Thursday, December 20, 2007

Heater Plumbed for Year-Round Use

Installation at Annandale Bed and Breakfast, PEI
Designed and installed by James Howlett of Aquatech Plumbing, Annandale PEI



Permanent outdoor placement of Sunshower High Tech Solar Water Heater for heater year-round use.





Intake, etc. shows how it goes into the house. The tall pipe is a pressure relief and the white wire is attached to a small thermostat which monitors the temperature of the outside of the inner tank and turns on a small pump indoors when the temperature of the tank reaches about 70 degrees



Preheat set-up is in the utility room in the basement. The steel tank on the left is the preheater (just an old tank the plumber had in his yard), the white and blue tank on the right is the electric water heater. To the left of the steel tank are the input/outflow pipes going outside to the Sunshower Solar Heater.


Above you see pipes going to the cold water supply and the water heater. It's all set up so that the preheating system can be isolated, but we have never had to do that. The switch to the right of the pipes turns off the electric system and a light bulb nearby indicates the pump pictured below is working.

Pump used is a small RV waterpump that pumps "solar-heated" RV antifreeze from the solar heater through copper coils inserted into the traditional hot water heater. The pump runs most days in the summer and some sunny winter days.


Incidentally, the broken heater tube in our Sunshower Solar Heater that resulted from high winds propelling a sheet of plywood at the Sunshower System is the first problem we've had with our system in the five years we've been using it---

Pictures and system description courtesy of Jane Dunphy, Owner/Operator of Annandale B&B

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