors about this idea and came away with the impression it would cost $1/gallon, about the same as a factory-built XPE tank. In-ground tanks can also be built of cement blocks. Once again, there are OSHA issues with deep narrow holes, but if you don’t mind risking your life to save a buck you could probably DIY since cement block construction is unskilled (but note that building code requires an engineer to approve any retaining wall taller than 4 feet). The obvious shape for such a tank is cylindrical, since that makes the sides arched against hoop stresses from ground pressure, which is a defect-tolerant shape. If a DIY project, I’d think it would be easier to build the cement block wall before installing insulation, since you’d get the dangerous bit over with quicker. A cylindrical shape will be more difficult to fold a flat EPDM liner into. The footing for the cement blocks must also be designed, dug and poured, which might be nontrivial and risky. A variation on this theme is to use sloped walls. Concrete blocks with notches designed for particular offsets are available. These walls can be quite steep (12-in-1), require no mortar, and can be built to code without footings to arbitrary height, since the soil behind the wall takes the load. You’ll have to deal with varying (possibly fractional) numbers of blocks around the increasing circumference as you go up, and you’ll have a larger cap on top. In-ground tanks can be built without retaining walls, but then the slope has to be quite shallow (1-in-2 or even less), so that spanning the top is a problem and the shape requires a lot of insulation. Spanning the top of the tank is an issue. You start with another EPDM sheet anchored sufficiently to hold up the overlying EPS insulation. The tank space will need to be vented to atmospheric pressure so that it doesn’t suck this EPDM sheet down. One big advantage of building the tank in the basement is that you were going to span that space anyway. An outdoor tank has to be capped in some way that keeps rainwater from degrading any structure, and prevents people from overloading the cap. Public facilities usually have a roof surrounded by a chain link fence — really ugly. A few notes on building the tank in the basement: the basement walls must be able to support the lateral pressure of the water, and you need a way to vent any water evaporating from the tank before it condenses into your living area. EPS foam specs: http://www.fpcfoam.com/techdat-rigid.html
Response:
>>>I am planning to just dig the hole in a basically rectangular shape >>with sides that have about a 60 degree tilt. > You might make a tank about 3′ deep x 4′ wide that way, by folding up > a single piece of 10′-wide EPDM. >so, for vertical walls and 4′ long, 48 cubic feet and a bit less than >3000lbs.
With a 10′x16′ piece of EPDM, which can stretch about 100%. This might work for 60 degree walls. > With a 20degree F cycle, nearly 60,000 BTU
Yup. >One big "tank" or several smaller ones?
Gary might make his shed tank 20′ long, with a 10′x24′ piece of EPDM and 240 ft^3 storing 240×62(170-80) = 1.3 million Btu of useful heat. Nick
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That’s exactly what I posted.
> One cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 pounds and contains > 6.25 gallons anywhere in the world except the USA. > Something doesn’t look right….weight one gallon water… > 8.33 lbs….
http://www.santacruzpl.org/readyref/files/g-l/gasoline.shtml > think that should be 7.5 gallons not 6.25….except where > you are….<grin>… > have fun…..sno > message
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> > The EPDM is used as roofing. I would image that you > would take a square > > of material and fold up the corners. No seems. > — > Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it > This tag line is generated by: > SLTG (Silly Little Tag Generator)
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… > The insulation is more difficult. There are two kinds of foam, EPS > (polystyrene), and polyisocyanurate (or polyurethane). The former is > the blue or pink board, or the pipe insulation. It comes in 10, 15, > 20, and 30 psi grades (good for 5, 7, 10, and 15 foot-deep cisterns),
Seems like 30 psi bearing should be good for 30psi/0.433psi/ft = 70 ft depth of water? What am I missing? Gary — Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
Response:
> …<attribution lost>… > The insulation is more difficult. There are two kinds of foam, EPS > (polystyrene), and polyisocyanurate (or polyurethane). The former is > the blue or pink board, or the pipe insulation. It comes in 10, 15, > 20, and 30 psi grades (good for 5, 7, 10, and 15 foot-deep cisterns), > Seems like 30 psi bearing should be good for 30psi/0.433psi/ft = 70 ft > depth of water? What am I missing?
You do have to add the weight of the cistern itself. This might be substantial if it is made out of concrete but I can’t imagine that it would be that substantial. Perhaps they are just keeping a safety factor of some 400%? Anthony
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Gary> Seems like 30 psi bearing should be good for 30psi/0.433psi/ft = 70 ft Gary> depth of water? What am I missing? I screwed up and divided where I should have multiplied. You’re right. Good for 20, 30, 45, and 70 foot deep cisterns. Even if the concrete is inside the insulation, it doesn’t dominate the weight load. I consider this a bad thing, since I’d prefer my concrete to stay put while I’m adding water. If I’ve got 6 inches of EPS, it’ll settle half an inch at max design load (=10% compression). What might be good or bad is that the concrete will take all the hoop stress and the surrounding insulation will transmit none of it to the dirt, since the concrete is so much stiffer than the foam. On the other hand, if the foam is inside the concrete, the equivalent tank will open a half-inch gap between the bottom insulation and the side insulation as I load it with water. The liner has to span that gap, under pressure and at temp, forever, which sounds to me like a failure mode. It might be a good idea to build the corners out of much stronger foam to minimize this gap. For a (10 foot)^3 = 7500 gallon cistern with 4" thick concrete walls, the concrete is about 15% of the volume, one-third the weight, and 7% of the heat capacity. Opinions: Concrete-inside-foam seems like the right design for a stand-alone cistern. Foam-inside-concrete seems like the right design for a cistern in the basement, in any climate with simultaneous heating and cooling loads, as otherwise there is a great deal of heat loss through the basement structure. Foam-inside-offset-blocks seems like the right design for a DIY stand-alone cistern. It would be nice to get some benchmark public-domain cistern designs criticized and refined to the point where a licensed engineer could sign off on them, and get prices quoted and published. That way people would have something they could base their own designs on with confidence. It might be challenging to avoid overdesigning the thing, given the lack of site context.
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Why do you need concrete at all? I am thinking the box of foam could be made and sent in a larger dirt box in the floor. Some angled pieces against the corners to fill the gaps created as the foam is compacted. As you fill the liner in the box with water, you back fill the space between the foam and the earthen walls. It will take 12 or 20hrs to fill up, I think.
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Eric> Why do you need concrete at all? This is a very good question. The answer is: safety and code compliance. You may have issues with that but I’m unable to use non-code-compliant solutions. The big problem I see is the cover. The maximum slope with bare earth walls is, I think, 1-in-2. A 10k gallon cistern ends up 5 feet deep with a 8 foot diameter base (plus more for the insulation). The top is 28 feet in diameter. That’s big, and hard to locate. Worse yet, spanning that distance with SIPs is hard. You end up with SIPs much thicker than you need. With offset block walls, the maximum slope is quite steep, something like 12-in-1. A more practical design with 12" wide blocks might be 12-in-2, really 12-in-12/2/pi, so that you have an extra block in each course. Now a 10k gallon cistern is 10 feet deep, with a 12 foot diameter bottom and a 16 foot diameter top (plus more for insulation). Still hard to span, but definitely possible. I think SIPs are a great idea here, but note that you have to weatherproof the top surface and make sure you drain the thing away from the bearing points around the periphery. And, I’m not at all sure how you would build this thing safely (OSHA compliant). Potentially you could dig a 38-foot diameter pit with 1-in-2 walls, cut the bottom 4 feet to 12-in-2 slope, then backfill as you build out of the hole-within-a-hole. But then you are relying on the backfill supporting your hoop stresses, which doesn’t sound right. Somehow, folks build basements for houses without cutting wide slopes and backfilling, so there must be a way. I suspect, however, that basements work because they are big enough that the crew has a place to step back if the sides start coming down. Another problem with offset block walls is that you’d need to interface the foam to the stairstep surface of the walls. My guess is that you’d trowel in great gobs of mortar. Bad idea. Another possibility is getting a custom block. I don’t know how much it costs to get a custom mold for these blocks made, but I suspect it’s not so much for a solid block. A custom mold could give you nice features like a true 12/2pi offset, rounded angled sides to take the load, angled faces to fit against the foam nicely, and slots for circumferential rebar/grout. Given the size of the (big) XPE tank market, a site-built in-ground masonry and EPDM tank kit that costs way less than $1/gallon might be a big seller to the non-solar crowd. Maybe there’s a business here. Heck, maybe someone could sell molds to folks who want to build big tanks, and those folks could take the molds to a local cement-block manufacturer. Hmm.. how much would a 10k tank of blocks cost? ~350 blocks $300 35×35′ EPDM $690 20×20′ EPDM $156 18×18′ SIP cover $1000? If the labor was a few thousand for the backhoe and mason, this could come in substantially less than $5000. And it’s a better tank: spills move slower, double-wall construction possible (two layers EPDM and a sump between), easily insulated, tolerates higher temp than fiberglass for XPE, tolerates chemicals, variable sizes, very large sizes are totally feasible, in ground…
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Hi Iain, I am in the process of building some solar space heating for my house: http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/InWorkshop/SolarShed/solarsh… It will have a "hole in the ground" style 500+ gallon heat storage tank in the garden shed floor (well insulated). I have a simulation, and have run it with a 500 gallon tank and a 1000 gallon tank. The rough results are as follows: Climate: SW Montana (8000 deg-days) Collector area: 240 sqft House heat loss: 350 BTU/hr-F House effective thermal mass: 6000 lb Collectors: Flat Plate, selective coating Solar Fractions by month for the two tank sizes: Month 500gallon 1000 gallon 10 0.81 0.94 11 0.36 0.39 12 0.23 0.23 1 0.24 0.24 2 0.31 0.32 3 0.48 0.5 4 0.62 0.64 The larger tank does a bit better in the warmer months of the heating season. But, when you look at total BTUs produced by the system with the two tank sizes, its not very great — about 5%: Total solar BTUs: with 500 gallon tank: 20.4 MBTU with 1000 gallon tank: 21.2 MBTU I’ve also run it with evac tube collectors, and the differences are small. The simulation uses the hour by hour TMY weather file for Helena, MT, and the collector output is calculated based on the efficiency curve, sun in, Tambient, and Tstorage. So, I am not seeing much difference between 500 gallons of storage and 1000 gallons of storage. I am wondering how you got to 10,000 gallons? Is there that much difference because of climate or other factors? Or, did I screwup somewhere? I should add that since the pictures at the link above were taken, we got 14 inches of snow over Thanksgiving Gary – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > Eric> Why do you need concrete at all? > This is a very good question. The answer is: safety and code > compliance. You may have issues with that but I’m unable to use > non-code-compliant solutions. > The big problem I see is the cover. The maximum slope with bare earth > walls is, I think, 1-in-2. A 10k gallon cistern ends up 5 feet deep > with a 8 foot diameter base (plus more for the insulation). The top is > 28 feet in diameter. That’s big, and hard to locate. Worse yet, > spanning that distance with SIPs is hard. You end up with SIPs much > thicker than you need. > With offset block walls, the maximum slope is quite steep, something > like 12-in-1. A more practical design with 12" wide blocks might be > 12-in-2, really 12-in-12/2/pi, so that you have an extra block in each > course. Now a 10k gallon cistern is 10 feet deep, with a 12 foot > diameter bottom and a 16 foot diameter top (plus more for insulation). > Still hard to span, but definitely possible. I think SIPs are a great > idea here, but note that you have to weatherproof the top surface and > make sure you drain the thing away from the bearing points around the > periphery. > And, I’m not at all sure how you would build this thing safely (OSHA > compliant). Potentially you could dig a 38-foot diameter pit with > 1-in-2 walls, cut the bottom 4 feet to 12-in-2 slope, then backfill as > you build out of the hole-within-a-hole. But then you are relying on > the backfill supporting your hoop stresses, which doesn’t sound right. > Somehow, folks build basements for houses without cutting wide slopes > and backfilling, so there must be a way. I suspect, however, that > basements work because they are big enough that the crew has a place to > step back if the sides start coming down. > Another problem with offset block walls is that you’d need to interface > the foam to the stairstep surface of the walls. My guess is that you’d > trowel in great gobs of mortar. Bad idea. > Another possibility is getting a custom block. I don’t know how much > it costs to get a custom mold for these blocks made, but I suspect it’s > not so much for a solid block. A custom mold could give you nice > features like a true 12/2pi offset, rounded angled sides to take the > load, angled faces to fit against the foam nicely, and slots for > circumferential rebar/grout. > Given the size of the (big) XPE tank market, a site-built in-ground > masonry and EPDM tank kit that costs way less than $1/gallon might be a > big seller to the non-solar crowd. Maybe there’s a business here. > Heck, maybe someone could sell molds to folks who want to build big > tanks, and those folks could take the molds to a local cement-block > manufacturer. > Hmm.. how much would a 10k tank of blocks cost? > ~350 blocks $300 > 35×35′ EPDM $690 > 20×20′ EPDM $156 > 18×18′ SIP cover $1000? > If the labor was a few thousand for the backhoe and mason, this could > come in substantially less than $5000. And it’s a better tank: spills > move slower, double-wall construction possible (two layers EPDM and a > sump between), easily insulated, tolerates higher temp than fiberglass > for XPE, tolerates chemicals, variable sizes, very large sizes are > totally feasible, in ground…
– Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
Response:
Gary, Nice writeup. I hope to do something like that for my house. How did I get to 10k gallons? – Northern California climate, 2000 degree-days/year – 1300 ft^2 of R-2.1 windows. That’s a lot. – CA Title 24 requires expensive windows, small windows, or solar thermal, and solar thermal is cheaper than expensive windows. – few hundred cfm of fresh air – house loses ~700k BTU/day in January, 1450 BTU/hr-F – 35x 40 ft^2 flat plate collectors = 1400 ft^2 area. The house roof is designed for them. Angle is too low: 22 degrees… but that fits in the height limit (28 feet). – weather station shows that we see 2-week stretches of cloudy weather during the winter at this site At $1/gallon, the best tank size for this house is about 2000 gallons (about two nights worth of heat). But if the incremental cost of the tank is around $0.30/gallon, the best tank size rises to around 4000 gallons. This analysis presumes current fuel costs. It is very expensive to rip out a built tank and build another larger one. If fuel prices rise, the optimal tank size rises too. The question I asked myself is, how much am I willing to pay for a hedge against future fuel price increases? The answer is: a couple thousand dollars. Now note that the extra tank volume has some usefulness even now, so that my marginal loss for extra tankage is pretty low. A couple thousand dollar hedge ends up being a pretty big tank. This could all be quite stupid if the big tank ends up losing lots of heat because of insulation failures. The collectors cost too much as well, and only make sense because they heat the pool for seven months of the year as well. Maybe more, as I’ve tried to be conservative with the analysis. Feedback on your design: – Under "pros", you claim not to need an expansion tank. Why not? Are you assuming your storage tank will be only partly full, and the ullage space will act as your expansion tank? – Given your collector area and house losses, you need only store heat overnight. Extra tankage just makes your collectors a little better in midwinter, and helps for a few weeks in spring and fall. How steep are the walls of your hole in the ground?
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hi guys, what about using some mix of low temperature melting salts? something like NH4NO3 ( used in countyside, low price easy to find) with some other salts to get a low euthetic point? have you any experience in it? regards fil – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> It looks like $/BTU that water is the least expensive way to store > heat. It’s also denser storeage than most everything except phase change. > So… What about inexpensive water stores? Insulation for that? I > would think fiberglass would not be so desireable unless it could be > well sealed. Polyiso? One store or multiple. > And what do you do about keeping the water from getting rank? > Cheers, > Jeff
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Gary, Two other questions about your design: – How much insulation around the pipes taking water to and from the house? Have you calculated the losses here? – How much insulation around your tank? I found I needed a huge amount. You should get by with less, but I’m still curious what you got.
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hi guys, what about using some mix of low temperature melting salts? something like NH4NO3 ( used in countyside, low price easy to find) with some other salts to get a low euthetic point? have you any experience in it? regards fil I have not done it, but item 5 on this link mentions it: http://www.allanstime.com/SolarHome/index.html – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> It looks like $/BTU that water is the least expensive way to store > heat. It’s also denser storeage than most everything except phase change. > So… What about inexpensive water stores? Insulation for that? I > would think fiberglass would not be so desireable unless it could be > well sealed. Polyiso? One store or multiple. > And what do you do about keeping the water from getting rank? > Cheers, > Jeff
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Question:
It seems to me that there might a combination of large volume, low temperature storage and heat pump. Maybe 10,000 gallons. This would help increase efficiency and provide backup heat for a run of dark, cloudy cold days in seattle. Does anyone have any experience with such? How big are heat pumps, how expensive and reliable are they and can they transfer heat from water to water? Eric I did some searches of alt.solar.thermal and it has piqued my interest.
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It seems to me that there might a combination of large volume, low temperature storage and heat pump. Maybe 10,000 gallons. This would help increase efficiency and provide backup heat for a run of dark, cloudy cold days in seattle. Does anyone have any experience with such? How big are heat pumps, how expensive and reliable are they and can they transfer heat from water to water? Eric I did some searches of alt.solar.thermal and it has piqued my interest. I think that ground source heat pumps transfer heat from fluid to air. Maybe that would work to recover the heat from the warm water tank.
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> It seems to me that there might a combination of large volume, low > temperature storage and heat pump. Maybe 10,000 gallons.
As far as heat pumps go you can look into mini-splits, they are small versions of whole house heat pumps. You can also look at ground source, although I don’t know if those come in mini splits. Bear in mind I don’t have solar experience… but… It’s hard too see a significant advantage of a large low temp storage over a smaller higher temp when both store the quantity of heat. Going through the extra step of raising the temperature with a heat pump. This is different than a ground source heat pump where more heat is conducted in naturally, rather than having to be supplied. Maybe crunching some numbers would help, but I see lots of problems. We need a FAQ with basic equations and maybe a little javascript to help grind the numbers. I can contribute web space and programming. Just a central repository with Nicks (and others) equations would be nice… Cheers, Jeff This would – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> help increase efficiency and provide backup heat for a run of dark, > cloudy cold days in seattle. > Does anyone have any experience with such? How big are heat pumps, > how expensive and reliable are they and can they transfer heat from > water to water? > Eric > I did some searches of alt.solar.thermal and it has piqued my interest.
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I was beginning to consider a scheme such as this but with a factor of 3:1 for the electrical energy put in and our NG prices at about 1/3 the mechanical complexity addition is not welcome for my application and pricing right now. You could put ice cold water into your solar panels and absorb much more heat from the sun with less insulation and absorber complexity. message > It seems to me that there might a combination of large volume, low > temperature storage and heat pump. Maybe 10,000
gallons. This would – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> help increase efficiency and provide backup heat for a run of dark, > cloudy cold days in seattle. > Does anyone have any experience with such? How big are heat pumps, > how expensive and reliable are they and can they transfer heat from > water to water? > Eric > I did some searches of alt.solar.thermal and it has piqued my interest.
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Solar Flare. I think my ground temperature is around 50 degrees. When I mean low temperature, I mean probably 80 to 100 deg F. That seems like a big differential to me. The heatpump would require less energy and one would not need to to do all that expensive vertical drilling $30,000. In the summer, all heat from airconditioning would be recovered. Eric
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Question:
I’m in Atlanta and am interested in cheap home made solar. Electricity is cheap here, natural gas including all charges, is not. First, is there a FAQ for this group? Here’s what I’m thinking… (mounted on a "dog house" on the roof, roughly 45 degrees). I’ve been wrong before… and I’m not expecting answers to everything… It seems to me that passing air through a "perforated" collector is preferable to passing it over or under it. The pressure drop across the collector will minimize the need for any ducting to prevent hot/cold spots and the heat transfer is greater. What should the collector be? Multiple layers of black aluminum screen tied together? Garden Shade cloth? I saw someone mention black felt (probably on or sandwiched in screen)? Some kind of metal, with holes punched through it (the thicker the metal the fewer and larger the holes)? What about the collector back, if the internal is cross and front to back braced (16" to 24" spans) would 1" sheet insulation be sufficient? Should this be foil covered with the foil facing back at the collector? Are there sources of inexpensive polycarbonate glazing, or should I look at something else? Anything else I should know? What about phase change storeage (salt or fat or something else)? I was thinking of *not* reheating the air (saving ducting going up) but in using some pseudo transpirated collector to feed a glazed collector to boost the temp. (It looks like winter mean temps are 46 degrees or so and we in the US have an effective pro global warming policy. <URL: http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl >) Is that a good idea (the outside air, not the policy)? Humidty problems on rainy days? What about desicant in collectors? Is anyone doing closed loop air flowing through car radiators/condensors and then pumping the fluid? Cheers, Jeff
Response:
It’s not necessary to sandwich a felt absorber between screen. You can email collector construction. All the interior surfaces of the collector should be reflective except the absorber. When heating homes, one uses a recirculating system. The "transpired" type that pre-heat outside air are for situations (mainly industrial) that already use large quantities of fresh-air ventilation. – Bill
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> I’m in Atlanta and am interested in cheap home made solar. Electricity > is cheap here, natural gas including all charges, is not. > First, is there a FAQ for this group? > Here’s what I’m thinking… (mounted on a "dog house" on the roof, > roughly 45 degrees). I’ve been wrong before… and I’m not expecting > answers to everything… > It seems to me that passing air through a "perforated" collector is > preferable to passing it over or under it. The pressure drop across the > collector will minimize the need for any ducting to prevent hot/cold spots > and the heat transfer is greater. What should the collector be? Multiple > layers of black aluminum screen tied together? Garden Shade cloth? I saw > someone mention black felt (probably on or sandwiched in screen)? Some > kind of metal, with holes punched through it (the thicker the metal the > fewer and larger the holes)? > What about the collector back, if the internal is cross and front to > back braced (16" to 24" spans) would 1" sheet insulation be sufficient? > Should this be foil covered with the foil facing back at the collector? > Are there sources of inexpensive polycarbonate glazing, or should I look > at something else? > Anything else I should know? What about phase change storeage (salt or > fat or something else)? > I was thinking of *not* reheating the air (saving ducting going up) but > in using some pseudo transpirated collector to feed a glazed collector to > boost the temp. (It looks like winter mean temps are 46 degrees or so and > we in the US have an effective pro global warming policy. <URL: > http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl >) Is that a good idea (the outside air, not the policy)? Humidty > problems on rainy days? What about desicant in collectors? > Is anyone doing closed loop air flowing through car radiators/condensors > and then pumping the fluid? > Cheers, > Jeff
Response:
Hi Jeff, You might take a look here for some ideas on collector construction: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm Gary – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > I’m in Atlanta and am interested in cheap home made solar. Electricity > is cheap here, natural gas including all charges, is not. > First, is there a FAQ for this group? > Here’s what I’m thinking… (mounted on a "dog house" on the roof, > roughly 45 degrees). I’ve been wrong before… and I’m not expecting > answers to everything… > It seems to me that passing air through a "perforated" collector is > preferable to passing it over or under it. The pressure drop across the > collector will minimize the need for any ducting to prevent hot/cold > spots and the heat transfer is greater. What should the collector be? > Multiple layers of black aluminum screen tied together? Garden Shade > cloth? I saw someone mention black felt (probably on or sandwiched in > screen)? Some kind of metal, with holes punched through it (the thicker > the metal the fewer and larger the holes)? > What about the collector back, if the internal is cross and front to > back braced (16" to 24" spans) would 1" sheet insulation be sufficient? > Should this be foil covered with the foil facing back at the collector? > Are there sources of inexpensive polycarbonate glazing, or should I > look at something else? > Anything else I should know? What about phase change storeage (salt or > fat or something else)? > I was thinking of *not* reheating the air (saving ducting going up) > but in using some pseudo transpirated collector to feed a glazed > collector to boost the temp. (It looks like winter mean temps are 46 > degrees or so and we in the US have an effective pro global warming > policy. <URL: http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl > >) Is that a good idea (the outside air, not the policy)? Humidty > problems on rainy days? What about desicant in collectors? > Is anyone doing closed loop air flowing through car > radiators/condensors and then pumping the fluid? > Cheers, > Jeff
– Gary www.BuildItSolar.com "Build It Yourself" Solar Projects —-== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com – Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==—- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups —-= East and West-Coast Server Farms – Total Privacy via Encryption =—-
Response:
Question:
> The thread got a bit off-track with HOAs and clothlines, but I think > your idea to take hot air from the attic is excellent. > Not just to save gas, but much more to save electricity when your AC > does not need to work so hard. > Couple of technical issues to consider : > Can you mount a pipe on your dryer air input ? Some dryers have > just a screened opening in the back or even bottom, so it is > much harder to control where it sucks the air from.
I’ve not yet seen a dryer like that. This is an issue to figure out. > Also, do you have space to run an insulated duct from the attic to the dryer ?
It’s no longer an easy thing to do, and there are other pipes there. I will run it outside the wall and then decorate it somehow. > Finally, does your gas-heater in the dryer adjust automatically to the > air inside the dryer ? Some dryers are not so smart and just discard > extra heat if the air in the dryer gets too warm.
Gas or electric, this is a technical issue to be resolved. I don’t think it’s a problem. I really would be pleasantly surprised if I had to worry about dumping extra heat. > Rob
Thanks for the input.
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The thread got a bit off-track with HOAs and clothlines, but I think your idea to take hot air from the attic is excellent. Not just to save gas, but much more to save electricity when your AC does not need to work so hard. Couple of technical issues to consider : Can you mount a pipe on your dryer air input ? Some dryers have just a screened opening in the back or even bottom, so it is much harder to control where it sucks the air from. Also, do you have space to run an insulated duct from the attic to the dryer ? Finally, does your gas-heater in the dryer adjust automatically to the air inside the dryer ? Some dryers are not so smart and just discard extra heat if the air in the dryer gets too warm. Rob – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >I don’t need to worry about heating the house–I’m in Phonix, where > cooling is the issue. > There is LOTS of heat in the attic; in the summer they can typically > get to 140 degrees or so. But I’m running an air conditioner, and when > I run the clothes dryer, I’m sucking out the cool air, heating it up > and blowing it out, which draws a vacuum on the house, sucking in more > hot air that makes the AC run some more. Stupidest design I ever saw, > but that’s the only way they build the box houses down here. > SOOOoooooOOO… > I am thinking of putting in a duct to run the preheated attic air into > the dryer, and then vent the dryer outside. Preheated air is good, > and no vacuum on the house is good. I might need a filter for attic > dust (it’s the cellulose type, not fiberglass)in the dryer inlet. > Anyone see any other problems?
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>>all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? >>>I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- >>>most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo >>>tent . >>Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. >>HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines >>Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the >>line and pick them up out of the dirt. >>Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of >>people will. >excuse my ignorance what is a HOA and why are thay so adverced to >hanging of washing ? > "HOA" refers to the dreaded "Home Owners’ Assocation". I don’t know > if you have these over on that side of the pond. Basicly, it’s an > amazingly anal group of people who make sure everyone in the > neighborhood keeps their house looking exactly the same.
there are management co’s/residents comittys etc…. but thease are normaly for flats and buildings residing on leased land . there may be some such stipulation in some gated comunitys (no public right of way) . but washing lines are the norm in most peoples gardens/open space and some social land lord’s (housing associations) fit rotory lines .
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> it will get really bad, sometime. what is your contribution? > Where did THAT come from??? > Homes here–and most places in the US–are built dumb. The laundry > sucks ACd air and heats it up and throws it out. I’m trying to come up > with a fix–at least a partial fix–that will work. There is free heat > available and I’m looking for a way to use it. THAT’s my contribution. > I’ve put solar systems on 2 houses, insulated above builder’s standards > on 2 houses. I’m now in another new house and I’m investing in energy > conservation/generation yet again. The vast majority of builders > themselves are idiots and won’t even cooperate just a little bit, so I > have to retrofit. While I may not be able to change everyone’s > lifestyle in one swell foop, I’m at least trying to find ways to > minimize the consumption for that particular life style. > I’ve probably invested about 15 to 20 thousand dollars over the years > upgrading houses and installing solar or other energy > collections/conservation items. > I also drive fuel-efficient cars, try to live near where I work, and > use xeriscaping. My last yard was a certified Backyard Wildlife > Habitat; this will be too. I vote for people who support expensive > energy, so our society will conserve. As soon as I am able, I intend > to put PV on the house here. > And trust me–around here, an outdoor laundry line is not really an > option. It’s a construction zone for the next 5 years, in a dirt area > of former farms. > I talk about energy conservation and alternatives. I put my money > where my talk is. I came here looking for a couple ideas. > That’s part of my contribution. What’s YOURS?
you can call me a public-awareness troll. my small contribution does not match yours. i telecommute, use solar hw and no dryer and stir the pot on these groups. if the majority took this as seriously as you, we wouldn’t be in for a crash. thanks for the resume and the contribution.
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->it will get really bad, sometime. what is your contribution? > Where did THAT come from??? > Homes here–and most places in the US–are built dumb. The laundry > sucks ACd air and heats it up and throws it out. I’m trying to come up > with a fix–at least a partial fix–that will work. There is free heat > available and I’m looking for a way to use it. THAT’s my contribution. > I’ve put solar systems on 2 houses, insulated above builder’s standards > on 2 houses. I’m now in another new house and I’m investing in energy > conservation/generation yet again. The vast majority of builders > themselves are idiots and won’t even cooperate just a little bit, so I > have to retrofit. While I may not be able to change everyone’s > lifestyle in one swell foop, I’m at least trying to find ways to > minimize the consumption for that particular life style. > I’ve probably invested about 15 to 20 thousand dollars over the years > upgrading houses and installing solar or other energy > collections/conservation items. > I also drive fuel-efficient cars, try to live near where I work, and > use xeriscaping. My last yard was a certified Backyard Wildlife > Habitat; this will be too. I vote for people who support expensive > energy, so our society will conserve. As soon as I am able, I intend > to put PV on the house here. > And trust me–around here, an outdoor laundry line is not really an > option. It’s a construction zone for the next 5 years, in a dirt area > of former farms. > I talk about energy conservation and alternatives. I put my money > where my talk is. I came here looking for a couple ideas. > That’s part of my contribution. What’s YOURS?
Don’t let them get you down. Try the attic thing, I think it’s a good idea.
Response:
> it will get really bad, sometime. what is your contribution?
Where did THAT come from??? Homes here–and most places in the US–are built dumb. The laundry sucks ACd air and heats it up and throws it out. I’m trying to come up with a fix–at least a partial fix–that will work. There is free heat available and I’m looking for a way to use it. THAT’s my contribution. I’ve put solar systems on 2 houses, insulated above builder’s standards on 2 houses. I’m now in another new house and I’m investing in energy conservation/generation yet again. The vast majority of builders themselves are idiots and won’t even cooperate just a little bit, so I have to retrofit. While I may not be able to change everyone’s lifestyle in one swell foop, I’m at least trying to find ways to minimize the consumption for that particular life style. I’ve probably invested about 15 to 20 thousand dollars over the years upgrading houses and installing solar or other energy collections/conservation items. I also drive fuel-efficient cars, try to live near where I work, and use xeriscaping. My last yard was a certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat; this will be too. I vote for people who support expensive energy, so our society will conserve. As soon as I am able, I intend to put PV on the house here. And trust me–around here, an outdoor laundry line is not really an option. It’s a construction zone for the next 5 years, in a dirt area of former farms. I talk about energy conservation and alternatives. I put my money where my talk is. I came here looking for a couple ideas. That’s part of my contribution. What’s YOURS?
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? >I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- >most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo >tent . > Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. > HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines > Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the > line and pick them up out of the dirt. > Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of > people will.
excuse my ignorance what is a HOA and why are thay so adverced to hanging of washing ?
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? >>I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- >>most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo >>tent . > Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. > HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines > Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the > line and pick them up out of the dirt. > Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of > people will. > excuse my ignorance what is a HOA and why are thay so adverced to hanging > of washing ?
HOA stands for Home Owners Association. They are big in S Cal and elsewhere to help keep rif raf out and property values up. They are a private regulatory pseudo government that tells home owners what they can and can not do. You agree to this before you buy. Most do not like the "eye sore" of clothes lines.
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? >>I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- >>most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo >>tent . > Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. > HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines > Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the > line and pick them up out of the dirt. > Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of > people will. > excuse my ignorance what is a HOA and why are thay so adverced to > hanging of washing ?
"HOA" refers to the dreaded "Home Owners’ Assocation". I don’t know if you have these over on that side of the pond. Basicly, it’s an amazingly anal group of people who make sure everyone in the neighborhood keeps their house looking exactly the same.
Response:
> all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? > I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- > most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo > tent .
Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the line and pick them up out of the dirt. Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of people will.
Response:
> all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? > I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- > most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo > tent . > Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. > HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines > Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the > line and pick them up out of the dirt. > Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of > people will.
it will get really bad, sometime. what is your contribution?
Response:
I don’t need to worry about heating the house–I’m in Phonix, where cooling is the issue. There is LOTS of heat in the attic; in the summer they can typically get to 140 degrees or so. But I’m running an air conditioner, and when I run the clothes dryer, I’m sucking out the cool air, heating it up and blowing it out, which draws a vacuum on the house, sucking in more hot air that makes the AC run some more. Stupidest design I ever saw, but that’s the only way they build the box houses down here. SOOOoooooOOO… I am thinking of putting in a duct to run the preheated attic air into the dryer, and then vent the dryer outside. Preheated air is good, and no vacuum on the house is good. I might need a filter for attic dust (it’s the cellulose type, not fiberglass)in the dryer inlet. Anyone see any other problems?
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > I don’t need to worry about heating the house–I’m in Phonix, where > cooling is the issue. > There is LOTS of heat in the attic; in the summer they can typically > get to 140 degrees or so. But I’m running an air conditioner, and when > I run the clothes dryer, I’m sucking out the cool air, heating it up > and blowing it out, which draws a vacuum on the house, sucking in more > hot air that makes the AC run some more. Stupidest design I ever saw, > but that’s the only way they build the box houses down here. > SOOOoooooOOO… > I am thinking of putting in a duct to run the preheated attic air into > the dryer, and then vent the dryer outside. Preheated air is good, > and no vacuum on the house is good. I might need a filter for attic > dust (it’s the cellulose type, not fiberglass)in the dryer inlet. > Anyone see any other problems?
all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo tent .
Response:
Question:
> The thread got a bit off-track with HOAs and clothlines, but I think > your idea to take hot air from the attic is excellent. > Not just to save gas, but much more to save electricity when your AC > does not need to work so hard. > Couple of technical issues to consider : > Can you mount a pipe on your dryer air input ? Some dryers have > just a screened opening in the back or even bottom, so it is > much harder to control where it sucks the air from.
I’ve not yet seen a dryer like that. This is an issue to figure out. > Also, do you have space to run an insulated duct from the attic to the dryer ?
It’s no longer an easy thing to do, and there are other pipes there. I will run it outside the wall and then decorate it somehow. > Finally, does your gas-heater in the dryer adjust automatically to the > air inside the dryer ? Some dryers are not so smart and just discard > extra heat if the air in the dryer gets too warm.
Gas or electric, this is a technical issue to be resolved. I don’t think it’s a problem. I really would be pleasantly surprised if I had to worry about dumping extra heat. > Rob
Thanks for the input.
Response:
The thread got a bit off-track with HOAs and clothlines, but I think your idea to take hot air from the attic is excellent. Not just to save gas, but much more to save electricity when your AC does not need to work so hard. Couple of technical issues to consider : Can you mount a pipe on your dryer air input ? Some dryers have just a screened opening in the back or even bottom, so it is much harder to control where it sucks the air from. Also, do you have space to run an insulated duct from the attic to the dryer ? Finally, does your gas-heater in the dryer adjust automatically to the air inside the dryer ? Some dryers are not so smart and just discard extra heat if the air in the dryer gets too warm. Rob – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >I don’t need to worry about heating the house–I’m in Phonix, where > cooling is the issue. > There is LOTS of heat in the attic; in the summer they can typically > get to 140 degrees or so. But I’m running an air conditioner, and when > I run the clothes dryer, I’m sucking out the cool air, heating it up > and blowing it out, which draws a vacuum on the house, sucking in more > hot air that makes the AC run some more. Stupidest design I ever saw, > but that’s the only way they build the box houses down here. > SOOOoooooOOO… > I am thinking of putting in a duct to run the preheated attic air into > the dryer, and then vent the dryer outside. Preheated air is good, > and no vacuum on the house is good. I might need a filter for attic > dust (it’s the cellulose type, not fiberglass)in the dryer inlet. > Anyone see any other problems?
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>>all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? >>>I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- >>>most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo >>>tent . >>Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. >>HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines >>Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the >>line and pick them up out of the dirt. >>Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of >>people will. >excuse my ignorance what is a HOA and why are thay so adverced to >hanging of washing ? > "HOA" refers to the dreaded "Home Owners’ Assocation". I don’t know > if you have these over on that side of the pond. Basicly, it’s an > amazingly anal group of people who make sure everyone in the > neighborhood keeps their house looking exactly the same.
there are management co’s/residents comittys etc…. but thease are normaly for flats and buildings residing on leased land . there may be some such stipulation in some gated comunitys (no public right of way) . but washing lines are the norm in most peoples gardens/open space and some social land lord’s (housing associations) fit rotory lines .
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> it will get really bad, sometime. what is your contribution? > Where did THAT come from??? > Homes here–and most places in the US–are built dumb. The laundry > sucks ACd air and heats it up and throws it out. I’m trying to come up > with a fix–at least a partial fix–that will work. There is free heat > available and I’m looking for a way to use it. THAT’s my contribution. > I’ve put solar systems on 2 houses, insulated above builder’s standards > on 2 houses. I’m now in another new house and I’m investing in energy > conservation/generation yet again. The vast majority of builders > themselves are idiots and won’t even cooperate just a little bit, so I > have to retrofit. While I may not be able to change everyone’s > lifestyle in one swell foop, I’m at least trying to find ways to > minimize the consumption for that particular life style. > I’ve probably invested about 15 to 20 thousand dollars over the years > upgrading houses and installing solar or other energy > collections/conservation items. > I also drive fuel-efficient cars, try to live near where I work, and > use xeriscaping. My last yard was a certified Backyard Wildlife > Habitat; this will be too. I vote for people who support expensive > energy, so our society will conserve. As soon as I am able, I intend > to put PV on the house here. > And trust me–around here, an outdoor laundry line is not really an > option. It’s a construction zone for the next 5 years, in a dirt area > of former farms. > I talk about energy conservation and alternatives. I put my money > where my talk is. I came here looking for a couple ideas. > That’s part of my contribution. What’s YOURS?
you can call me a public-awareness troll. my small contribution does not match yours. i telecommute, use solar hw and no dryer and stir the pot on these groups. if the majority took this as seriously as you, we wouldn’t be in for a crash. thanks for the resume and the contribution.
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->it will get really bad, sometime. what is your contribution? > Where did THAT come from??? > Homes here–and most places in the US–are built dumb. The laundry > sucks ACd air and heats it up and throws it out. I’m trying to come up > with a fix–at least a partial fix–that will work. There is free heat > available and I’m looking for a way to use it. THAT’s my contribution. > I’ve put solar systems on 2 houses, insulated above builder’s standards > on 2 houses. I’m now in another new house and I’m investing in energy > conservation/generation yet again. The vast majority of builders > themselves are idiots and won’t even cooperate just a little bit, so I > have to retrofit. While I may not be able to change everyone’s > lifestyle in one swell foop, I’m at least trying to find ways to > minimize the consumption for that particular life style. > I’ve probably invested about 15 to 20 thousand dollars over the years > upgrading houses and installing solar or other energy > collections/conservation items. > I also drive fuel-efficient cars, try to live near where I work, and > use xeriscaping. My last yard was a certified Backyard Wildlife > Habitat; this will be too. I vote for people who support expensive > energy, so our society will conserve. As soon as I am able, I intend > to put PV on the house here. > And trust me–around here, an outdoor laundry line is not really an > option. It’s a construction zone for the next 5 years, in a dirt area > of former farms. > I talk about energy conservation and alternatives. I put my money > where my talk is. I came here looking for a couple ideas. > That’s part of my contribution. What’s YOURS?
Don’t let them get you down. Try the attic thing, I think it’s a good idea.
Response:
> it will get really bad, sometime. what is your contribution?
Where did THAT come from??? Homes here–and most places in the US–are built dumb. The laundry sucks ACd air and heats it up and throws it out. I’m trying to come up with a fix–at least a partial fix–that will work. There is free heat available and I’m looking for a way to use it. THAT’s my contribution. I’ve put solar systems on 2 houses, insulated above builder’s standards on 2 houses. I’m now in another new house and I’m investing in energy conservation/generation yet again. The vast majority of builders themselves are idiots and won’t even cooperate just a little bit, so I have to retrofit. While I may not be able to change everyone’s lifestyle in one swell foop, I’m at least trying to find ways to minimize the consumption for that particular life style. I’ve probably invested about 15 to 20 thousand dollars over the years upgrading houses and installing solar or other energy collections/conservation items. I also drive fuel-efficient cars, try to live near where I work, and use xeriscaping. My last yard was a certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat; this will be too. I vote for people who support expensive energy, so our society will conserve. As soon as I am able, I intend to put PV on the house here. And trust me–around here, an outdoor laundry line is not really an option. It’s a construction zone for the next 5 years, in a dirt area of former farms. I talk about energy conservation and alternatives. I put my money where my talk is. I came here looking for a couple ideas. That’s part of my contribution. What’s YOURS?
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? >I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- >most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo >tent . > Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. > HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines > Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the > line and pick them up out of the dirt. > Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of > people will.
excuse my ignorance what is a HOA and why are thay so adverced to hanging of washing ?
Response:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? >>I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- >>most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo >>tent . > Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. > HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines > Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the > line and pick them up out of the dirt. > Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of > people will. > excuse my ignorance what is a HOA and why are thay so adverced to hanging > of washing ?
HOA stands for Home Owners Association. They are big in S Cal and elsewhere to help keep rif raf out and property values up. They are a private regulatory pseudo government that tells home owners what they can and can not do. You agree to this before you buy. Most do not like the "eye sore" of clothes lines.
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->>all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? >>I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- >>most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo >>tent . > Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. > HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines > Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the > line and pick them up out of the dirt. > Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of > people will. > excuse my ignorance what is a HOA and why are thay so adverced to > hanging of washing ?
"HOA" refers to the dreaded "Home Owners’ Assocation". I don’t know if you have these over on that side of the pond. Basicly, it’s an amazingly anal group of people who make sure everyone in the neighborhood keeps their house looking exactly the same.
Response:
> all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? > I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- > most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo > tent .
Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the line and pick them up out of the dirt. Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of people will.
Response:
> all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? > I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- > most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo > tent . > Climate: though dry, it is very dusty and windy. > HOA: wont’ allow clotheslines > Family: neither my wife nor I have the time to hang things up on the > line and pick them up out of the dirt. > Otherwise I might. And if the energy things gets REALLY bad, a lot of > people will.
it will get really bad, sometime. what is your contribution?
Response:
I don’t need to worry about heating the house–I’m in Phonix, where cooling is the issue. There is LOTS of heat in the attic; in the summer they can typically get to 140 degrees or so. But I’m running an air conditioner, and when I run the clothes dryer, I’m sucking out the cool air, heating it up and blowing it out, which draws a vacuum on the house, sucking in more hot air that makes the AC run some more. Stupidest design I ever saw, but that’s the only way they build the box houses down here. SOOOoooooOOO… I am thinking of putting in a duct to run the preheated attic air into the dryer, and then vent the dryer outside. Preheated air is good, and no vacuum on the house is good. I might need a filter for attic dust (it’s the cellulose type, not fiberglass)in the dryer inlet. Anyone see any other problems?
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – > I don’t need to worry about heating the house–I’m in Phonix, where > cooling is the issue. > There is LOTS of heat in the attic; in the summer they can typically > get to 140 degrees or so. But I’m running an air conditioner, and when > I run the clothes dryer, I’m sucking out the cool air, heating it up > and blowing it out, which draws a vacuum on the house, sucking in more > hot air that makes the AC run some more. Stupidest design I ever saw, > but that’s the only way they build the box houses down here. > SOOOoooooOOO… > I am thinking of putting in a duct to run the preheated attic air into > the dryer, and then vent the dryer outside. Preheated air is good, > and no vacuum on the house is good. I might need a filter for attic > dust (it’s the cellulose type, not fiberglass)in the dryer inlet. > Anyone see any other problems?
all well and good but what is wrong with useing a washing line ? I live in uk and it rains a good deal of the time but I have all- most stoped useing the dryer , by putting an extra line under a gazebo tent .
Response:
Question:
I looking for resource on Fintube for a novice (buyer guide of sorts ) . I’m looking to have solar radiant heat put into the first floor of the house.
Response:
>I looking for resource on Fintube for a novice (buyer guide of sorts)…
You can find some ap notes on the net, from Slant-Fin and others. Argo Industries #1560 fin-tube has 5.2 Btu/h-F-ft of 140 F water to 65 F air thermal conductance. Last time I looked, the price of an 8′ piece with 2" fins on 3/4" copper was $15.67. Nick
Response:
This might seem kind of dumb question . Nick could you explain more on where Fintube are used in the over all picture solar radiant heat ? Thanks. In Ohio their is only one solar radiant heat installer / dealer. I want to be educated on getting the best product for the dollar. Thanks. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->I looking for resource on Fintube for a novice (buyer guide of sorts)… > You can find some ap notes on the net, from Slant-Fin and others. > Argo Industries #1560 fin-tube has 5.2 Btu/h-F-ft of 140 F water to 65 F air > thermal conductance. Last time I looked, the price of an 8′ piece with 2" > fins on 3/4" copper was $15.67. > Nick
Response:
>…Nick could you explain more on where Fintube are used in the overall >picture solar radiant heat?
The usual approach might be hydronic panels on the roof and fin tubes near the floor, inside the house. I like the idea of a simple sunspace with hot air circulating between the sunspace and the house during the day and no airflow at night. The hot air would warm water pumped from the bottom of a large tank on the ground through fin tubes near the ceiling during the day. At night and on cloudy days, hot water from the top of the tank would thermosyphon up through the fin tubes and back to the tank. A slow ceiling fan and thermostat and an occupancy sensor would control the house air temp as needed. This works best with a low-e ceiling surface so the ceiling can be 130 F without overheating the room by radiation, altho it can work with an ordinary ceiling surface at a lower temp. A 20′x20′ room with 4 8′ R30 outside walls and an R30 ceiling and a 35 Btu/h-F thermal conductance would need (70-30)35 = 1400 Btu/h at 70 F on a 30 F day, with 20×20x0.1714×10^-8(T^4-530^4) = 1400, which makes the ceiling temp T = 533 R, ie 73 F max. A low-e (0.05) ceiling with 20×20x0.1714×0.05×10^-8(T^4-530^4) could be 588 R, ie 128 F max, which allows using less fin-tube pipe to collect the same 18h(60-30)35 = 18.9K Btu of overnight solar heat at 18.9K/6h = 3150 Btu/h. With a 70 F dawn water temp, 3150 = (128-70)5.2L makes L = 10′. With a 73 F ceiling, 3150 = (73-70)5.2L makes L = 202′. Foil or foil-faced foamboard would do. Who makes inexpensive low-e paint? "Low-e" white roof coatings reflect sunlight well, but they also emit heat well, so they don’t seem suitable in this case… Nick
Response:
A slow ceiling fan and thermostat and an occupancy sensor would control the house air temp as needed. > Slow ceiling fan – How many and where ? Got one fan in kitchen already. Would these fans work to force the warm air to second floor ? or can the furnace be made to do this ? This works best with a low-e ceiling surface so the ceiling can be 130 > Can you explain low-e ceiling roof coating – the ceiling in the attic ? F without overheating the room by radiation, altho it can work with an ordinary ceiling surface at a lower temp. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->…Nick could you explain more on where Fintube are used in the overall >picture solar radiant heat? > The usual approach might be hydronic panels on the roof and fin tubes near > the floor, inside the house. I like the idea of a simple sunspace with hot > air circulating between the sunspace and the house during the day and no > airflow at night. The hot air would warm water pumped from the bottom of > a large tank on the ground through fin tubes near the ceiling during the > day. At night and on cloudy days, hot water from the top of the tank would > thermosyphon up through the fin tubes and back to the tank. A slow ceiling > fan and thermostat and an occupancy sensor would control the house air temp > as needed. This works best with a low-e ceiling surface so the ceiling can > be 130 F without overheating the room by radiation, altho it can work with > an ordinary ceiling surface at a lower temp. > A 20′x20′ room with 4 8′ R30 outside walls and an R30 ceiling and > a 35 Btu/h-F thermal conductance would need (70-30)35 = 1400 Btu/h > at 70 F on a 30 F day, with 20×20x0.1714×10^-8(T^4-530^4) = 1400, > which makes the ceiling temp T = 533 R, ie 73 F max. A low-e (0.05) > ceiling with 20×20x0.1714×0.05×10^-8(T^4-530^4) could be 588 R, ie > 128 F max, which allows using less fin-tube pipe to collect the same > 18h(60-30)35 = 18.9K Btu of overnight solar heat at 18.9K/6h = 3150 > Btu/h. With a 70 F dawn water temp, 3150 = (128-70)5.2L makes L = 10′. > With a 73 F ceiling, 3150 = (73-70)5.2L makes L = 202′. > Foil or foil-faced foamboard would do. Who makes inexpensive low-e > paint? "Low-e" white roof coatings reflect sunlight well, but they > also emit heat well, so they don’t seem suitable in this case… > Nick
Response:
>A slow ceiling fan and thermostat and an occupancy sensor would control >the house air temp as needed. > Slow ceiling fan – How many…
One might handle a large room. >Would these fans work to force the warm air to second floor ?
No. > This works best with a low-e ceiling surface so the ceiling can be 130 > Can you explain low-e ceiling roof coating – the ceiling in the > attic ?
I don’t think so. Nick
Response:
Question:
I looking for resource on Fintube for a novice (buyer guide of sorts ) . I’m looking to have solar radiant heat put into the first floor of the house.
Response:
>I looking for resource on Fintube for a novice (buyer guide of sorts)…
You can find some ap notes on the net, from Slant-Fin and others. Argo Industries #1560 fin-tube has 5.2 Btu/h-F-ft of 140 F water to 65 F air thermal conductance. Last time I looked, the price of an 8′ piece with 2" fins on 3/4" copper was $15.67. Nick
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This might seem kind of dumb question . Nick could you explain more on where Fintube are used in the over all picture solar radiant heat ? Thanks. In Ohio their is only one solar radiant heat installer / dealer. I want to be educated on getting the best product for the dollar. Thanks. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->I looking for resource on Fintube for a novice (buyer guide of sorts)… > You can find some ap notes on the net, from Slant-Fin and others. > Argo Industries #1560 fin-tube has 5.2 Btu/h-F-ft of 140 F water to 65 F air > thermal conductance. Last time I looked, the price of an 8′ piece with 2" > fins on 3/4" copper was $15.67. > Nick
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>…Nick could you explain more on where Fintube are used in the overall >picture solar radiant heat?
The usual approach might be hydronic panels on the roof and fin tubes near the floor, inside the house. I like the idea of a simple sunspace with hot air circulating between the sunspace and the house during the day and no airflow at night. The hot air would warm water pumped from the bottom of a large tank on the ground through fin tubes near the ceiling during the day. At night and on cloudy days, hot water from the top of the tank would thermosyphon up through the fin tubes and back to the tank. A slow ceiling fan and thermostat and an occupancy sensor would control the house air temp as needed. This works best with a low-e ceiling surface so the ceiling can be 130 F without overheating the room by radiation, altho it can work with an ordinary ceiling surface at a lower temp. A 20′x20′ room with 4 8′ R30 outside walls and an R30 ceiling and a 35 Btu/h-F thermal conductance would need (70-30)35 = 1400 Btu/h at 70 F on a 30 F day, with 20×20x0.1714×10^-8(T^4-530^4) = 1400, which makes the ceiling temp T = 533 R, ie 73 F max. A low-e (0.05) ceiling with 20×20x0.1714×0.05×10^-8(T^4-530^4) could be 588 R, ie 128 F max, which allows using less fin-tube pipe to collect the same 18h(60-30)35 = 18.9K Btu of overnight solar heat at 18.9K/6h = 3150 Btu/h. With a 70 F dawn water temp, 3150 = (128-70)5.2L makes L = 10′. With a 73 F ceiling, 3150 = (73-70)5.2L makes L = 202′. Foil or foil-faced foamboard would do. Who makes inexpensive low-e paint? "Low-e" white roof coatings reflect sunlight well, but they also emit heat well, so they don’t seem suitable in this case… Nick
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A slow ceiling fan and thermostat and an occupancy sensor would control the house air temp as needed. > Slow ceiling fan – How many and where ? Got one fan in kitchen already. Would these fans work to force the warm air to second floor ? or can the furnace be made to do this ? This works best with a low-e ceiling surface so the ceiling can be 130 > Can you explain low-e ceiling roof coating – the ceiling in the attic ? F without overheating the room by radiation, altho it can work with an ordinary ceiling surface at a lower temp. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->…Nick could you explain more on where Fintube are used in the overall >picture solar radiant heat? > The usual approach might be hydronic panels on the roof and fin tubes near > the floor, inside the house. I like the idea of a simple sunspace with hot > air circulating between the sunspace and the house during the day and no > airflow at night. The hot air would warm water pumped from the bottom of > a large tank on the ground through fin tubes near the ceiling during the > day. At night and on cloudy days, hot water from the top of the tank would > thermosyphon up through the fin tubes and back to the tank. A slow ceiling > fan and thermostat and an occupancy sensor would control the house air temp > as needed. This works best with a low-e ceiling surface so the ceiling can > be 130 F without overheating the room by radiation, altho it can work with > an ordinary ceiling surface at a lower temp. > A 20′x20′ room with 4 8′ R30 outside walls and an R30 ceiling and > a 35 Btu/h-F thermal conductance would need (70-30)35 = 1400 Btu/h > at 70 F on a 30 F day, with 20×20x0.1714×10^-8(T^4-530^4) = 1400, > which makes the ceiling temp T = 533 R, ie 73 F max. A low-e (0.05) > ceiling with 20×20x0.1714×0.05×10^-8(T^4-530^4) could be 588 R, ie > 128 F max, which allows using less fin-tube pipe to collect the same > 18h(60-30)35 = 18.9K Btu of overnight solar heat at 18.9K/6h = 3150 > Btu/h. With a 70 F dawn water temp, 3150 = (128-70)5.2L makes L = 10′. > With a 73 F ceiling, 3150 = (73-70)5.2L makes L = 202′. > Foil or foil-faced foamboard would do. Who makes inexpensive low-e > paint? "Low-e" white roof coatings reflect sunlight well, but they > also emit heat well, so they don’t seem suitable in this case… > Nick
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>A slow ceiling fan and thermostat and an occupancy sensor would control >the house air temp as needed. > Slow ceiling fan – How many…
One might handle a large room. >Would these fans work to force the warm air to second floor ?
No. > This works best with a low-e ceiling surface so the ceiling can be 130 > Can you explain low-e ceiling roof coating – the ceiling in the > attic ?
I don’t think so. Nick
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