El Palmar Beach & Tennis Resort goes green! And why not, the Mexican sunshine in Melaque is a powerful and reliable commodity so I thought I'd try my hand at installing some solar panels on the roof. Guests in our Melaque hotel appreciate a nice hot shower in the morning before heading off for the day, but because of concrete construction and non-insulated pipes the water loses several degrees from the roof to shower, keeping it hot requires a lot of energy. So solar seemed like a the perfect solution to augment our traditional heating system.
We modified a water storage tank, set-up the panels and circulation system, and ended up with water heated up to 148 Fahrenheit! Here's a short video of the process and a materials list below the video.
Here are the specifics on materials:
4 flat 4x8 panels, 1x4 frame, 1 sheet of 1/4 inch plywood for base, 2 inch styrofoam in bottom of box, 24 gauge painted black sheet metal, 16 tubes of 1/2 in. CPVC used as risers, 3/4 in. headers of CPVC.the top is covered with a sheet of polycarconata.
Connecting hoses
All connecting hoses are 3/4 in. black poly.
Connections to Hot water.
We connected to the hot water vents on the roof with 1 in. CPVC. Next project is to insulate these.
Holding tank
The hot water holding tank is a 450 liter tank insulated and set inside a cut down 1100 liter tank.
Their is a float valve inside the hot tank that controls the inlet of cold water.
Circulation
We have two 12v pumps (Topsflo-Solar dc pump, TS5 10PV, 12Vdc, 10 L/min.) that are run by a 20 watt solar panel. Total cost approximately $200.
Our outside water supply was not pressure wise sufficient to enable a thermosyphon system, so the small pumps and solar panel were a good alternative. We turned the boiler off in the house January 25 and I expect we will never turn it on again.
The apts. now have limited hot water and we hope the pipe insulating we do will be of sufficient help. If not enough we can easily add two more panels, giving us two, three panel systems. All the materials that we used were not necessarily the most desirable but they were what was available. Here's hoping!!
