How We Lowered Our Carbon Impact Along with Our Utility Bill (If you missed Part I, you'll find it in the post just below this one)
So here is how it works: Our water is piped from the city water system into our mechanical room. Just after the meter, the water splits into two pipes… one for cold water and the other as it travels toward the hot water heater. A few feet prior to where this ¾” copper pipe enters into the natural gas hot water heater, we soldered a series of valves and two copper pipes enabling us to divert the water in a way that follows a parallel pathway to the pipe that leads to our outdoor faucet for watering the lawn.
These two pipes connect to two new outdoor faucets and the faucets in turn are connect to six interconnected 120’ lengths of ¾” commercial grade black hose. This hose totals 720’ and is the solar collector.
The parallel lengths of hose are set into the inside corner of the house and travel up onto the roof where the hose is wrapped around the roof vents to keep it in place.
After gathering heat from the sun and the surrounding shingles it travels down again, into the return faucet, copper pipe, inside valve and finally flows into the gas hot water heater at a very warm temperature when the sun is shining and at the outside air temperature when the sun is not shining. Through this process, our gas hot water heater has only a little firing to do when the sun is out as the water is now much closer to the optimal temperature.
Once we again return to freezing temperatures, all we have to do is to drain the hoses by disconnecting them from the outside faucets. I will use gravity to do most of this work and hook up a small air compressor to one of the hoses to make sure the water is blown out for the winter. Inside the house we simply turn the inside valves to reopen the direct flow to the hot water heater and shut off the diverted flow which goes to the outside.
To get the very most out of this solar system we will focus our times of doing laundry and running the dishwasher during the day when the sun is out. Because hose is only ¾” in diameter, it doesn’t take long to heat up a fresh batch of hot water.
Even though our old Maytag washer worked perfectly fine, at the end of 2007 we purchased a frontloading clothes washer which has significantly cut the gallons needed to do each load by over two thirds. Since we have a very busy massage therapy practice, we do a great many loads of laundry in addition to our personal laundry.
Our new solar collector combined with the new washer will significantly reduce our use of energy, saving us money and lowering our carbon footprint. Even though this project cost us some money, we feel our financial investment will be paid back in a couple of years. Prior to the monetary payback, we take pleasure from knowing that we are immediately helping our planet in a small way. We are also gaining confidence that as individuals we can find many more innovative and low cost ways to go green. We have compiles a few environmental and commentary quotes here.
These two pipes connect to two new outdoor faucets and the faucets in turn are connect to six interconnected 120’ lengths of ¾” commercial grade black hose. This hose totals 720’ and is the solar collector.
The parallel lengths of hose are set into the inside corner of the house and travel up onto the roof where the hose is wrapped around the roof vents to keep it in place.
After gathering heat from the sun and the surrounding shingles it travels down again, into the return faucet, copper pipe, inside valve and finally flows into the gas hot water heater at a very warm temperature when the sun is shining and at the outside air temperature when the sun is not shining. Through this process, our gas hot water heater has only a little firing to do when the sun is out as the water is now much closer to the optimal temperature.
Once we again return to freezing temperatures, all we have to do is to drain the hoses by disconnecting them from the outside faucets. I will use gravity to do most of this work and hook up a small air compressor to one of the hoses to make sure the water is blown out for the winter. Inside the house we simply turn the inside valves to reopen the direct flow to the hot water heater and shut off the diverted flow which goes to the outside.
To get the very most out of this solar system we will focus our times of doing laundry and running the dishwasher during the day when the sun is out. Because hose is only ¾” in diameter, it doesn’t take long to heat up a fresh batch of hot water.
Even though our old Maytag washer worked perfectly fine, at the end of 2007 we purchased a frontloading clothes washer which has significantly cut the gallons needed to do each load by over two thirds. Since we have a very busy massage therapy practice, we do a great many loads of laundry in addition to our personal laundry.
Our new solar collector combined with the new washer will significantly reduce our use of energy, saving us money and lowering our carbon footprint. Even though this project cost us some money, we feel our financial investment will be paid back in a couple of years. Prior to the monetary payback, we take pleasure from knowing that we are immediately helping our planet in a small way. We are also gaining confidence that as individuals we can find many more innovative and low cost ways to go green. We have compiles a few environmental and commentary quotes here.
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