Charles Campbell's posts

After reviewing AltE website it seems that they no longer sell my particular system, however, a description of my system can be found at Heliodyne's website.

The 1000 sq-ft of space is basically a great room that includes kitchen, dining area and small living space.  We live in southern New Mexico and get lots of sunshine.  Our house is basically oriented slightly west of due south, so we do get some direct solar heating.  On an average winter day when the ambient temp gets up into the 50's our house will heat up into the low 70's by the time we get home from work around 5:00 pm.  We have two 4X10 Gobi collectors and in fact the whole system was puchased thru the AltE store and sold as a combination space heating/water heating system.  It is a closed loop system that does use glycol.
My plumber was fine with the valve setup for the domestic hot water, but we are kind of having trouble with interfacing the solar into the propane boiler setup.  We want to be able to take advantage of the heat generated by the collectors during the day to further increase the inside temp. in the great room.  As mentioned previously on a sunny day the room warms into the low 70's, but by about 3:00 am the inside temp. on cold nights will drop into the low 60's.  This is fine for me, but my wife who gets up at around 5:00 am and suffers from Reynauds disease finds this to be way too cold.  So, my thought was if I can increase the inside temp. during the day to say the high seventies, then the temp. at 3:00 am may only drop into the high 60's which is acceptable to my wife.

Should I plumb my radiant floor loop into the Helio-Pak heat exchanger?

Thanks Tom for the info., I will relay it to my plumber.  Unfortunately the radiant floor loop has been installed many years ago.

I am looking for a plumbing schematic that will interface my existing Trianco Heatmaker HP M2-100 and Amtrol Storage Tank with the Heliodyne 120 gal tank and Sonnenkraft Heat Exchanger.  I would like to use the Heliodyne Solar system as a primary heat source for both my domestic hot water and about 1000 sq-ft. of radiant floor space and use the propane boiler as a backup.  I don't necessarily need this system to be fully automated and am willing to switch from solar to propane manually using valves.  My plumber has experience installing solar systems, but is a bit overwhelmed on how to accomplish this.

Tom, I am still trying to figure out the best way to plumb/ integrate this system into my existing system.  Since, my Heliodyne system comes with two heat exchangers, my thought was to use the Sonnenkraft Solar Hot Water Module for my domestic hot water.  It has a single circulating pump incorporated into the module, which I assume is used for circulating water and not for circulating the glycol in the solar loop?  At any rate, my thought was to plumb the cold supply to this module and run the hot out from the  solar storage tank to the amtrol.  Next, for the radiant floor heat, my plan was to bypass the amtrol altogether.  My thought was since the H-pak has two circulating pumps (one for the solar loop and one for the radiant heat system??) that I would plumb the hot output from the H-Pak into the line from the boiler that supplies the floor zones.  I would then plumb the return from the floor zones into the cold input on the H-pak.  I would accomplish this using a couple of T connectors and install valves so that either the boiler or H-pak could be used to heat the floor space depending on my needs.  I am wondering however, if the circulating pump on the H-pak will be able to provide the function of circulating hot water to and from the radiant floor system?  I am also wondering if this is the best way to accomplish this, or if I would be better off just using the circulating pump on the H-pak to circulate hot water from the solar storage tank to the Amtrol and back?  The later seems like this would be duplicating the funtion of the Solar Hot Water Module mentioned earlier?  Also, I can't figure out how else to accomplish a DHW temp of 120 and a radiant floor temp. of greater than 120 while using the Amtrol for both?  Does any of this make sense?

Thanks Tom, sorry it has taken me so long to reply.  I have yet to install the system and in fact will probably order the system today, so your instructions were very helpful indeed.

I agree, I too have had to do numerous repairs on my deep well/pressure tank system and have found that you really can't have too many valves.  Makes working on the system so much easier.

As for the circulating pump between the solar storage and the Amtrol.  If the Amtrol tank sits on a shelf above the solar storage tank will I not need a circulating pump anyway?  Don't think I want to drain the Amtrol, we live in the high desert of New Mexico and get a lot of year round sun. I am trying to avoid complex plumbing, but am willing to accept a certain amt. of complexity if it will increase efficiency and will help avoid routine tasks such as draining and chlorinating tanks, such as getting hot water to the faucets sooner.

At this point, I am not sure whether the Amtrol is plumbed as one of 5 separate zones, or whether it the priority diversion zone.  Don't know if I worded that correctly.  I will attempt to diagram my system and get back to you on this.  If the Amtrol is plumbed as the priority zone, are there downsides to circulating the hot water from the solar storage thru the Amtrol and just letting the thermostat on the Amtrol be the controller for the boiler?  Ideally, I would like the solar heated hot water to be primary, and the Amtrol/boiler system to be backup.

Another option, I thought of was getting rid of the Amtrol altogether and just plumbing the boiler into the solar storage tank.  Do you know if the Heliodyne tank comes with a thermostatic controller similar to the one on the Amtrol, or if one can be purchased that will do the job?

Thanks for the timely and very useful info Tom.

I currently have an Amtrol 25 gal. hot water maker with an external propane boiler which I use to heat water for a zoned radiant floor system and regular hot water use.  I would like to convert this to a closed loop solar hot water/heating system, which would be my primary hot water source and the propane boiler would secondary or backup.  The Amtrol storage tank has an internal heat exchanger and is thermostatically controlled so that when the temp. drops below a certain set point it triggers the boiler to heat water.  My question is this:  Can I reroute the cold source to the 120 gal solar storage tank and then plumb the hot water output on the solar storage tank into the cold supply on the 25 gal. hot water maker?  As a preferred alternative, could I do away with the 25 gal. hot water maker altogether and plumb the back up boiler directly to the solar storage tank?  By the way, I am not an installer or contractor.