This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 11:11 am and is filed under Home Energy, Home Solar Panels, Interesting News Articles, Solar assisted water heating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The installation Manual and Owner’s Manual are both thick and extremely detailed
The boxes arrived with a lot of thoughtfulness in the packing, so well in fact to survive Fedex ground. Noticed all these little baggies of parts that were attached to each sub-assembly and the inclusion of the little things such as electrical tape, Teflon plumbing tape and ABS cement. NOW that’s thorough!
The installation Manual and Owner’s Manual are both thick and extremely detailed. You can pre-download the Installation Manual a few weeks ahead of time to read it through page by page. My impression then was that the installation job did not seem too daunting if taken carefully and slowly. But today looking at ALL these parts it feels overwhelming, but then that’s how I felt when I started on my solar heating system for my workshop!
I called Barry Butler to get some clarification about some of the parts that I didn’t recognize and to get a better idea about how the collectors mount. He spent nearly an hour talking with me about the system design theory and how it all goes together. Since he is in the process of revising the manual, I will be a beta tester for some new hardware and design revisions.
I realize now that I will need several strong friends to help me get these collectors mounted on the wall, and Barry helped me figure out the best strategy for assembling and mounting the collectors. It’s not that they weigh that much – the 4 solar collectors and mounting brackets are under 90 pounds total, it’s just getting them hoisted up there that will be tough. Most folks would be mounting these to a roof, which has it’s own challenges. I also would guess that most homeowners will contract a professional installer to do the work, but I’m a do-it-yourself kinda Guy!
We are on our way! As we progress through this series, you will definitely lose any inhibition you may feel about building your own solar panels or installing your own wager heater system powered by solar! One of the things AI would do over, is build my own solar panel system rather than have it included in the package. I could have saved another $700 – $800 dollars and would have just a few days at making them. The kits I found at the attached link here for HOME SOLAR ENERGY were very clear and informative, showing in detail where to find the cheapest material locally , how to assemble them and the install the units. Very fundamental dear Watson! The instruction are so clear and easy to follow that my 12 year old son could comprehend them. Just a thought if your into saving money.
Tomorrow part 4 of the this series.
