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solar floor heating

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John P Bengi

Jan 1, 1970
0
I do not know of any other solar to electricity panel other than a (PV)
photovoltaic. They top out at about 13% efficiency and if you have that much
sun to run a resistive heated floor with them you won't need any heat in the
house at all. This is not an efficient or cheap way to do this. You could
hire slaves to warm the floor with hand friction for the rest of your life
cheaper than you will buy the PV panels to accomplish this job and it woul
donly be when the sun shines. Your $10K Canuck Buck will hardly buy you the
battery bank to do this.
 
J

John P Bengi

Jan 1, 1970
0
That is bogus logic when there are efficient ways to do this that only waste
10-20%. If there way no other way then that logic would be valid perhaps.
 
J

John P Bengi

Jan 1, 1970
0
About 10-15 watts per square foot when the sun is bright for about 4 hours
per day.

The sun at high noon will produce about 1000 Watts per square metre. With
about 13% efficiency you waste most of it and get very little.
 
J

John P Bengi

Jan 1, 1970
0
Just make sure you buy shielded monitors as floor heating may totally
destroy your monitor alignment. We have had to turn all our off at work
because of the monitors within 50 metres jittering so badly. I don't know if
LCD monitors are affected by stray magnetic fields like that.

Then there is that leukemia thing.... but let's ignore that one for now. DC
should fix that.
 
J

John P Bengi

Jan 1, 1970
0
Well although Derek is usually quite the know-it-all, he apparently can't
read what you have posted. The resistive heating may be cut to whatever
resistance you need but you current supplies will also be much higher too.
This means your supply copper will be much heavier also and can get
expensive.

He probably doesn't understand Celsius temperatures either. This is quite
common among the ignorant ones. Sometimes 21 degrees will be a little cool
with those Alberta winds in the winters if your house has any draughts at
all.
 
A

Anthony Matonak

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
Just make sure you buy shielded monitors as floor heating may totally
destroy your monitor alignment. We have had to turn all our off at work
because of the monitors within 50 metres jittering so badly. I don't know if
LCD monitors are affected by stray magnetic fields like that.

LCD monitors are not affected by magnetic fields like CRT monitors are.
This is one reason why mosaic LCD displays are becoming more common
(i.e. using multiple LCD monitors stacked next to each other).

With DC I don't think there would be an issue with even the CRT monitors
as the em field would be stable and not fluctuating.

I don't see any particular technical reasons why you can't simply
series connect 10 PV panels rated at 12V to get around 120VDC. The
problem is in the original concept of spending thousands of times
more money than you have to, just to use electricity instead of hot
air or water. Might as well put down marble tile in the basement and
clad the water pipes in gold. Perhaps color code the pipes, hot is
the gold and cold is the platinum. Talk about bragging rights! :)

Anthony
 
T

Thomson Tim

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ok then I throw in the towel on th whole idea. I am not gonna jack hammer open
my concrete floor.
 
T

Thomson Tim

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ok I agree that pv sucks big time. But but how is free sunshine not used a
waste? Guess I have been wasting the sun all my life eh.
About 10-15 watts per square foot when the sun is bright for about 4 hours
per day.

The sun at high noon will produce about 1000 Watts per square metre. With
about 13% efficiency you waste most of it and get very little.
 
T

Thomson Tim

Jan 1, 1970
0
I dont know what you call it. (single phase two phase?) The main has a double
hot 100 amp both sides are hot too nuteral.
115 from hot to nuteral and 240 across the two hots. I know that they fuse the
two hots at the pole (I can see them). I was told that it is a 100 amp service.
Are you saying I can only pull 2 times 37 amps using 110? My floor heating is
110 at differant wattages 9 zones in all. They will not all be on at once. I am
not planning on heating the room with this just trying to make it bearable
without a furnace. This is a concern the amount of draw that is. I might have to
rethink the double 60 amp breaker tankless hot water idea. Gotta remember I only
use and including stand by 3 gigajuols for my dishes showers etc

So what you are saying that 8 or 9 thousand watts of resistance heat Plus on
demand h2o is to much for my 100 amp service?
Upgradeing to 200 amp is easy though. I just want to keep it legal and simple.
 
T

Thomson Tim

Jan 1, 1970
0
Thats whats wrong with me..............to much sleeping on the heated bathroom
floor. LOL
 
A

Anthony Matonak

Jan 1, 1970
0
You don't have to jack hammer open your concrete floor.

You can install solar air heaters. These produce hot (or at least warm)
air. Duct the hot air down to your basement. This will provide the solar
heated basement you were interested in. It won't keep your toes quite as
toasty warm as water heated floors but it's relatively simple, cheap
and doesn't require a single jackhammer. Besides, warm fuzzy slippers
aren't hard to come by.

Anthony
 
D

Derek Broughton

Jan 1, 1970
0
Thomson said:
Maybe I meant solar electric panels....

I think we all knew that - we just seem to be in better than usual agreement
that it isn't worth the trouble.
so how many watts od DC per square foot

About 20.
do panels put out?Any ideas of the best place to get them in Alberta?

No. I had all mine shipped from the US. I can get better prices if I pay
my own shipping, GST and customs brokerage than I can get from anybody in
Canada.
 
T

Thomson Tim

Jan 1, 1970
0
I wonder if it would be legal to have those two items with a draw of near 75
percent my max. Lets say I come home from work on a cold winter
night.........plug in the car, flik on the floor heating, a few lights, toss a
load of laundry in the wash and dryer, put a pot of coffee on, turn on my tv and
jump in the shower. Most of the tank-less hot water units I have looked at use
two dual 60 amp breakers taking up four slots at the main panel. ( also looking
for thoughts on good/bad tank-less water)
I know that electric is more expensive to operate but my main goal is to become
less and less dependent on two utilities.
I thought about getting rid of the power co and going to a natural gas
generator. After some research I dropped that idea! It just had to many
variables. Generaters break down, make noise and need maintanace etc. Soler PV
is now not an option.
Maybe I will look into in floor water heating instead. There might be a way to
pour over an exsisting concrete floor. But than I am looking at needing more gas
again. Maybe I could still install the electric and a water line. The
wire,morter and tiles allready raise it over a half inch. I would assume that I
would need a clearance from the two heat sources. But the idea is starting to
spask some interest. What if I had the dual.....the electric would be on t stats
in the floor....when the sun shines and creates enough heat to warm the floor
the t-stats would cut out. I allready have a heated main bath floor and would
rather jump off a cliff before I do the whole bsmt with out a heated floor. I
have about three months before I decide how to go about this.
 
D

Derek Broughton

Jan 1, 1970
0
spam said:
Just make sure you buy shielded monitors as floor heating may totally
destroy your monitor alignment. We have had to turn all our off at work
because of the monitors within 50 metres jittering so badly. I don't know
if LCD monitors are affected by stray magnetic fields like that.

Interesting thought - but since he wanted to use DC in the heating loops,
that shouldn't be a problem.
 
D

Derek Broughton

Jan 1, 1970
0
Anthony said:
You don't have to jack hammer open your concrete floor.

You can install solar air heaters. These produce hot (or at least warm)
air. Duct the hot air down to your basement. This will provide the solar
heated basement you were interested in. It won't keep your toes quite as
toasty warm as water heated floors but it's relatively simple, cheap
and doesn't require a single jackhammer. Besides, warm fuzzy slippers
aren't hard to come by.

Or you could run glycol from collectors through standard hot water
radiators. Same difference. Though, really, jackhammering a floor isn't
that big a deal, either :)
 
D

Derek Broughton

Jan 1, 1970
0
spam said:
Well although Derek is usually quite the know-it-all, he apparently can't
read what you have posted.

Actually, I read it quite well, thanks. I was just marvelling at the
stupidity of legislation.
He probably doesn't understand Celsius temperatures either.

Of course I do. Lived with it all my life.
Sometimes 21 degrees will be a little cool
with those Alberta winds in the winters if your house has any draughts at
all.

If THAT was the case, then what's he doing wasting that $10,000 on PV when
he could get 5 times the payback by cutting down the drafts!

My house generally lives at 16-18C. I also accept that that's too cold for
most people, but I'd be fighting a stupid law that says I need to be _able_
to keep it at 21.

Back to the bit-bucket where you belong.
<plonk>
 
M

Mel

Jan 1, 1970
0
19°C seems to me a very good goal to aim for in winter (you still get to
wear nice wooly clothes without really being cold). And of course, going
from 19° to 20° will take 7% more energy, so it's generally cheaper to
buy a jumper instead of turning the heat up.


Mel






Derek Broughton a écrit :
 
T

Thomson Tim

Jan 1, 1970
0
Funny I just put my compass on my ac heated floor .....turned it on and not a
flicker.
And was pointing at true north.
 
M

Me

Jan 1, 1970
0
Thomson Tim said:
Funny I just put my compass on my ac heated floor .....turned it on and not a
flicker.
And was pointing at true north.

John P Bengi wrote:

Really, you have a compass that points to TRUE North??? Hmmmm, you must
be somewhere directly below Magnetic North to get that reading out of a
compass? Seems to me that would put you out in the atlantic somewhere.
Well, no accounting for facts here....


Me who knows about deviation, even if others don't.....
 
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