Going Off The Grid..One Step At A Time

"The Daltonator" Solar Boiler Panel

As the rising costs of energy are emptying all of our pockets as we go about day to day life can become frustrating and expensive. Simple things like heating domestic hot water, using electricity, running several basic appliances and being able to turn the lights on, has left me searching for an alternative.That alternative is the DIY project that I lovingly call "The Daltonator" with very good reason.
 I would have had to have graduated from Harvard to decipher the energy bill and I didn't, so alas the calculator spits out reams of paper and I'm non the wiser. There is a delivery charge, a debt retirement fee, a line maintenance fee, a just because you have power fee and yes the HST, etc. To add to the quandary we now have a Smart Meter installed by the power company. There are recommended times to use power, none of which seem convenient unless you want to cook and do laundry at 3 o'clock in the morning in hopes of not mortgaging your house with the power company.

Rear View Of  Daltonator Solar Boiler

To construct "The Daltonator Solar Boiler Panel" I used 75ft 0f 1/2 inch copper pipe(painted with high heat black paint) mounted on a 4ft by 4ft black piece of 1/2 inch flat stock. This is the heat sink that sucks the suns energy. Behind the heat sink is NASA like insulation of R60e, could have been used in the shuttle program for sure. The walls of the panel are 2by4's insulated with the same stuff. I painted everything with the high heat BLACK paint. The face of the panel is 1/4 inch Plexiglas sealed air tight with a rubber gasket. This traps hot air from the sun within the panel.
I installed a pressure relief valve behind the panel and pointed it in a safe direction, down. I used PEX piping to connect the in and out lines from the panel to the house and all are insulated with black foam pipe wrap. It's important not to have heat loss during fluid transfer so you can't over insulate, especially at minus 40 Celsius. Last but not least is the declination adjustment which for now is a manual shift using an old TV ceiling support. The panel only has to be moved twice a year for maximum solar angle, no big deal. During the fall season the panel is set at about 14 degrees and is pointed to solar south, different to magnetic south. This I determined by subtracting the declination for our longitude and latitude.
So what's the verdict; The initial tests took cold tap water to 65 Celsius in 45 minutes with the panel idle(not pumping fluid). I got about 10 litres of steaming hot water from the panel and burnt my hand during the process. In the next post I will explain how I transfer fluid from the panel through a home made heat exchanger and into my domestic hot water system.