Tuesday 17 October 2017

Drip,Drip, Trickle, Trickle, not the sounds you want to hear on your roof. (unless it's rain) !!!

When we returned from our excursion away we returned to the slightly annoying problem of a leaking hot water service.
Our old evacuated tube solar hot water system  had sprung a leak. Brian got up and investigated  but we were really concerned that if we touched it ,the whole thing might totally  go.
So we started doing some online research and found one we liked and travelled to Dubbo to check it out. We  eventually decided on a SolarOz brand which was slightly different to our existing one, in such that the hot water that you use comes from a copper pipe coiled around the inside of the tank rather from just in the tank itself.
It took quite a while for it to arrive from Melbourne  to Dubbo and we  were very grateful  to Tammy from Central West Heating  
for her patience and  help in finally organizing the hot water service to be  there for us to pick up.
We had been managing with the old service by Brian climbing up and down  to the roof and turning the tap on and off as needed.
Our son AJ came over that day to help and we unloaded everything and he started erecting  the support frame.
Whilst Brian started connecting the header tank and some of the fittings.
The next morning My brother Don arrived to help and he and Brian  got up and emptied the remaining water  from the tank and tubes,by first draining the tank and then tipping the system up carefully to drain the tubes back into the tank and then repeating  a few times until all water was gone( this was still  surprisingly very hot)

  They slid the old empty system  across out of the way to  make room for the new frame .
Carried the new tank over and pulled it up onto the roof and fitted to the frame.


Next it was the tubes  turn ,Don and I did those while Brian and AJ did the fitting up top. Each one of the 30 had to be lubricated,  have a rubber seal placed on it and filled with water and then passed up to  the roof.

Finally the last tube was fitted.
The system works so well we all had hot showers a few hours after it was finished.
The next day  it was  working so well ,boiling water was spurting out the overflow pipe and we have had to cover with  shade cloth.
(Please note this  photo above is not a video,just a screen shot off a video)
Yesterday afternoon and today Brian started the slow and  difficult task of removing and storing the old evacuated tubes from the old system. We were lucky to get them all down with  any breakages.
We then dismantled the tank off the frame and removed both off the roof using a slide off with straps system.

Now that it is all down on the ground, Brian will take a look and decide if it is worth tackling a repair and if so we may decide to  rebuild at the back shed( on ground level)  to supply hot water to the laundry and our second shower that is  in the process of being sorted.
It's been a huge few days, but the effort has certainly been rewarded with glorious  abundant hot water. This type of system has worked extremely well for us for the past 10 years and we hope that this newer improved version may go much longer...time will tell.
So until we meet again, please take care of you and yours,
Cheers,
Jane and Brian.

6 comments:

  1. solar hotwater is just the best, isn't it?
    i love mine but i have a 'solar hart' it works good; have had to put the booster on recently as no sunshine with all this rain we've been lucky to get (since last thursday)
    & wow you guys installed it yourselves? that would've saved a packet!
    thanx for sharing

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    1. Solar is brilliant.
      We used to boost our old system through our old wood stove, but had to remove that option once we pulled out the old stove to put in a new back door.
      Hope your rain was glorious and no damage associated with it. We are supposed to get good rain tomorrow.
      Take car
      Cheers.
      Jane.

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  3. Hi ozzibeth,
    I am wondering how the Solaroz product has gone for you?
    Currently looking to buy one too and checking to see if yours has lasted/worked well so far.
    Yours is obviously the 30 tube 300L version- are the tubes sealed from the tank or protrude into the tank water?
    Have you had to boost it in winter- with only two of you there??
    Cheers
    Jacinta

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    1. Hi Cinta,
      Sorry for not responding sooner as I had taken a little break from blogging due to internett access issues and time committments,but hopefully on track again now.
      We love our hot water service, we have no back up with it and I think only twice since we installed it have we not had hot water.we are extremely happy with it.The tubes go into the tank .The water for use comes not grom the tank itself but from the copper coil inside the tank. We would certainly buy znother down the track if this dies.
      We have now installed a new outdoor shower with an instant gas service but this was just for people that can't access our shower over bath or if we have people camping or a huge influx of visitors.
      Next door has solar hot water and they are constantly having to boost when we never have to.
      Cheers

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