It's been a long road but my system is now up and running! I expect that a lot of people will ask how much energy my installation actually collects so I ended up taking the $600 Government of Canada Eco-Energy rebate for my high-efficiency boiler and bought a BTU meter (http://www.wsetech.com/btu.php) from the guys at WSE Technologies (http://www.wsetech.com/). So far the BTU meter is up to 84kwh which means I've collected (84 kwh * 3400 BTU/kwh =) 285,600 BTUs of heat. The temperature sensor at the _bottom_ of my storage tank didn't drop below 58 degrees C all week so I'm pretty sure that my boiler hasn't run since I completed the installation.

There are a few outstanding things I have to take care of: Insulation and cladding on a portion of the exterior runs and insulation on the piping in the house. Also, I've talked to IBC boilers and they don't yet have a controller module that integrates the boiler and the solar so I'll try and rig something up so that I can use the collectors to help heat my home. At 9:40 this morning (August 28, 2010) the outside temperature was 12 degrees C and I was suprised to hear the collector pump start. Despite the fact there was light cloud cover, the temperature sensor in the collectors was reading 68 degrees C.

Here are some pictures:

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Mill Creek NetZero Home, December 15, 2009, 14:00.

As we approach the winter solstice and the three-month anniversary of our moving in, we continue to learn about our new house. These observations are mostly qualitative, because we don’t have the rest of our solar modules up, and we haven’t set up monitoring equipment yet. We are tentatively planning to remove the door of our wood stove on July 1st, 2010  and then monitor the house’s energy use for a year.  read more... »

The solar collectors on my house will not be parallel to the roof but will stand up at an angle of approximately 40 degrees.  With some of the recent wind storms around Edmonton and other places in Alberta I've been quite concerned about my house if one of those storms hits again after the collectors are up.  read more... »

I have to make connections in my attic for the 3/4" copper pipes that do the supply and return runs for my solar thermal collectors.  I'm NOT looking forward to soldering amoung the blown-in insulation.  Someone recommended SharkBite non-soldering connectors (http://www.sharkbite.com).  The appear to have a high enough ratings (certified to 200 PSI and 93 degrees C) but I'm concerned about how they will stand up given the extreme temperature changes in the attic.  Has anyone used these connectors?  Does anyone have any experience with SharkBite fittings and solar thermal systems?

Ken 

The lessons that I learned from the computer model of our solar hot water system are as follows:

• insulate the pipes leading from the basement to the collectors to at least R6, preferably R10
• insulate the storage tank to R50
• install a 1000 litre storage tank
• install 3 collectors
• there is extra heat - install a system to harvest it

We bought the collectors, drainback tank, pipe insulation and other knickknacks from Trimline Design Centre just down the road from the Mill Creek NetZero Home. My builder Peter was very impressed with the clever, simple design of the flat plat collectors that Trimline manufactures. Yes, that’s right, they manufacture solar hot water collectors right here in Edmonton!

Overview

(schematic of the MCNZH solar hot water system)  read more... »