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SUNMAXX SOLAR HOT WATER SOLUTIONS NYSERDA SOLAR THERMAL INCENTIVES FOR NEW YORK STATE Presented by: Todd Paternoster Date: 12/16/2010 Okay. Good morning. Charlie, I see you're the only participant this morning at this webinar. So this is good for you. I can customize it a little bit. My name is Todd Paternoster. I don't know that we've met, but I'm going to go over the NYSERDA PON 2149. This is an opportunity where we're going to see about a 600% growth rate in the solar thermal market that is already funded. So can you confirm that you can hear me, Charlie? You can type in the little chat box before I go too far. I just want to see that you can hear me. Great. Okay. So, basically what NYSERDA wants to see happen realized is about a 600% growth in solar thermal installations in the next five years. And they funded it with a $24 million incentive package, with the goal of installing 45 megawatts of solar thermal capacity. 45 megawatts would represent a 600% growth rate in this industry in 5 years. So that growth rate is really unparalleled in other industries. It's similar to a growth rate they saw in the European market, but over the course of 7 to 9 years. We're going to see the rate is going to be much greater here in New York State. Now, a quick overview. For residential domestic hot water consumers, they are going to cap out at $4,000. For non-residential, laundromats, hotels, and car-washes and the like, they cap out at $25,000. This funding is expected to cover at least 15 to 20% of the cost. Now, when I say "up front", it's cost paid to the installer. Part of the fund is released earlier. However, the system needs to be fully commissioned and approved prior to the installer actually getting the check from NYSERDA. And it's only for electric hot water consumers. So they have to have an electric hot water heater in operation for at least a year. So, looking ahead, if you have clients that are looking to upgrade their existing hot water system, and they install an electric hot water tank, you would not be able to take advantage of this funding for another year. So they have to have it in operation for a full year. Now the incentives do get paid to the installer. However, the benefit to the installer needs to be deducted from the invoice. So the real benefit needs to go to the end user in form of having a lower cost up front. So essentially, the installer has to ride that benefit from the time they begin installation to the time they get the check from NYSERDA. They're only available for new systems, so they've got to be new systems. They can't be upgrades to existing solar thermal systems. They have to be entirely new. And the incentive that the end user will receive is based on electrical usage displacement. So if they're consuming 3,000 kilowatts a year for hot water, the solar thermal upgrade can replace 2,000 kilowatts. And the incentive will be based on that 2,000 displaced electrical consumption. Now the solar thermal system needs to be sized by the manufacturer or the installer so that it does not exceed 80% solar fraction. Now we typically don't recommend a solar fraction any higher than this anyway. But NYSERDA will not pay for any system that exceeds an 80% solar fraction. And over time, next year for example, and in following years, the incentive, which is currently at $1.50 per kilowatt will be diminished, will be reduced so they have a certain amount of funds available. They're loading the front end of this incentive to stimulate the market. So the early adopters, the early installers, are the ones that are going to benefit the most, because next year, that incentive will be less. Now, NYSERDA is also going to benefit from this, not only be reducing their electrical consumption with their customers, but also by acquiring the renewable energy credits for all these systems. So, essentially, they're going to have renewable energy credits for 45 megawatts of solar thermal capacity. And they hold those records for 3 years. This doesn't affect the homeowners really because there's not a lot that a homeowner can do with the rec. Commercial projects is another story. That is, one of the benefits of doing a commercial job that the building owner will hold a real body of credits. Okay, the installer, in order to be on the NYSERDA eligibility list, the scholar must meet one of these criteria: they must be either NABCEP solar thermal, they must have 18 hours of manufacturer certified training such as the SunMaxx EduPower, or they have to have accomplished 40 hours of training in a nationally recognized accreditation program or as an apprentice. Okay, so those first three options, any one of those will suffice, however after two years they have to become NABCEP certified. If they do not become NABCEP certified after two years they have to reapply for NYSERDA eligibility. Once they are accepted into the program, then they have to sign an agreement and they are on the permanent list for NYSERDA, permanent being for two years. Okay, the first step once a contract is secure, the installer must do a clipboard energy audit. Okay, that clipboard must access the building's energy consumption, paying particular attention to the electric load. So that is accomplished in two steps. First, interview the homeowner and try to understand the age of the building and the energy use, and then doing an identification and energy efficiency measures, where they can make upgrades to energy consumption and at little or no cost. And then it needs to conclude with a debriefing for the homeowner. The homeowner is not obligated to take action on any of these recommendations, but the installer is obligated to make recommendations, and then the homeowner can decide. This is something that you should do regardless of the NYSERDA incentive when you do a site survey of the building, especially for solar thermal we can have a much bigger impact on their total energy budget by incorporating other upgrades in addition to solar thermal. Here are some examples of what can be included in the energy audit. We can inspect their wiring, the timers on air conditioners and any vampire loads, we can look at the age and condition of doors and windows and weather ceilings? Are there any installation upgrades for insulation? Are the appliances energy star qualified? Okay, so some very simple, and they call it a clipboard audit because you don't have any instrumentation that you necessarily need, all you need to do is make some observations, and from those observations you make recommendations. This is customary and ultimately it's going to lead to a much larger energy reduction. Okay, the non-residential clipboard audit is a little more detailed in that besides the first two recommendations, they also have to take a look at energy star's portfolio manager as a benchmarking tool, and if they're able to create a score, and energy use index for that building. Once the energy use index is determined, then the building owner has a better understanding of what additional funds they're going to be eligible for. So NYSERDA PON 2149 is for solar thermal upgrades only, however there are other grants, many different grants that are accessible for non-residential buildings that are seeking energy upgrades. So a good installer of solar thermal will have his hand in many of those additional upgrades as a referral or a consultant, whether it's residential or commercial the installer must leave a list of certified contractors that could potentially perform these services. No in order to apply for the incentive, you can expect it to take about 20 business days. The appendix B, attached to the link that I'm going to show you in a few moments, can be filled out, it doesn't take very long at all, just a few minutes. However, one of the most important things is that the proposal, the application must include a simulated software performance assessment. This simulation can be run by RETScreen which is a public entity that can be downloaded for free from any installer, or solar pathfinder which is purchased through solar pathfinder or T*SOL. Now T*SOL is the software that SunMaxx uses, and is willing to do T*SOL reports for your system, so all you've got to do is contact your sales rep and he or she will enter the appropriate information for your system and spit out a T*SOL report for you to be able to send that off for your application. Once they've determined whether the eligibility for this system, they will notify you whether it's approved or declined. If it's declined, they'll tell you why and you can make changes. If it's approved then the funds will be set aside and the installer will be notified and the installer will be notified that the funds are set aside for that installation. Then and only then should the installer begin that installation. So knowing that the installer will not be paid until the system had been certified, the homeowner basically reaps the benefit of that NYSERDA incentive immediately but the installer will not be paid until the system has been certified after installation. Here's an example of appendix B, the application process. It is quite simple to fill out for the system, all you have to do is obviously the customer information at the top and then the type of system and then we have to look at the equipment being used. We recommend that you go with a manufacturer's prepackaged system or OG300. OG300 system does not require a performance assessment. If it's a prepackaged kit, the components must be OG100 certified, and the manufacturer must supply a performance assessment, as I spoke about before. That performance assessment is going to give us, and I'll show you here in just a moment, the performance assessment is going to give you a total annual output. Okay, now in terms of the requirements for these systems that are non-OG300 as I mentioned must come with a five-year warranty, this is a manufacturer's warranty covering performance, and after five years performance cannot fall below 10 percent of initial performance. So basically after five years the warranty needs to cover at least a 90% production as if it were new. The system must also be monitored every three months for production. Now that production monitoring can be accomplished using standard RESOL SmartMaxx controller. That SmartMaxx controller is going to accumulate the kilowatts produced, and every three months the installer can go and read off the controller and submit that to NYSERDA for auditing purposes. It's not real clear how that submittal process will work yet, and if they're going to be submitted at all or randomly audited. Nevertheless, we have it in place with our controllers, the SmartMaxx that can monitor total kilowatts produced. Now once the installer is notified that the monies have been set aside, they have 120 days to complete the system. That should be ample time, but there is a deadline, and that's a 120 days. Here's an example of a T*SOL that was run for our Empire System Kit. SunMaxx has developed a new kit called the Empire System, which is designed exclusively for electric hot water heater upgrades. For this particular example we have a two-collector system, two SunMaxx TitanPower's, tied into an 80 gallon pressurized tank that is preheating cold water supply to an electric on-demand. The total production on this system is 2800-kilowatt hours. This is after losses and after system efficiency; this is what's being delivered to the storage tank, 2800 kilowatts. So if we take a look at 2800 kilowatts for this particular system, the dealer cost at $3700 allows for a pretty considerable markup for installation, and now we're looking at $8500 for total installed and user cost. Okay, with a 2800 kilowatt per year production, the rebate is going to cap out, it's just over $4000. So the end user can deduct $4000 up front for the cost, homeowner pays the installer the balance, and then the balance of $4500, then the homeowner can get a 30% tax credit on that $4500, which is $1350 and then they get a 25% state tax credit off of the balance of there, which is $787, bringing the final cost to the customer to only $2363. Now with a $2363 initial investment and savings at $532 per year, their return on investment is 22%. Now that's 22% zero risk. Now I don't know any other investment where I can get 22% with zero risk. There's plenty out there that's medium to high risk, but none that are zero risk. Now, the simple payback on 2800 kilowatt hours per year, and paying 19 cents per kilowatt hour, we're going to save $532, which means 4.4 year payback, and this is conservative and it's set at current energy cost. So as prices increase, the values of these systems are going to increase as well. Now here's a couple of action steps that I recommend are made by interested installers. First you've got to get on the NYSERDA eligible installer list. Once you're on the NYSERDA eligible installer list, then you also need to become NABCEP solar thermal certified, and there's a link at the back of this page that shows you how to begin that process. You have to sign and return the eligible installer list, find your potential clients and pre-qualify them because they must have electric hot water. Then the installer will work with the manufacturer and try to find the most appropriate solar thermal system. Once that is established, then the manufacturer will provide the installer with simulation software, and then the application for the incentive can begin. Once the funds are awarded, the installer begins, monitors that every three months, they pass the test for NABCEP and become permanently eligible for NYSERDA. If they do not pass the NABCEP exam, then they must reapply to become NYSERDA eligible after two years. Here's a list of links that you can learn more about this NYSERDA funding, the 2149, there's a couple of phone numbers, emails if you have any questions. As always, you can email me and here's a link to the NABCEP requirements for solar thermal certification. This is a long, drawn-out process, so I recommend that you get things started as soon as possible. Thank you very much for your attention, I hope you found it useful. And I wish you the best of luck, if there's anything that I can do to help you, my email is [email protected]. Thanks again, and good luck.

SUNMAXX SOLAR HOT WATER SOLUTIONS USING HEAT EXCHANGERS Presented by: Todd Paternoster Date: 01/03/2011 Another edition of our SunMaxx Solar webinar series. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Todd Paternoster. I welcome you all around the country here. Surprisingly in Upstate, New York, we’re having a very good solar day. Our collectors as of right now are about 150 degrees. We’re dumping into our forced air furnace, so we’ve reached our set point. Our domestic hot water tank is already maxed out at 135. So it’s one of those rare beautiful solar days in not so sunny Upstate. I want to spend the next half an hour talking about heat exchangers. Now, there’s a lot of debate now in the industry about the effectiveness of internal coils versus external heat exchangers, the pros and cons of each. And I’d like to make it clear with everyone that over the next 29 minutes now, I really can’t cover too much in too much detail but I do look at this as a good way to begin or supplement an existing learning experience. So, I’d like to welcome you to ask questions as we go through. And certainly, email me any particular questions that you have afterwards and I can turn your attention to some other resources. Okay? So, I do have a bit to cover here so I’ll get started. Please do ask me questions if you have anything you’d like to – you’d like me to cover. Can I just get a confirmation from someone that you can hear me okay? Great. Okay, super. Thank you. Alright. Now, generally there’s two types of heat exchangers. Those that are outside of the tank and those that are inside the storage tank. Now, some of you may have your preferences. Each serves different purpose. Outside of the tank, we’re generally talking about braised plates or also known as plate and frame exchangers, shell and tube heat exchangers, which tend to be stainless steel or tube within a tube heat exchangers. These require secondary pump. Internal exchangers most often are the smooth copper. They’re coils of smooth copper. Occasionally, we see a corrugated stainless steel and as well as finned copper exchangers. Now, the finned copper maximizes the space required. They have an extremely high heat exchange capacitance. Okay. Some other miscellaneous exchangers that we can talk about are the Solar Wand. I’ll go into a little bit of detail on the Butler Max Solar Wand and how effective that is at small domestic hot water systems. The Sidearm thermo-siphon, this is an old school method of heat exchange. Typically mounted on the side of a solar tank which utilizes convection and a dropping – a more dense colder fluid drops into the exchanger which causes the heat exchange from the solar loop into the tank and the colder fluid drives the convection cycle which forces the warmer fluid back to the roof to pick up – exactly. These have been gaining some attention, the Sidearm thermo-siphons. Some manufacturers are beginning to look into these and perfect the old school style. You know, as a manufacturer, SunMaxx has not quite found a particular use for them that outweighs the traditional heat exchangers that we have. But we’re still open to, you know, product updates. Another one that is actually being used right now as I speak is the water to air exchanger. This is like a car radiator. We have one right now. It’s mounted in our cold air plenum which is taking heat from our solar loop directly the glycol on one side and the air on the other side. So more specifically, our water to air heat exchanger is more appropriately the heat transfer fluid to air exchanger. Okay. Now, let’s talk about internal coils for a moment. I like internal coils. These to me are a simpler design and any time you can have a simpler design, there’s less room for failure. And not only a simpler design but it’s easy to size up an internal coil, especially when you have custom-built tanks like the non-pressure tanks from STSS. Okay. Most often, this is not always the case, but most often these coils are three-quarter-inch copper. And if I’m using a three-inch copper coil, I can size up a copper coil with the production of my solar loop per square foot equals the heat transferability of one linear foot of coil. So basically, if I have 100 square feet of collector area, I’m going to use a 100 linear feet of three-quarter-inch copper. That’s going to ensure that I never over produce. The difference in cost is minimal. It allows me for some, if I want to expand my system, if for some reason I want to increase my production with reflectors or anything like that, one foot to one foot is generally the rule of thumb that SunMaxx practices based on our experience with these non-pressure tanks. Now, Vaughn also makes these internal coils that are finned copper. And the heat exchange rate in finned copper is about ten times that of smooth cooper. So, it requires a coil ten times smaller. And this is really important when you’re trying to maximize your heat exchange in a small tank, for example, a 50-gallon tank. Traditionally, if I use a 50-gallon tank, that size tank is going to limit the size of the coil that I can choose which would in turn limit the size of the collector field. By using finned copper, these are submerged in replaceable coils from Vaughn. The heat exchange capacity is about ten times that of smooth copper. Now, when I size up internal coils for domestic hot water flow, the most important consideration there is the flow rate on the domestic side. Alright. So, each coil, assuming that it’s a three-quarter-inch copper, it’s going to accommodate about 4 to 5 gallons per minute of flow rate. That flow, 4 to 5 gallons, will allow me for just about a 90% heat exchange effectiveness across the coil assuming that my ground water is coming in at 50 and my solar loop is at 120. So, as I increase that flow rate, you obviously will decrease your heat exchange effectiveness. So, for domestic hot water loops, if my limiting factor is flow rate, I can pipe several in parallel to achieve the same results. So in this little photo you see here, we’ve got – in that total tank, there’s eight coils. So those eight coils at 5 gallons a minute allows me to preheat about 45, 40 to 45 gallons of cold water per minute. So, that’s a pretty high flow rate for larger jobs. So, for solar loop, sizing coils, one foot of coil per one foot of collector absorber. Okay, and be careful about sizing up your collector field based on gross area. Because if you size that based on gross, for example, on evacuated tube, SunMaxx 30 as an example has a gross area of 52 but an absorber area of only 30 square feet. So, you size these based on an absorber area. And for domestic hot water loop, you size that based on the required flow rate not so much the differential that you’re looking for but based on the flow rate. Okay. Here’s an example of how we use a non-pressure storage tank with the coils. So for the solar loop, the solar loop are the two loops that are tied in the pumps off from the pump stations. So, we have eight coils for the solar loop. All eight coils are tied in parallel returning back to the collector from the bottom of the tank. So if you notice, the hottest fluid should go in to the top of the coil and the coldest fluid comes out of the bottom and back to the collector. You want to remove as many BTUs from that solar loop as possible so you always go in counter-current flow relative to stratification. So, inside the storage tank, as the heat moves up, the solar loop should move in opposite direction. And then the two coils on the top are for the domestic purposes. So, we have two coils in parallel. Since we have two, you know that each is capable of 4 to 5 gallons a minute so you a total domestic flow of less than 10 gallons a minute. What’s nice about these non-pressure tanks is they are customizable. So depending on the stratification that I’m looking for or the different quality of BTUs, I can mount these coils anywhere in that tank that I wished to and I can achieve, and I can pull a high quality BTUs out of the tank or I can pull low quality BTUs depending on the level of that tank that I insert the coils. Anybody have any question at this point? Okay. Here’s an example of the internal coils. I’ll take a look at that, Drew. That’s a good point. Give me a second and I’ll take a look there. Now, the use of internal coils for solar loop, like I said, my preference is internal coils because of their simplicity. You may pay a little bit more especially for the non-pressure storage tank when you’re getting into commercial jobs. Bu they do present a much simpler approach. And in the end, and again, this is my opinion, that the simpler that we make these systems, the less points of failure that can occur. And ultimately, the more professional the installation will seem if there’s just less points that can fail. But again, that’s my opinion. Okay. So, then continuing to look at this pressurize storage tank with the internal coils. Obviously, the bottom internal coil is use for the solar loop. The top internal coil is tied in to the heating loop. Now, as I mentioned before, your solar loop should always move in counter-current flow to the direction of the heat movement inside the storage tank. So, you want the hottest to transfer with the hottest, coldest to transfer with the coldest. So, on the top coil, usually the top coils inside of the smaller pressurized storage place are not capable of delivering the maximum amount of heat that our load requires. Let me reiterate that point. Most pressurized storage tanks do not have coils that are sized large enough to handle heat loads for most residential homes. These top coils can supplement a heat load but they can’t replace the heat load. So, in this particular drawing or schematic, you see a boiler that is supplementing the storage tank. Okay? So, we have our domestic hot water load coming off of the storage tank and that domestic hot water load, the only source of energy is that storage tank. The storage tank however has two sources, the solar loop and the boiler. So, rather than letting this tank delivers the entire BTU load to the house, this tank supplements the boiler and in turn, the boiler supplements the tank. Okay? So, you could take a look at that schematic and very good. Alright. Now as I mentioned, this internal coil, internal wand exchanger, this is a pretty unique product. It comes from Barry Butler from Butler Sun Solutions and from what I understand he’s got about 4,000 wand hours as he’s calling them. Those are the customers who bought wands and accumulated the hours of use. And so, over 4,000 wand hours and he said, one return and it was under warranty. So, there is a very high degree of success with these wands. The limiting factor obviously is flow rate. Okay? He’s got a three-quarter-inch copper tubing that’s coming down off the solar return down into the bottom of the wand and then back up and out for the solar supply. So, he’s limited to relatively small systems for domestic hot water. I have sold and designed many systems that are using this wand and what I’ve seen, the thing that’s most impressive is the stratification that we’re seeing inside these tanks. It’s very adaptable for most existing hot water tanks. Let me just read this question here. That’s correct, Adam. Yes. So, one of the things as I said that’s most impressive is the stratification. So as an example, a ream Marathon hot water tank where a 36-inch wand on a normal solar day is seeing about a 50-degree differential from the top of the tank to the bottom of the tank. So, there’s no disruption in the stratification of the tank when you use this wand. In fact, the heat exchange actually starts at the top of the wand, and so the hot is always mix with the hot just like we like it and it moves in counter current to the stratification. So, I was really surprised with the stratification that we see but it really separates the quality that allows you to use just what you need and save some for later I guess. Alright. Another external heat exchangers, a lot of these stainless steel shell and tube that you see here are used for swimming pools. This is a perfect way to tie in to take a combi-system which is producing significant amount of heat in the winter time and then with a simple three port valve and a stainless steel shell and tube exchanger, we could pull heat off of the solar loop and dump it directly into our hot tub or swimming pool. One of the nice things about these shell and tube heat exchangers is they have two different flow capacities. So, for the solar loop, we’re using, there’s a one-inch port and on the pool loop, it’s up to an inch and a half port which means we can get about 60 to 70 gallons a minute on one side of the heat exchanger and maintain a flow of 5 to 10 gallons a minute on the opposite side of the heat exchanger. Let me show you a diagram here that illustrates the use of an external heat exchanger. As you notice, all we’ve done with this design is remove the coil and brought it to the outside. One of the nice things about external exchangers is they are serviceable, if need be, we have areas with a lot of mineralization, so you can remove the heat exchanger. Another nice thing is it is easy to oversize an external heat exchanger. So for example, if I have a very high load for my solar loop, a pressurized storage tank will have a fixed-sized coil, and it may not be suitable. So, the only way for me to get a larger coil is to buy a larger tank. Well I may not need a larger tank, so by using internal coils you’re really limited to the size of the heat exchanger, but by using external heat exchangers, I can go from a 10 plate and double the capacity to the 20 plate for an increase in cost of about 20 percent or less. Really in the end it only amounts to less than a $100 difference. So, in my mind, one of the best features of using external heat exchangers is your ability to scale it up at a low cost. So you can oversize heat exchangers, which we recommend over sizing them anyway. So I’ve got a couple of questions here. External heat exchangers can be dismantled easily if you use unions. Okay, so if you’re not using unions then it becomes a little bit more difficult. So you know with the additional cost, try to use unions wherever possible and valves. Then the question regarding the SunMaxx, the solar wand, that’s really rated for not so much the size of the storage tank as it is the capacity. These can transfer about 9,000 BTUs per hour. Yes, so the wand heat exchangers are capable of about 9,000 BTUs an hour heat exchange, which means they’re going to be good for about 40 to 50 square feet of collector area total. A little bit less with evacuated tubes because of their higher production per hour during peak production days. And then the use of electric elements, regarding the stratification with electric elements, that is one of the things that most often the electric element ports come in the middle of the table range. And I would like to see electric element ports be closer to the top two-third, and then set these on a timer as to not maintain your solar preheat by way of electric element during any part of the solar day. So there is some manipulation that can happen to help increase the effectiveness of electric heating elements when you’re using internal coils. Alright, now sizing up heat exchangers, Tim, shell tube heat exchanger can be adequate for radiant floor as long as it’s sized properly. So, all we need to know is the total load on that radiant floor and the flow rate, and then we can size up a shell tube. However, I would probably recommend, rather than a shell tube, I would recommend a braised plate heat for radiant floor heating. You’ll get a better heat exchange through braised plate than we do with shell tube, the only benefit to me is that the shell tube, being stainless steel…

 

SUNMAXX SOLAR HOT WATER SOLUTIONS FUNDAMENTALS IN STEAMBACK DESIGN Presented by: Todd Paternoster Date: 11/08/2010 Ok, Good Afternoon everybody. My name is Todd Paternoster, Director of Training for SunMaxx Solar. This is another one of our SunMaxx Solar webinar series. Today I’d like to talk about the fundamentals in steamback design. This is a relatively new concept for the most part in the U.S., although there are many installers that have been doing it for quite a while. It’s much more common and useful in European solar thermal systems. So, I want to touch base a little bit on some of these design strategies, to introduce it to you, for those of you who are not familiar with steamback design. I think it’s going to become much more common in the U.S. as an alternative to drainbacks. Ok, so as always I’d like to encourage you to ask me questions in the chat box. We do have a relatively small class, small group today, so it makes it a little bit easier to address questions immediately. Ok, I’ll get right into it now. So, generally when you design a combisystem, you’re going to produce more energy than you need in the summertime. So, the options are really to either, traditional options are to, reduce the production, or to dump your heat. Heat dumps are very, very common in the U.S. market. In the European market, dumps are relatively strange. They don’t design too many systems using a heat dump, instead they use the steamback designs. Now, not to say that they never design systems, and when I say they I mean the European installers, heat dumps are really only designed when steamback system will be limited. There are long runs of copper, convoluted runs, but I’ll get into that in a minute. So traditionally we either don’t make it or we have to do something with it. Now with a steamback, looking at this simple design here, what I want you to focus on is the location of the expansion tank. So, in most pump stations, the expansion tanks are located above the pump, ok. The location of that is critical in allowing for steambacks to occur. So, for those of you in attendance that have installed systems, you probably have allowed for steamback to occur without even knowing it. So, steamback is, essentially, a time during stagnation when the pump is off and the collectors begin to overheat and boil the heat transcript fluid. Now, the heat transcript fluid in a closed loop system is usually 50% glycol and 50% water. Water has a lower boiling point than glycol okay. SRCC shows us that most collectors can stagnate at upper 300s low 400 degrees Fahrenheit with no danger. So, stagnation is not really a problem for collectors, stagnation is a problem for glycol. Much of the glycol in the market has a buffer and those buffers will break down when they approach temperatures of usually 250 and upwards of 360. So some of the best glycols on the market are going to be able to stagnate up to 360 without turning acidic. But we can’t rely on that alone. We have to allow for this condition we call stagnation. So, when the pumps shut off and the collectors stagnate during the solar day the boiling points of the two fluids is going to cause water to boil, creating the steam, and that steam pressure is going to force the remaining fluid, or the remaining solution which would be mostly glycol, into the expansion tank. Okay, so imagine collectors at high noon stagnating, alright and they’re producing temperatures exceeding 390 degrees. There’s no danger to the collectors, remember, the only danger is to the glycol. So if the water boils at a lower temperature and forces the glycol out of the collectors, then what remains is a collector full of water steam. Which we know from SRCC that that presents no danger to system life or longevity. So simply not necessarily creating a steamback system or designing a steamback system but small differences in installation allow us to allow for steambacks to occur. So steamback, basically the laws of physics tell us that water will boil and increase the pressure and that pressure will be used to force the remaining solution out of the collector. Now steamback happens in five phases. I would like to remind you we’ve been 6 minutes so far and I haven’t had a question so far. For those of you who know me, I do enjoy questions. So get your thinking caps on and see if you can ask me some questions. So there’s five phases to steambacks, okay. As I just described to you, the whole process. The first thing that’s going to happen is the liquid, the heat transfer fluid, is going to expand. And that expansion increases the pressure. What we don’t want to have happen is our safety valve to open, okay. Most safety valves in pump stations, I know for the UniMaxx pump station, it’s 87 psi. So, we want to be sure that we do not approach that pressure. So the first thing that happens is the liquid is going to expand, and once the fluid, the water, reaches the boiling point, the expansion is going to increase by a factor of 240. Okay, so that increasing in pressure is going to push the liquid out of the collector, and this is when we enter phase two. This can happen in a matter of 3 to 4 minutes, it might take up to an hour to work all of the remaining fluid out of the collector, and as you know the remaining fluid should be close to 100% glycol. Now, the third phase is when the collectors will push the remainder of the fluid out and the water will boil and this boiling of the water, as I mentioned, can increase the volume by 240%. So, it’s going to push every last bit of glycol out of the collectors. Now we have super saturated steam, or super heated steam. Again we are still less than 87 psi, but it’s extremely saturated water steam. Finally, once the solar day ends collectors cool down, pressure drops, and the expansion tank will refill the collector with the, not only the condensate from the steam, but also from the glycol that had been separated. And then that solution will very easily be mixed again and we have a 50% glycol concentration at the end of the day, and we haven’t boiled our glycol. So this steamback happens during stagnation, and it’s going to happen whether you like it or not. So what you really have to do is consider what types of design, and what types of collectors, will more easily allow for steamback to happen, because steamback is a physical process and it essentially protects your glycol. So by allowing for steamback, you have an added insurance. So the last step, to address the question, as the solar day ends the production by the collectors decreases, the steam is going to obviously condensate. As it condensates, it reduces the pressure inside the collectors. That pressure inside the collectors, once it reaches a point less than the pressure of the expansion tank, well then the expansion tank is going to force the glycol back into solution, back into the collectors. This happens just as a natural process. In order for these five phases to occur, I’m going to go over a couple of points here on system design. Now this graph shows the different pressures at the expansion vessel, depending on the quality of the design and the quality of the collectors. Now if the ability of the collectors to effectively steam back. Now, the red line is a poor emptying behavior collector. So, what you see there, is during phase two, the transition between phase two and three, when the super heated steam is emptying the collector, it creates more steam power. So it takes more steam to force the remainder of the fluid out of the collector. So, although this does work, it takes longer for that steam to force the glycol out. Some of you may know that glycol buffers that protect the pH of the solution, they don’t break down immediately, once they – okay Nathan, good question I’m going to actually address that in just a couple of slides. So as I was saying, the pressure inside the collector doesn’t necessarily have to climb to four to four and half bars. One bar is one atmosphere by the way. If the, and I’m going to discuss the perimeters of the collector that allow for steamback to occur, there’s a couple of design strategies, not only in the collector but also in the piping. So what we want to have happen, as you can see the green line shows once we enter phase two, phase three occurs without any added pressure at all. So in other words, once we begin to empty the collector in phase two, phase three, the steaming of the water doesn’t do anything to increasing pressure because it is easy to empty the collector into the expansion tank, and I’m going to show you a couple of designs that will allow us to do that. So what you see here, these four would not have very good steamback characteristics. In other words, these would take more steam pressure to remove the fluid from the collectors, than it would – if I go back for a moment, this green line is what we’re really after. We want to design a system with collectors that allows for the transition from phase two to phase four with no added pressure. These systems would represent the blue and the red line, because as you can see, if we are coming in on the left hand side, in order for the steam to force the fluid out it’s got to overcome a pressure rise and push it all the way down and then back up and out. And the second one, we’re basically moving in one direction, so the amount of pressure, these are actually in parallel but in an unbalanced, parallel arrangement. And the third one, this is very typical of a U-pipe evacuated tube system. You essentially have reverse return piping folded in half, so the third one is not effective in removing. Now bear in mind all four of these styles will allow for steamback, just being very particular now as to which style requires less steam in order to steamback. Now the answer to that question is here, so this style piping arrangement allows for steamback to occur very easily because it can happen in two directions. So for example, the serpentine style on the left. The serpentine style that you see on the left-hand side is the single best design for steamback. Now when I say best, again I mean it requires less pressure to empty the collector. What we’re really after is emptying the collector of glycol. Most collectors are rated for about 10 bars, they are pressure tested for 10 bars. And if I go back up here, even the worst ones, so poor, good, and very good are just relative, so even the ones that say poor emptying behavior, that pressure that’s required of them to eliminate the glycol from the collector is still about half of the pressure the system can take. So most collectors are rated, and you should check with your manufacturer, speaking for SunMaxx the collectors are rated at 10 bars, that’s what they’re pressure tested to. So even though I say poor emptying behavior, it’s still less than the maximum allowable pressure of the collector. I hope that answers your pressure there, Nathan, in terms of parameters of collector that affect the performance. And this design, take a look at the third one, the third one is a harp-style or header riser style collector, and it does show arrow coming in, the supply to the collectors coming in on the bottom right, and it’s moving up and out to the top left. So, it’s coming in on the bottom right and it’s leaving on the top right. But this arrow very easily, in normal design we would have the supply going to the tank opposite the return coming from the collectors. So if you look at this third one, this arrow can just as well be over on the opposite side as it might be piped in for a reverse return method. The fourth diagram shows how easy it is to remove the glycol solution from this system because I have two possible exits. Now, location of the expansion vessel is probably the single most important thing in allowing for steamback. I did mention the design of collectors will affect performance, however, even some of the worse poorly designed collectors still can empty the collector with less pressure than is allowed in the collector. But, if you do not install the expansion tank in the proper location, then regardless of your collector’s ability to create steam power, it’s simply not going to work. So, if you take a look at the design that’s in place, it says poor location of the check valve. Now many pumps Taco, for example, that has check valves that are integrated into the pump. It’s not a very strong check valve but it’s strong enough that it will slow down the movement of steam into the expansion tank. So if you take a look at the placement of the expansion tank in the diagram labeled poor location, why is it a poor location to put the expansion tank below the pump? If we read textbooks on hydraulics and pump performance, we talk to Taco and we talk to Vilo about the placement of the expansion tank relative to the pump, it’s often been argued that expansion tanks should go behind the pump so that the pump doesn’t have increased pressure that it has to overcome. If we put the expansion tank in front of the pump, while the pump turns on, the required pressure may be taken in by the expansion tank and the pump is just pumping and pumping and pumping but it’s not going anywhere because of the positive pressure on the push side of the pump is being taken in by the expansion tank and the column of water doesn’t get moving. So, I have been involved in a system where we had the expansion tank behind the pump like this, the pump did not have enough head to move the fluid, so we had to move the expansion tank behind the pump, and the pump then was able to move the fluid. Now, as you know, if you put the expansion tank behind the check valve, it’s really not a question as to where the expansion tank should go in relation to the pump, it’s a question as to where the expansion tank should go in relation to the check valve. So, the check valve is not going to allow for movement in the opposite direction. So, it’s going to actually block the expansion tank’s ability to take in any of the super heated fluid coming off the collectors. So, just to the left of this, this is the good location of the check valve. So, if we put the expansion tank in front of the check valve, but behind the pump, now what we’ve done is we’ve eliminated the need for increased pressure by the pump because the expansion tank is behind the pump, but we’ve also increased the system’s ability to allow for steamback because we’ve put the check valve behind the expansion vessel. There is another consideration to make, however, most pumps and I know that Taco and Grundfos are rated at about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. So if we put the expansion tank behind the pump such as this, but in front of the check valve, which is what we recommend, then we also run a risk of overheating the pump, because if the collectors are stagnating and producing temperatures that are boiling, and we might have a 250 degree boiling point for water. If your system’s operating at 30 psi, for example you have 2 bars, the required temperature in order to boil the water may approach 250 or more, 260, so once that temperature is reached, then we have some steam production and we’re into phase three. Well phase three is going to send that glycol back down into the expansion tank, that’s exactly what we want, but it has to go through the pump before it gets to the expansion tank. So you do run a risk of endangering the pump, so you want to check what the high temperature limits of your pumps are, and I can tell you that the Taco 00 series, I believe it’s a 256 degree Fahrenheit number, I may be off by a little bit, but not much. So I’ve got poor, good, and I might recommend better. Better would be where we put the expansion tank in front of the pump altogether. Another thing I’d like to point out is very simply that the bladder, or diaphragm, in your expansion tank should always be wet. We don’t want to have 250 or 270 degree water or glycol or steam or anything slamming down into our epdm lining, most bladders are made out of epdm rubber, and that does have a melting point. So, if we flip our expansion tank upside down, which I’ve seen some installers do, then it’s going to cause the bladder to be dry. That would be a situation where we have 260 degree water being forced onto the collectors and strikes the epdm lining on the membrane directly, and if this happens everyday, all summer-long, you’re definitely going to have a short-lived expansion tank. So please be sure that your expansion vessel is always wet. Now location of the expansion tank is one thing, but size of the expansion tank is another. Now before I go over this formula, which I’m not going to do in too much detail, I want you to understand that SunMaxx sales reps, engineers will size your expansion tank for you. All we need to know from you is the size of your collector field, the pressure rating on your pressure relief valve, the target pressure (what you hope to be operating your system at) and that target pressure can be anywhere from 1 bar to 3 bars, generally anywhere from 15 to 50 psi. Now, the side note here, system pressure does not affect performance. So if you’re used to operating and you want to operate your system at a higher pressure, that’s not going to affect performance. It will, however, dramatically increase the size of the expansion tank required because you’ve increased the boiling point of both the water and the glycol, which means you’re going to have hotter fluid which will have expanded, as temperatures increase so does expansion and you’re going to be able to allow for an increased temperature because of an increased pressure. So although I make a recommendation of setting your target pressure anywhere between 15 and 50, I would recommend you set your target pressure in the low end of that range, as system pressure does not affect performance. Okay, so the size of the expansion vessel, as we have very poignantly learned over the last 3 or 4 years, systems have been exploding, pressure relief valves are opening, customers have been scared. They see steam shooting out of their basement, they don’t know what’s going on and they think it’s dangerous. So we have to take it very seriously, this steamback phenomena. Steamback will happen, our job is to let it happen. And without a properly sized expansion vessel, we’re not going to let it happen. So it’s not as simple as saying, “well expansion vessel should be 20% of the system volume or 30%, or even 60% of the system volume.” We have to look every case by case, and what we need from you is the volume of the volume of fluid in your piping, total volume of fluid in the piping, and we can help calculate that if we know pipameter. We also need to know the target pressure of your system, the maximum rating of your safety valve, and the concentration of the glycol that you’re using. And if you’re using 50% glycol – ah yes, Vince, what we recommend is that you actually charge your expansion vessel at 5 psi greater. So as you take your expansion tank out of your kit, I believe they are charged at 37 psi, I’m pretty sure that’s what they are. So what you want to do, just like a tire tube, you can have a straighter valve, take a look at your needle get a tire gauge in there, see what the pressure of the tank is and charge that up to 5 psi greater than what your target pressure is. So sizing up your expansion tank is something. Well Carl that’s a good question - expelling steam means a loss of water, how often do you need to replenish? You’re not really expelling the steam, this is a closed loop. So when you create the steam, the steam actually gets trapped inside your collectors, and it’s that steam pressure that forces the fluid out of the collectors. So there may be some losses if you have an air vent that might be open a little bit, but generally, there should be no losses of steam because if you’re losing the water, you’re not increasing the pressure, and it’s that pressure increase that we need to force the glycol out of the manifolds. So it is a closed loop and you will not be expelling the steam, rather you’re going to trap the steam, and that steam gets trapped inside the collectors. Okay, so for those of you who are interested in sizing your expansion tanks by yourself, then this would be the formula to use. It’s very straightforward, I’m not going to take the time right now to go over each particular, I’m sure there’s a name, a step and process in algebra, but I don’t remember the steps involved. However, I’m not going to go over each variable, but you should know this, you need to know the volume of fluid, the concentration of fluid, the collector field, your target pressure and your maximum pressure rating for your pressure relief valve. Those factors we will use to size up your expansion vessel and you can have relatively quick turnaround. If you have systems out there that are about to enter their first winter, you probably don’t need to worry about it too much because stagnation rarely occurs in the winter time. Stagnation generally occurs in the summer, so if you had just installed a system and you want us to double-check the size of your expansion tank, get a hold of your sales rep and we can do that for you too. It’s better to be safe than surprised. Clients can be very surprised if steamback happens without a properly sized expansion tank. If they happen to be home during the time, it will scare them, I’ve seen it happen, so this is the number one thing we’ve got to be sure of, is the expansion tank properly sized. A couple of other considerations as we wrap it up, the position and size of the expansion tank, and proper concentration of glycol. I just want to point out that although some of you look at glycol as an antifreeze, that is what it is, it’s not necessarily any more or less of an antifreeze at 40% or 50% or 60% or 70% or 80%, the magic number for most places in the U.S. is 50%, and you can go down to 30%. However, please remember this, if I have 60% glycol or 70% glycol or 80% glycol, as I increase the concentration of glycol, water and glycol have different densities, so I’m going to encourage the separation of that solution. So, even though I have an 80% glycol, water is not going to be mixed in solution as it would be with a 50% glycol, so the water comes out of solution, and at night if the water comes out of solution then we have pockets of solution that are vulnerable to freezing and they’re going to end up in that collector manifolds. So 50% is actually better than 60%. There are lots of other fluids that are used, oils and ethylene, there are a lot of different heat transfer fluids and we’re playing around with some materials now, but currently for closed loop systems that need antifreeze protection, the best approach is to use a propane glycol because it is safer for the environment, it’s readily available, it does have some drawbacks with viscosity and the like, but for the most part, for the next couple of years anyway, propane glycol will be the heat transfer fluid of choice. Nathan, the webinar slides will be posted on the site. As soon as I’m done here you’ll see a pdf on solar webinars that you can download and use that formula, that probably would appear in a pdf form much clearer than it has here. For references use Siegenthaler and Hausner and Fink. So to wrap it up, I’d like to thank you for your attention once again. My name is Todd Paternoster, and I encourage you to email me at [email protected], we have all sorts of things we can share with you, but you ask us the questions and we’ll do our best to get some answers out to you right away. Stay tuned for next week, take a look at our schedule. If you have any suggestions or things that you’d like to see covered please don’t hesitate to send an email to me with that suggestion. I do encourage feedback, both positive and negative. Amy, you want to position, normal installation of expansion tank is going to cause the bladder to do what? The point is don’t turn it on it’s side or flip it upside down because what’s going to happen is the steam is going to rise and come right up in direct contact with the bladder, so we generally recommend taking a look at the stickers on the expansion tank and installing them so you can read them like you normally would. If there are not stickers for proper orientation, then look at the installation manual and just be sure that any of the fluid that’s trapped in your expansion tank is resting on the membrane, so that in order for any steam to touch the membrane, it’s got to pass through fluid. That’s cooling it down, reducing the temperature and likelihood of melting. Yeah, it is a problem, Dave, and what it is, is little micro-explosions of steam that, the banging of pipes happens in situations that don’t have good emptying behavior. If you have convolutions in your pipe where you might get pockets of condensate, that condensate is going to be introduced to steam and you get little micro-explosions and those are the bangings that you hear. So, not only the collector requires good emptying behavior, but the entire pipe run requires good emptying behavior. So, in a sense, just as we have limitations for drainback systems, everyone of our pipes needs to be sloped down in order to drain. Steambacks require the same type of attention, we don’t want to have places where there are pockets of water before the expansion vessel. Not that it’s a problem, but you will end up with the interface of steam and condensate and little micro-explosions, and there’s not a whole lot you can do to reduce that at this point. Well I do want to formally end it, and I’m happy to – okay I got another question… No, you don’t need a specific steam condenser, and I would be interested in email to speak with you more about that to see. I’m not exactly sure what you’re referring to, but as I mentioned before, steamback will happen whether we want it to happen or not, it’s going to happen it’s just a matter of have we designed it so that we allow for steamback to occur, is the expansion tank properly sized, does our piping represent proper emptying behavior, and do the collectors represent proper emptying behavior, and is our expansion tank located in the correct spot relative to the check valve. If those measures are in place, then we’re in good shape. Again, email me any questions, this is just the beginning of our interactions and hopefully we’ll see you next week. Have a great solar day, as I look out my window here I don’t see the sun, but that’s not surprising, again we’re in upstate New York, hopefully we’ll see it here in the next couple of days. Okay, take care everybody, bye bye.

SUNMAXX SOLAR HOT WATER SOLUTIONS PROGRAMMING SMARTMAXX CONTROLLERS Presented by: Todd Paternoster Date: 11/15/2010 Okay. I’d like to welcome everyone to our Solar Programming SmartMaxx Controllers Webinar. My name is Todd Paternoster Director of Training for SunMaxx Solar. I’m going to take the next thirty minutes and cover in as much detail as I can domestic hot water and SmartMaxx controller programming. I’m going to try and answer all your questions. Please feel free to as always send me a question in the chat box. I usually do my best to answer them right away. Before I get into it can anybody confirm for me that they can actually hear me? That would be a good start. All right, perfect. Let me begin by introducing our two basic controllers that we have for here the SmartMaxx-DHWBPlus and the SmartMaxx Economy Plus. Obviously the Economy plus is a much more complicated controller. It allows you to tie into heating systems quite easily and often it can replace some of the home heating system logic. Now the SmartMaxx-DHWBPlus which is what I’ll focus on today gives you many options for your solar system. With only two relays and as you’ll see there are many things that we can do with those two relays. We can run pumps and valves or two valves and two pumps. As well as monitor performance data and log that data we can also tie into second tank or heat dump loop and obviously the b bus data logging capabilities. Okay the DWHBPlus has a thermostatic function as well as differential function. I’ll go into more detail as far as what that means momentarily. It allows you to set certain programs to activate at pre-determined temperatures rather than pre-determined differentials. They do use the PT1000 temperature sensors. As you might be able to barely make out in this photograph there’s a black and grey sensor. Just to point out the black sensors are rated for 280 degrees Celsius. So the black sensors are always what you use in the solar collectors. The grey sensors are used for the tank. These are a good controller to use for drain back systems. There are a few important functionalities in terms of how effectively a drain back system can operate using one of these controllers. There are nine different systems that are selectable that we can pre-program settings and just choose which array is most suitable. I’ll go over those in a minute too. There are also energy metering and very simple settings that you can activate. That allows you to monitor performance without having any additional software or any other components. This will be able to monitor performance for you as along as you activate that function as with all resale controllers. Yeah, it sure does Don and I’ll discuss that momentarily. You can pre-program your controllers based on the parameters that I’m going to introduce to you in a moment. But you can also tell your controller to do anything that you need it to do. There’s software that you can purchase and it’s fairly high end. It’s in the neighborhood of $800 for the software. But it’s a one time use and that will allow you to tell your controller to do things that’s outside of the standard factory setting options. So that is always an option for you. Now let’s just get right into wiring the controller first. Right out of the box you’re going to have a pre-wired controller. This photograph here you see the wires that the lead in the neutral and the green ground. They come pre-wired with our DWHB Plus pump station. Okay so if you order the controller separately you have to wire the circuit in. Very simple the lead in the neutral go to terminals 19 and 20 and the ground to 12. But if you buy the pump station with the SmartMaxx controller it comes pre-wired and all you have to do is plug the controller into the wall. The sensor wires on this photo I showed the brown on the left and the white on the right. However there’s no polarity to these sensors. So you can wire them which ever way you want. There’s no polarity on the sensor wires. If for some reason you don’t have the sensor wire wired properly there will be a flashing triangular sign on your controller. That indicates to you that the sensors are improperly wired. So it is relatively foolproof. The instruction manual is very detailed and laid out with troubleshooting guides in an attempt to make this what could be a complicated procedure and turn into something very simple. Often people will say “Do I need to hire an electrician?” Or “Should I get a certified or licensed electrician to do this?” And really the answer is up to the municipal code but in terms of what pre-knowledge it takes to wire these controllers is very basic. So my answer is “No, you don’t need an electrician in order to wire or program these controllers.” As you get into the economy system and tie into furnaces and boilers it does help to bring in an electrician or HVAC guy in. But this is something that you should be able to handle quite easily I believe. Okay now in terms of programming. You have only three buttons to choose from. They’re numbered one, two and three from the right to the left. My finger is on button number one. That button will forward the menu. So right now you see the photograph that says collector. That’s sensor is reading 71.9. It’s going to move forward to the next sensor. It’s going to move to all four sensors if they are installed. And then it will give you the Hp percentage the number of hours that the pump has run. Then the last option will be a time menu. Once you get to the time menu then you can begin to access the sub-menu by holding down button number one. So let me go to the next slide real quick and show you the different arrays. So these are the different options. This I took right out of the instruction manual just to remind you folks that you can go to www.sunmaxxsolar.com in the information section and download this controller instruction manual ahead of time. And often the manual will help you understand what type of system might work best for your application. So rather than working backwards building the system and deciding which array would work best. You may go the other way around and choose the array that best suits what you’re trying to do. Then build your system around that particular array and the functionality of the controller. So basically I have a standard solar system as array number one. Then you have a solar system with a heat exchanger. Array three is solar system with after heating. And then you have a solar system with tank charge where you’re trying to maintain stratification. We’re going to see more and more stratifying tanks and stratifying valves. They’ve been doing it for years in Europe and they really utilize and maximize tank stratification. I don’t believe the United States market has really tapped into this stratification performance yet. Now that’s a good question typically for array number seven it’s designed as an east west type of arrangement. I would recommend that you can use one pump with two valves because you don’t want to run…What you definitely need to have is two separate returns coming from the collectors. Because in the morning the east bank is obviously going to be hot. You don’t want the west bank to be circulating it all because it hasn’t picked up any heat whatsoever. So although this diagram here shows two separate pumps for the east and the west bank you could also just do one pump and one valve. It would be a little tricky for you to regulate the flow through each respective bank but it certainly is possible Joe. Then for eight the solar system with after heating by a solid fuel boiler. Number nine is solar system with heating circuit bringing the temperature from the solar tank and delivering it to the heating system. So basically array number nine is a mildly complicated copy system that you’re able to accomplish with only a basic controller. Those two relays can actually do quite a lot for you. What you won’t be able to do however is tie into the logic of your boiler with this particular controller. All right so basically what you want to do and let me remind you…Choose which array represents what you’re trying to do. I do recommend that you look at this instruction manual before you build your system and you can model your system after the functionality of the controller. Rather than trying to make the controller fit what system you have designed. Couple really basic settings before we get into it too much. You have the delta t o and the delta t f. You turn the pump on and your delta t o comes out of the factory set at 12 degrees. For northern climates we recommend you change the delta to o to 17 degrees. This gives your collectors a greater chance to heat up and really start to produce energy before your pump turns on. We’ve experienced a lot of short cycling the pump will turn on and then the fluid in the pipe will be enough to cool the collector off and then we’ll turn the pump off. Then we’ll turn the pump on and turn off and turn on and turn off. So by raising the delta t o up to 17 degrees particularly for northern climates then it reduces the short cycling of the pump. Now if your homeowner or service call for your own contract you can visit your systems twice a year. And if you did it in the spring and in the fall you would change the delta t o. Because in the summer time there’s no reason for your collectors to be seventeen degrees hotter before they turn on. So I recommend turning your delta t o down in the spring and then turning your delta t o back up in the fall. Particularly for northern climates but same is true for most of the places in the country. In the spring time you turn your delta t o down and then in the fall you turn your delta t o up. This is very simple to do and you can instruct your homeowner to do it or you can provide it as part of your service contract. The delta t f is what is going to turn the pump off. When the approach temperature or when the differential decreases and the factory setting is eight. We see in our systems we’ve turned that down as low as possible and five degrees seems to be a nice delta t f. So we recommend you change your settings down to five degrees. Okay anybody have any questions? Now in order to change those settings again there’s three buttons that you have to work with one, two and three. My finger is on button number one. Moving okay is button number two. And then button number three is the minus. I would like to point out that I do have a typo on button number three that’s actually button number one. On my screen you see array number one. Array number one that’s on the sub-menu. So you get to the sub-menu by pressing the plus button until it goes to the option called time. That’s the end of the main menu. Once you get to the end of the main menu you have to hold that button down for a few seconds. As you hold it down for a few seconds the sub-menu will appear. The sub-menu begins with your array options. So the first thing that’s going to appear in my sub-menu are the arrays. That would be array number one so I scroll through by pressing the plus button until I reach the array that is most suited for what I’m trying to do. Once I get to that array then I want to change that setting to array number two for example. So I hold the okay button down. By holding the okay button it’s going to cause the set. There’s a little icon in the screen with the word set. That set button is going to flash. As soon as that set button flashes then I can change the setting or I can push okay. If I push okay then it automatically changes to whatever appears on my screen. So I’ve gone to array number three and I like array number three. So I hold the okay button down for a few seconds. I get the word set to flash and then I press okay again one last time. I’ve automatically changed the setting to array number three. Now for each of the nine arrays factory settings will cause this controller to work. So all you have to do is change the array that you’re looking for and plug your controller in. The factory settings are pre-determined to make this controller function as recommended by the factory settings. So you really don’t have to do anything beyond choose the array. If you don’t even choose the array then the factory setting will be array number one which basically turns a single pump on. Now even though you’ve chosen the array. There’s still some functions within each array that you can activate. Many of the functions will not be active until you manually activate that function. Once you activate the function then you can change some of the parameters within that function. So I’m going to go through some of the functions here just a few technical things. This does have a built in transformer so you’ll bring a 110 volts in. This has two semi-conductor relays. So you will bring in 115 and you’ll send out 115. The display operates at 24 volts but like I said it’s got a built in transformer. So really this is fool proof. There’s no re-wiring or re-wiring of relays and switches. All you have to do is plug this controller into the wall and it will work. All right now let’s get into programming array number two. Here’s what I done is just showed you the two different arrays. Two of the nine and for instance every array has number one operates both relays. You have to enable certain functionalities. So I’m going to go through those functions now. For example there’s a table in your instruction manual that lays out the definitions of all these features. I’m going to go through some that I think are the most important and highlight why they are important. SMX is your maximum tank temperature. Now this does have a non-adjustable setting of 200 degrees. No matter what happens when your tank reaches 200 degrees Fahrenheit your entire system will shut down and it won’t be able to turn back on again until the tank drops below 200 degrees Fahrenheit. You can’t change this. You can however change your maximum tank temperature your preferred max tank temperature. We recommend that the tanks don’t exceed 180 degrees. So given a slight delay we recommend that you change your SMX function to 175 degrees. Now SMX has to be activated and you do that the same way that you choose an array. Once you’ve chosen an array then you continue through the menu until the three letters SMX appear. Once SMX appears on your screen and you hold the okay button down until you get the flashing set. Once you have the flashing set then you can adjust that temperature accordingly. And press the okay button and you’ve programmed it. So we recommend 175 for SMX. The emergency collector shut down now this is where you’re system will shut down when the collectors exceed the maximum temperature and it ranges from 170-390. We’ll 390 degrees is the stagnation temperature of the collectors. That is what they’re testing for at SRCC and Solar Key Market in Europe. Where there’s been no damage to the collectors and they’ve stagnated for thirty days at those temperatures. However right out of the factory or right out of the box these controllers are set for emergency shut down at 270 degrees. Now if you’re using type L copper or stainless steel you can handle 270 degrees. You’d certainly wouldn’t want your fluid to be circulating at 270 degrees. But if you have your pump on the return line going back to the collectors then you should be okay. So this is sort of a preference but you should not exceed what the factory setting is. You can’t turn it down but don’t turn the EM up. Again this EM is a function that you have to activate. OCC now this is going to cool your collectors down this is the heat dump loop or you have a secondary tank. OCC will be active once SMX is reached. SMX is the max tank temperature you set that at 175. Once your tank reaches 175 then OCC will be active. OCC will either trigger a second pump or it will open a normally closed valve. By opening the normally closed valve your solar pump will continue to pump even though you’ve exceeded SMX. So if OCC is not activated and you reach SMX then your solar pump will shut down. That’s okay as long as you have a second pump activated that’s going to act as your heat dump. But if you want your solar pump to continue to run even though SMX is reached then you’ve got to activate your OCC function. System cooling is another function so you have collector cooling but you also have system cooling. Now system cooling is where you want to cool your entire system down. Don, all systems don’t need a heat dump. Most often heat dumps are used in cases where you’re producing excess in the summer because you designed an economy system. Most often for hot water systems and as long as the storage tank has been designed properly. Then a separate heat dump loop is not required. There are ways such as steam back which I talked about last week. Steam back is going to allow your collectors to basically shut down their production in the case of over stagnation. So heat dumps are not always required although heat dump may not necessarily be wasteful. For example if you have a secondary tank the OCC function will activate that secondary loop. So rather than dumping into a heat dump loop you’ll dump into a secondary tank. Now system cooling function is when your entire system reaches maximum temperature but it’s less than emergency shut down. Now this OSYC function is something that you activate if you’d like your system to be able to bypass EM. In other words you’re going to exceed your maximum tank temperature that you’ve set but it’s still less than the emergency shut down then you can dump into a high temperature heat dump somewhere. I do not suggest you using OSYC with evacuated tubes. So that function is disabled the only way you can enable it is to activate it in the menu bar. For evacuated tube systems we recommend not using OSYC because the temperatures can spike so rapidly. Now the tank cooling function OSTC is a good way to cool your tank down during times of overproduction. So if you have a slightly over-sized system and you’re producing a little too much everyday for the month of August. Then you can dump some of those Btu’s out at night into your collectors by activating the OSTC function. This is something that you can activate seasonally if you like. It’s very simple. It literally will take you about five seconds to turn it on or turn it off. What’s going to happen if the OSTC function is enabled it’s going to automatically adjust your SMX. It’s going to bring your SMX down to whatever you set it at let’s say 150. So it’s going to cause your OCC loop to run once your tank is above the maximum set point. So by activating OSTC and setting that temperature that will automatically replace your SMX temperature. Which will cause the collectors loop to circulate at night time. Which means that you start the day with more of a buffer before you have to begin sort a safety mechanism. There’s another long term OSTC that you can activate and that’s called OHOL. This where you are going to be producing a significant amount of energy for an extended period of time with no load. In this case you’re going to everyday your solar loop will turn on while you’re gone and it will dump heat out until your collectors are the same temperature as your tank. So at night time what you want to do is deplete your tank of as much energy as possible because there’s no load. So essentially you’re creating a load on your storage tank using the OHOL function. Another important one especially in the north is the OCM. This is going to allow you to determine the temperature setting that you don’t want your pump to turn on until that temperature has been met. For example if you have a concrete floor and you’re operating your concrete floor at 65 degrees or 70 degrees. If you have a 17 degree differential your collector may kick on when it reaches 75 degrees. But at 75 degrees you’re not producing nearly as much energy as you might be consuming by running your pump. So it really isn’t paying to run your pump because you’re really not pulling any energy in your floor. So even though you’ve met your differential you activate OCM so that your collector loop will not turn on until you exceed 85 degrees or 90 degrees. Something that is a significant amount of energy that makes it worth your while to run your pump. Another very important one that I think is going to become more and more common. Replacing the antifreeze is the OCF function. Remember these are functions of the basic domestic hot water controller. So by replacing the antifreeze they glycol in your loop with this OCF function. What this is going to do is turn your collector loop on when the heat transfer fluid drops below a certain temperature. Now we recommend starting off at 35 degrees Fahrenheit this is going to be based off sensor number one which is in your collectors. Your collectors tend to cool off at a slower rate then you’re piping will cool off because they’re very well insulated. So what you should do if you’re going to use OCF is monitor it very closely because if for some reason you haven’t programmed it properly then you’re going to have some freezing in your line. So you’re really putting a lot of weight and a lot of importance on this proper operation of OCF. But if you can get it to work and give you accurate readings of temperature then it eliminates the need for any glycol in your loop and it also increases your heat transfer. And it increases your total system efficiency by eliminating that glycol. You do however sacrifice some of the energy that you’ve captured in order to keep your loop from freezing. So I’ve heard estimates and these are estimates only. But I’ve heard by using your OCF function in place of glycol you reduce your total Btu production by three to five percent. It consumes three to five percent of those Btu’s that you produced in order to keep your loop from freezing. But to me that seems like a pretty good trade off particularly because think about first thing in the morning when your collector loop might be 20 degrees and it’s slushy. Your collectors are heating up and now you’ve got to spend more energy to try to bring that entire loop up to temperature. So rather than spending the two hours of morning time sun just bringing your whole loop up to temperature. You could already start your loop at ten or twenty degrees hotter from using the energy that you captured yesterday. So I like the OCF function but I caution you to be very careful about accurate readings for your sensors. You should find the coldest spot in your collector loop. You can use sensor four which is just the data acquisition sensor. Use sensor four and place it where you think is the coldest spot and correlate sensor number four with actual readings of sensor number one. If those too…Yes, you can Don. Although it’s sort of redundant to use glycol and OCF it would be a good way to practice using your antifreeze function without the risk of freezing your loop. Okay couple of other important ones before I close it up here. OHQM is an energy metering function that doesn’t require the use of any other software or equipment. What you do need to have however and it’s included in the SmartMaxx. You need to know the flow rate in liters per minute. Open up this OHQM in your menu and press the okay button. Set button will blink. Once the set button blinks it’s going to ask for the flow. You have to enter the flow in liters per minute. And that’s the maximum flow. So you set your maximum flow and once you’ve pre-programmed your maximum flow for your system. Maximum flow is if your pump is running at a hundred percent speed what is your optimal flow rate. So once you program that it’s going to store your performance data on a daily basis. So at the end of each day you can go to your OHQM and look to see how many Btu’s have been produced by your system. It’s going to give it in kilowatt hours. But it can be easily converted to Btu’s. The manual shows the conversion chart. This is a good a way and most people don’t take advantage of OHQM. In fact most people don’t take advantage of most of the functions for this controller because they just aren’t familiar with it. But it can do a lot. OHQM is an important function especially for your clients’ ease of mind. To show them that your system is actually producing. It’s also a nice way for you to trouble shoot. Perhaps find places where you think you’re producing the energy but you’re not consuming it. So where do you have some losses. The drain back option this is going to do two things. Drain back option one will first start off your system siphoning by activating a secondary pump or ramping up the pump’s speed to a hundred percent until the siphon is achieved. That can take up to five minutes. So ODP has a time delay option that’s going send voltage to a secondary pump. That secondary pump is going to double your head which allows you to overcome that initial head from zero. Once you’ve created that siphon it might take up to five minutes then ODP will disable the secondary pump and allow the variable speed function to operate the circulator. It will also ramp up your existing circulator to a hundred percent or whatever is required to overcome the head. So you can get away with a larger more powerful pump just for system siphoning. Once that siphon is created based on the time sequence that you’re going to pre-program. It won’t be able to read whether there’s a siphon or not. But it’s going to be based on a time sequence that you’ve pre-programmed that you’ve observed how long it takes for this siphon to yield you. Then it will ramp it back down to the optimum flow rate. Obviously you have manual one for relay and manual two. This gives you the option of turning a relay on or turning a relay off or using the auto settings for your relays. So often times you want to override the factory settings for one time shot. So you go to man one and press your okay button and then it gives you the blinking set. There’s going to be three choices for man one. It’s going to say power on or power off or auto. So you can keep your relay off. You can keep your relay on. Or you can allow the automatic settings to override. So this is an important feature especially for starting the system up and trying to play around with it. You want to make sure that you get some circulation before you put your tubes in different things that you want to be able to change. Those are some of the most important features of the DHWBPlus that I wanted to go through with you. I did run over. I try to keep it at thirty minutes. I do have more that I’m going to just quickly introduce and move on. I’m going to do another webinar for the SmartMaxx Economy Plus. All the same functionality as the DHWBPlus however there’s many more things that we can discuss. The Economy Plus this is going to be another webinar we’re going to do in two weeks. Real quick some of the accessories that you can purchase with your SmartMaxx are the v bus. V Bus is going to allow you to integrate into a home computer system network system wireless. The data logger is basically an external hard drive that’s going to collect data for thirty days from your DHWBPlus or the Economy Plus. You can also get a touch screen monitoring system that can be monitored remotely. You can run some cables and bring it up to your homeowner’s kitchen if they want to see what’s going on. You can also download software for the IPhone and look at the entire system monitoring anywhere in the world. There’s also flow meters that can be installed for long term system monitoring system performance. As well as flow switch that will activate other relays not based on temperature or anything just based on there’s flow. Flow switches are used more often with domestic hot water systems and external heating exchangers. And anybody with an IPhone can download this app that allows you to see what your system is doing no matter where you are in the world. You log into a URL address that you have your v bus downloading all the information to. I know thirty minutes is not enough time to do nearly as much as I’d like to do with controllers. I do encourage you to ask questions. You can email me at [email protected]. Yes, Don both controllers will log the data with the Economy Plus and the DHWBPlus. So send me an email if you have any questions at [email protected]. Contact your sales rep for more information and go to sunmaxxsolar.com and download the DHWBPlus installation manual. Take a look at the arrays that are possible and start to think about designing systems and installing systems that the controllers are pre-programmed for. It’s going to make your job much easier and the performance is going to be better. So again there’s a lot more that we can talk about for controllers but I like to keep this at thirty minutes. I’ve already gone over for seven minutes. So please do email me and I’ll try my best to respond right away. Thanks a lot for taking the time to learn about the controllers and I hope to see you again next week. You can always go to solarwebinars.com and look at the archives for a review of any information that we’ve covered again. So thanks you all take care and we will see you next week.

SUNMAXX SOLAR HOT WATER SOLUTIONS MOUNTING STRATEGIES Presented by: Todd Paternoster Date: 11/22/2010 Well, welcome everyone. Good afternoon, welcome to the SunMaxx Solar webinar series. My name is Todd Paternoster. I’m going to spend the next half an hour talking about various mounting strategies and hopefully some of the information is relevant to what you’re trying to accomplish. As always the chat window is open and I encourage you to send some questions my way and I’ll try my best to answer them as they appear. So, without further ado some of you may be familiar with our webinar series. Each week we try to talk about something different and relative and updated. This particular week I’m going to talk about successful mounting strategies. Some of you may have seen a similar webinar a month or so ago and it’s similar, but with a few updates. Okay, so I’m going to get right into it. I’ve got a lot of different things to talk about in terms of mounting and every application is a little bit different. There are, you know, flat roofs, flush roof, tilt mount, ridge mount, steep slopes, shallow slopes can mount directly to the rafters on the rail systems. And neither option is better. It’s just everyone has a little bit different preferences. So, I’m going to try to present to you what SunMaxx has done to help make your job easier and give you the flexibility to install these collectors as you see fit. Okay. So, first of all let me talk for a moment about the new mounting hardware for the TitanPower Plus collector, our engineers have been hard at work and have come up with a very simple and obviously meets and exceeds code in terms of wind and strength requirements. And also, it’s extremely adaptable, very easy to install. I recently installed a system on my own home using the new mounting hardware for the TitanPower Plus and I was extremely happy with how easy it was to put together. Okay. Now, in terms of a single row of collectors versus two collectors or one collector, or multiple banks, the TitanPower Plus hardware gets assembled either a rail mount or without the rail and then the back legs mount directly to the roof. As you see in this picture, this is a photograph of the installation I did at my house. And I used the rail approach. I mounted the rails directly to the purlins off of some roof hooks, which I’ll show you in just a moment. Once the system was… Once the connect system was installed, the collectors simply sit on the rail system. And mounting the actual collectors took me and two of my friends only about 20 minutes to get all the collectors up on the roof and in place. So, once all the ground work is done in terms of mounting to the roof and setting the rails in place, putting the collectors is actually the easiest part, okay. It all starts with this roof hook and flashing. Whether you decide to go directly at point of penetration where you mount the feet directly to the roof or you use the rail, this is the first step. There are several different products out there that accomplish the same thing. Our roof hooks are adaptable for either point of penetration as in mounting the collectors directly to the roof or to the rail. The metal flashing clips sits underneath a shingle by about four inches, so, four inches of it needs to be underneath the row of shingles just above. And then we use these self threading screws to drill directly into the rafter. So, you’re not affixed to a particular rafter placement or position of your collectors, the roof hooks not to the rafters. Once you install a rail then you can slide the collectors to the left or to the right and make it symmetrical. So, these roof hooks have a very high sheer strength and they are aluminum. Now, once you install the flashing there’s absolutely no concern whatsoever for a roof leaking. In a system that I installed, I’ll go back one slide; you can tell I have a metal roof, okay. Well, what I did was use a small piece of butyl underneath the roof hook between the roof hook and the metal. And then I put a piece of butyl self adhesive butyl, on top of the roof hook. So I flashed on top of the metal and I am 100% confident for the life of this system that I will never have any roof leaks as bulk of my roofing skills, right. I know that using this roof hook with flashing will guarantee that there’s not going to be any leakage in my system. Okay. One of the next steps is the connection rail. Now, the rails are threaded to accept these Allen bolts. Okay, see the Allen bolt, those thread directly into the rail. So, once I install the rail anywhere along the roof hooks, and I have to space the roof hooks out four feet center on center. Okay, so I don’t want to put the roof hooks any more than four feet apart. The strength of the rail allows for displacement weight over four feet, but no more. Okay. So, the Allen bolts will thread directly into the rail as seen in the clip on the left. And on the right is the clip that attaches the collector to the rail. Okay, so the photo on the left is attaching the rail to the roof hook and the photo on the right is the clip that helps you attach the collector to the rail. Both of them use the self threaded Allen bolts that will thread directly into the rail, which makes it very easy and quick to install. Okay. It is a metric Allen and if memory serves me it’s nine millimeters. However, a small Allen wrench comes with your system. So, if you don’t have the Allen wrench you will have one included and shipped out to you in a little baggie. Okay. Now, in terms of creating back legs for these, there’s two pieces. Basically, one is the vertical support leg, which is made of the same rail or extrusion as the rail. So, some simple “L” brackets will connect the vertical rail to the horizontal rail and then the back leg. Now, in my case, I went with, what you see here is the hardware for a flat roof or a flat mounting install. In other words you’re either mounting them on the ground or in a flat roof. Okay, so I went with a flat roof, although my roof was not flat, I simply cut the back legs. Alright, so some simple trigonometry, which your sales rep can help you with or it’s also in our technical manual. Based on the roof pitch you will cut the back legs to achieve the desired angle, okay and then, obviously the “L” bracket on the bottom of the back leg will just slide up in the extrusion and mount directly to the rail. Okay, for long banks and collectors you have to union rails together. Okay, so there’s two rails that you’re going to use. One is the extrusion rail that mounts directly to the roof hooks, on the left. And those rail unions, along with their Allen bolts, will thread directly into the rail creating nice tight union between two rails, displacing the weight, hopefully. And on the right a “T” profile rail. Now, I’ll show you later on what a “T” profile does. That is basically the seat for the collectors. So, the “T” profile will mount to the rail and then the collectors will sit in the “T” profile and there’s small bolts that will thread into those slots that you see on the “T” profile gives at its strength. Here’s an up close picture of the “L” brackets that mount directly to the rail. Okay. So, what you’re seeing here is the vertical rail that the collectors lay onto. The “L” brackets then will mount directly to the horizontal rail that you’ve attached to the roof hook. Okay and this is all using the same Allen bolts. There’s a couple that are a different lengths, but they’re all labeled appropriately in your packaging. On the picture on the right you also see a clip. Now, that tension clip is going to accept the “T” profile. So, it makes it very adaptable by being able to adjust the back legs and front legs, to the left or to the right on the rail means they don’t necessarily need to measure exactly the length of my rail ‘cause I have flexibility laterally and as well as flexibility vertically in terms of distance because those little clips will slide up or down the rail, depending where you want your collector to be mounted. So, it makes it extremely versatile and adaptable, but also there’s a lot of wiggle room in terms of making exact penetrations into the roof. It’s not critical. There’s a lot of room for errors so to speak. We don’t particularly encourage error, but we do encourage efficiency. And this allows you to mount your collectors, err, mount your roof hooks in places where, you know, you’re going to get the tightest connection and then you have flexibility in terms of where your collectors mount relative to the roof hook. Alright, in this picture what you see is a TitanPower Plus flush mount. Now, you notice there’s two roof hooks on the bottom and two roof hooks on the top. So, that’s consistent with the recommendations that we make in terms of the number of roof hooks it is required per flat plate collector. Okay. Your sales rep will be sure to design your mounting system depending on what your considerations are. So, all that you need to know is will you put one or two collectors in series. And do you want flush mount or tilt mount? Once our sales rep has that information they’ll make sure that you have all the correct components included. Now, we do recommend that the roof hooks are placed in the middle of each adjoining collector. Okay, so whether you have two collectors or one collector it’s still going to require a total of four roof penetrations. So, four roof hooks, four flashings. Now, this is showing the tilt mount hardware. Okay, now the tilt mount would require three points of penetration as opposed to the flush mount. Flush mount tends to be less expensive because there are less components required. It’s also much easier to install. And I would like to make this recommendation now because it’s appropriate that if you have a roof that’s within 20 to 30 degrees pitch of what is the recommended, that the flat plate and the evacuated tube collectors will still perform within about five percent of their expected performance. So, when considering whether to do a flush mount as in this picture here, versus a tilt mount off the roof the to be added benefit to achieving that proper angle is really quite minimal. So, it’s important to consider obviously performance, but equally important, and in some cases even more important, it is to consider aesthetics, okay. So, I highly encourage you to consider flush mounting your collectors whenever possible. Flush mounting is going to be easier to install. It’s going to require less components and the performance sacrifices are going to be minimal. To be sure your sales rep will be happy to run a report at the various angles that you’re looking to make your installation. Okay, so again, if you have a roof pitch that is within 20 to 30 degrees of what the optimum pitch should be for your collectors you may consider just simply doing a flush mount rather than tilt mount, for three reasons, aesthetics, cost and installation time, which obviously, saves money as well. Okay, here’s another picture of the tilt mount using a rail system. Okay, now with the rail you accomplish obviously, weight disbursement, but more importantly you’re not fixed to rafter location relative to where your collectors are. And so, often, the back legs of collectors do not line up perfectly with the rafters. So, by using the rail system you can mount your roof hooks wherever your rafters are and then move your collectors laterally depending on where you’d like to see them sit on your roof, whether it’s aesthetics or performance, you have lateral movement on the rail whereas you would not have lateral movement with point of penetration mounting that is the back legs mounted directly to the roof. There are some exceptions to that, which I’ll cover in a minute, but generally you want to mount to the rafters. Okay, now here’s a tilt mount without using the rail. So, as I mentioned these points of penetration really should be at the location of the rafter. Okay, if you don’t find a rafter then we’re going to have to have access to these points of penetration underneath the roof. And we’re going to have to use toggle bolt or we’re going to have to use a spanner between the rafters, something that secures this entire collector bank to the roofing system rather than just the decking. This is even more important with flat plate collectors than with evacuated tubes, that you have your collector system mounted to the roof rather than mounted to the decking. And when I say roof, I’m talking about the structural components, that is the rafters or the trusses. Okay, so with flat plates you have a considerable amount of lift, a consistent and considerable amount of lift, on this roof system, especially if your collectors obviously, are facing to the south or in the southeast that means the back of your collectors would be facing to the southwest or the northwest where a lot of the prevailing winds come from. So, it’s important that you secure your collector system to the structural members of the roof and not just the decking. Okay, this is accomplished using a rail versus point of penetration. Okay, now in terms of roof penetrations, obviously you want to make sure that you don’t have to go back, and when you use a flashing materials such as the one shown here, this is PV quick mount that we used to use and I think it’s a very good product, you’re going to ensure that there is no roof leaking. When you do use these penetrations such as roof hook from SunMaxx or a quick mount PV, those ballasts, so to speak, should not exceed more than 48 inches apart. Okay, so if you have the wrong run, say of 10, 12, 20 feet or more, you’re going to have to use multiple rails. And I did show some connections that can be made to union the rails together to maintain a consistent strength. It’s also recommended that you pre-drill holes into your rafters, ¼ inch holes. In terms of rafter screws, we recommend that you use a three inch high sheer strength screw and that it be self threading, right, or that you pre-drill the hole. In terms of mounting these ballasts to purlins, for example, if the purlin is just an inch and a half material on its side then a three inch screw may not give you the support that you need. So, you know, you have that inch on the top of the screw where there’s no threads at all. So, you want to make sure that you know what you’re going to be screwing into and that the majority of your threads on the screw are holding the material that you are tying into. Okay, so if you do order the roof hooks from SunMaxx, you will get three inch screws, which is going to be suitable for rafter mounts, but if you did mount to purlins, for example, like I did, I had to replace my three inch screws, I went with shorter inch and ¾ screws to be sure my threads are mounted to my purlin. Now, there’s several different ways to mount to a roof. Five of which I mentioned here. This spanner method is where you have access to the rafters and below then you create a spanner between the rafters that you can mount your penetrations directly to the spanner. And this sort of serves the same purpose as mounting with a rail. It gives you horizontal flexibility to move back and forth and you’re not fixed to the location of your rafters. Another one is a lag bolt using flashing. Okay, the lag bolt, like I mentioned, should be at least three inches that’s going to all you to bolt directly to your rafters. Toggle bolts work. They are a little bit more cumbersome to work with and it works well if you have access to the roof below. The toggle bolt should be pretty big with a washer. Some guys are using a piece of plywood as a washer, so they’re using a four inch disk of plywood that acts as the washer for the toggle bolt and I do recommend that as well. “J” bolts have been used quite often in mounting to roofs. And basically, if you’re going to use a “J” bolt, you are fixed to the location of the rafter and you also need to have access to the rafter itself so that you know exactly where to drill and the “J” can then hook on to the bottom of the rafter. A pitch pan is one of the older methods that’s still being in use. Basically, you mount your lag bolt in through a pan that has a hole in the bottom that’s going to be filled with tar. So, it basically prevents any water penetration. Okay, mounting to rafters as you see here, the “J” bolt and the lag bolt detailed, “J” bolts are being used for, consistently for, but like I said, if you’re fixed to the location of the rafter, if you’re going to use a “J” bolt. As with the lag bolt, although with a lag bolt you can also mount in the case of metal loops, you can mount to the purlins if the purlins are made of a material that’s at least 2 x 4 inches. Okay. Using evacuated tubes, our hardware is universal, which is very important for those of you who are doing both tubes and flat plates. The hardware is interchangeable for either style collector. Okay, and as I mentioned, no matter what you should not exceed more than 48 inches between your standoffs. Okay, now flat plate flush mount, I think is probably the most aesthetically appealing system. Not to mention, as I said before, it’s the least expensive. It’s simplest to install, but in the end it looks very, very good. So, this roof being only at about a 35 degree slope would normally be situated at a 55 degree pitch for heating and I do remember running a report at 35 degrees versus 55 degrees and this client is sacrificing only about 7% of the total system outcome, total system output year round too, but mounting it flush rather than having it tilt mount. So, if you did a double bank of collectors, such as the one here with the tilt mount, there would be a fairly extensive system supporting those collectors off of the roof and gaining only about 7% total output. Okay, so it is a very important consideration to make and understand what losses you’re going to incur if you go the flush mount versus tilt mount. Here’s an example of mounting the “T” profile directly to the roof. And I’ll show you a photo in just a minute of how the “T” profiles mount to the collectors, but those little clips that you see there, those tension clips, can be mounted either to a hanger bolt as you see in that photo or the tension clips can be mounted directly to the rail. Okay, so all of our components, as I said, are interchangeable and adaptable for just about any roof style. Okay the “T” profile, when used with the hanger bolt, is going to mount directly to the “T” profile and then your “T” profile, as you can see here, mounts directly to the collector. You see the bolt being inserted through the slot of the “T” profile and that connects directly to the stainless steel frame of the collectors. So, there’s no other components required once the “T” profile is installed on the roof. It makes for a very simple installation especially for flush mounting. Okay, and this is what the final product looks like when you use a “T” profile connected directly to the collector and then the “T” profiles connected to the clip, which is connected to a hanger bolt, which is bolted directly into a rafter with a piece of flashing, okay. And that is a done deal, guaranteed not to leak for the life of the system. Now, there’s several different strategies I want to go over now just in terms of using your vacuum heat pipes and increasing your performance. Underneath the collectors with a highly reflective roof surface, you can boost performance of these collectors and I’ve seen actual performance numbers increase anywhere from 20 to 30 percent, depending on the type of reflective surface. So, when you’re installing the evacuated tube system, which I know that a lot of you are, it’s very important that you increase the reflectivity behind those collectors. Now, this is something you can suggest to the homeowner or that you can include as part of the system installation, but nevertheless you can guarantee that your system will perform better for the life of the system by increasing the reflectivity behind the vacuum heat pipes. And I would also point out that there’s a highly reflective roof coating that Sherwin Williams makes for $35.00 a gallon that can be painted directly on metal or asphalt shingles. So, I highly recommend looking at increased reflectivity. In terms of some different types of mounting there’s, you know, ridge mount as with the one that you see on the right. This client, his house was facing 90 degrees in the wrong direction, so he decided to do a ridge mount. I would caution you that making this system mounted perpendicular to the plane of the house does really destruct the aesthetic appeal, if that’s consideration. And the added benefit in terms of performance from 90 degrees off of ideal may only be in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 percent increase performance. Okay, so you have to consider, very carefully, before you mount to a ridge, is it worth it. And check with your SunMaxx rep. Ask them to do a report at the various azimuth angles and then you’ll know exactly what value you’re going to sacrifice by mounting it along the same slope as the house. Movable rays are not recommended, but they are possible. The reason they’re not recommended is because you have piping then instead of forming electrons you’re forming pressurized fluid, which tends to try to escape. And so the more often you move your array the more likely you’re going to have some leakage. And knowing that your sacrifices in performance are not nearly those sacrifices that you’ll see in PV systems, it’s not recommended that you design a movable system. Okay, now in terms of ground mounting, a lot of systems, a lot of guys who really like the ground mount because they’re easily accessible, they’re easy to clean, any maintenance problems and they’re also not subject to the particular angle of inclination and orientation of the house. They can be put off-site somewhere. We usually recommend that these systems not be installed more than 150 feet away from the house because once you exceed 150 feet you begin to experience a tremendous amount pressure drop, which means bigger pump and perhaps bigger piping and bigger piping is going to mean more losses. Okay, so a general rule about the ground mounting is that you not put these mounts more than 150 feet from the house. Now, ground mounts can be pretty difficult, but in cases where it’s the only option it is certainly not impossible to put a collector just about anywhere you want. In this particular system that was recently commissioned near Cooperstown, New York, the installer chose to use a cleared approach to the collectors. So rather than having them manifold to manifold to manifold, with brass unions, they are union together, but with flexible ConnectMaxx piping. Okay, so small sections are used to join one collector to the next. There’s a little bit more added cost for installation, obviously digging the holes and pouring the concrete, but the homeowner had a nice suitable location on a hillside, and you can pretty much guarantee that they are at the proper orientation and proper inclination. Okay, so ground mounting on flat ground and also underneath ground is very doable. It just needs to be well thought out. Mounting collectors on a flat roof is important to know that the evacuated tubes have very little wind load. And if you notice the picture here on the left these collectors are mounted just through these concrete blocks that are setting on the roof and in the picture on the right these evacuator tube collectors are used for shading for a carport. So, flat roof mounting is very easily done and often does not even have to penetrate the roof in order to accomplish that. Here’s another example of ridge mounting where the back legs of the collectors are straddling the ridge, still facing the same direction as the house. So, we’re not perpendicular to the ridge, but we are ridge mounting it by straddling the ridge. Okay, another flat roof install one important thing I’d like to point out in terms of flat roof install, particularly in the northern climates, is snow and we recommend that you bring your collector feet off of the roof by at least 12 inches in areas that are prone to snow loads. This will keep your collectors out of the snow, obviously. Allow for movement underneath the collectors, but it’ll act as a snow fence because often, if they’re connected directly to the roof, with no movement underneath, then you’re going to see the collectors work as sort of a snow fence. And there will be big piles of snow that trap behind the collectors. So, bring them up at least 12 inches. Here’s another example where the owner had used the white roofing to increase performance of the collectors. Pole mounts, in the case of, on the right hand side, this single pole mount is actually functioning as a pass through for the supply and return piping as well as the support structure for the collector itself. So, this install was able to get away with a single point of penetration using a steel pole to which he passed a supply and return. The one on the left with the core reflectors, this particular homeowner did not want his collectors on the roof at all. So, the installer was able to accommodate by doing a pole. Obviously, it’s going to raise the cost up considerably. Using concrete standoffs is also recommended particularly for evacuated tubes, ground mounts. This entire collector field is not mounted to the ground at all. They are simply bolted to these concrete standoffs that act as concrete shoes, for example. And the wind load being less than what the collector weighs, by adding these blocks and bringing them up off the ground, these are off the ground 18 inches as opposed to a foot. So, they’ve exceeded what we recommended, but they’re insuring that there will be no snow buildup on the bottom of the feet. In terms of reducing your summertime production, successful mounting can accomplish that, for example with the one on the left, you see the roof that the collectors are sitting on is acting as a shade for the bottom row reflectors in the summertime. So, he’s got four collectors total, only two of which are really operational in the summer, and then as the sun drops in the sky the bottom row becomes functional, or facade mounts, like these “U” pipes. Flat plates and evacuated tubes, if you do evacuated tube facade mount it’s got to be direct flow or a “U” type collector. Okay, flat plate collectors can be facade mounted and these are typically used for heating systems where you’re producing excess energy or more energy in the winter and then the production actually drops in the summertime with a perfect 90 degree slope. Overheating in situations where you have access to the collectors, they can be covered up, in a ground mounts not very accessible on the roof, but by having a steep angle, just like the facade mount you can also reduce your production. Drain back systems need to be mounted at ¼ inch tilt per foot whether it’s a sloped roof like the one you see on the right, or a flat roof as in on the left, all the manifolds need to be mounted at the ¼ inch of slope per foot. Now, ballast systems for collectors can be concrete like this or, pardon me, or they can be a wood ballast and if you do a concrete ballast then you use the hanger bolt. Those hanger bolts that you saw previously that spread directly into the rafter can also be put into concrete and then use the machine threaded to bolt the collector feet together. And then again, there’s your clip with your “T” profile and the collector mounts directly to the “T” profile. Now, here’s a couple of pictures showing the point of penetration with it over the shed. And then with the green roof this client chose to use the rail system. Okay, the considerations you have to make again are what type of wind load would your collectors be under. Okay, with evacuated tubes you can get away with mounting your collectors to the roof decking with some washers and big washers underneath. So, you’re basically connecting your collectors to the plywood that is then connected to the rafters. Not recommended for flat plates however, because of the wind load. The rail system just makes installation a little bit easier because you’re not fixed to the rafter location you can mount your rails and then mount your collectors and then slide them down as you see fit. Okay, a couple of important things I’d just like to bring up in terms of mounting strategy considerations. The ConnectMaxx hardware is universal. And so it’s universal in the sense that it mounts to flat plates as well as pitched roof, sloped roof, ridge mount, facade mount, cantilever, rail system versus not rail system. There’s virtually no roof that this ConnectMaxx hardware cannot be incorporated. And so it’s very important that you locate your sales rep and understand what you’re trying to accomplish and they will include the most appropriate ConnectMaxx hardware for whatever it is that you’re trying to accomplish. And it’s all put together with a single Allen wrench, which is included as well. Okay, now I’m going to end the meeting and offer my services to anybody that would have a question for me [email protected]. I’m more than happy to respond to anybody’s questions that you have. And I encourage you to join us again next week. Okay Dave, one second I’ll answer that, one moment. So, again, feel free to email me if you have any particular questions check our solarwebinars.com for archives of all the webinars. I think we’re up to, actually I don’t even know, 16, 17, 18 webinars at this point. So, we’re giving quite a lot of information to you guys as quickly as possible. If you have any suggestions for webinar topics that you’d like to see I am definitely interested in doing that as today I’m doing another schedule for the third quarter of 11, so please do take advantage of that. Send me emails with your questions and I’ll be happy to respond. Now, in terms of wind load, before we close, the wind load for flat plate collectors, the hardware is rated for 110 mph winds. Okay, so we have passed and rated our hardware at 110 mph winds. It’s apparently in testing right now for 160 mph winds. According to the mathematics that we’ve used it will pass the 160 mph test, but we don’t have that official stamp of approval yet. But, we do have a rating at 110 mph winds for both flat plate and evacuator tube. As you know evacuator tubes suffer from much less wind load than flat plates and require less material to connect to the roof. However, since our ConnectMaxx hardware is universal we’re using both flat plate and evacuated tubes for this hardware, they are, in the case of evacuated tubes, the hardware is probably well exceeds what’s required in order to hold it down in, you know, hurricane force winds. Okay, well there you have it. I’m going to officially end the webinar. Don, I went with flat plates on my house because of a radiant floor where I needed extremely low temperature heat load and it is also a question of aesthetes in terms of my house design. And so that’s a very good question and it’s not an easy answer. I went back and forth with flat plates versus evacuated tubes and it really just came down to what is most applicable for my particular application. Okay, thank you all take care and have a great Monday and I wish you the best of all available sunshine. Take care.