saying hello!

[Joeboy]

Welcome to the forum Ivan. Hats off to you for the firefighting.

[Stan]

Hello again Ivan.
I always remembered that, before the other place went pear shaped, you were going to build a vast array of solar thermal tubes. Did that happen? I love my 40 tubes but they are no good at this time of year.

[dan_b]

Welcome back Ivan!

This made me laugh -that's basically a cow, surely?!

- turning grass clippings into food, but that's another story!

[Stinsy]

Welcome back Ivan!

This made me laugh -that's basically a cow, surely?!

- turning grass clippings into food, but that's another story!

[MoSTiE]

Ivan's solar panels .... the ones where they had to make the ally frames up?
4 on top of my garage still working

[spread-tee]

Hallo Ivan , good to see you, we still have sixty of your toobs working hard on the roof, 16 years and counting of hot water. Shame the old Ivan-tron empire imploded after you left, still onwards and upwards

Desp

[Sunrisemike]

wow, the original Ivan back online! Almost all of the originals must now be over here, great. Yes, bought a few bits and pieces from the old firm, but it was the first forum that really led the way for renewables (that I could find, anyway). I guess the full story will be revealed in a book one day!

Mike.

[ivan]

Yes, I've got a huge array of solar thermal tubes - think it's about 50kW. Can't remember off the top of my head how many tubes - probably about 700 of the longer, fatter 58mm tubes. Produces just short of 50kW of heat when the sun is shining well. I'll see if I can dig out some photos of it. It's hard to see from ground level, as the ground is sloped at roughly the same angle as the roof, so standing further away doesn't make it any more visible from the ground!

[nowty]

ivan, how big is your thermal store / hot water tank for all them tubes ?

Do you have some sort of heat dump or other device to stop the water boiling in Summer ?

[Stinsy]

What do you do with all the heat? Are you running a commercial scale still or something?

Have you not considered swapping the tubes for PV?