Wednesday 24 August 2011

solar floor heating - rainy windy and overcast results

The last week has been windy, rainy and overcast, so I didn't expect that the solar system would be making any significant impacts.
But a quick trip outside in the day reveals the quiet bzzt bzzt bzzt of the motor pulsing a tiny circulation of water through the floor pipes. More so when there is a break in the clouds and it springs into action immediately.

This is a good sign as this means that at least some thermal mass (of water) is being circulated and doing something to make the floor warmer.

My temperature readings over the last 24 hours (in the blue) indicate that we've kept our inside max temp at the same level of the outside max temp which is great IMHO. Previously if we had a max daytime temp of (say) 20°C during the day the house would never get warmed up that much and would be at more like 16 or 17°C peak and with the inside often being just a few degrees (like 2 or 3) warmer than the minimum (see the magenta line).

I'm quite pleased with these results in the light of the energy input requirements (like freely environmental available) and the floor insulation not only helps bring this into the house but also keep it there.

I'll be very interested to see how this goes when I add in the component of gas heating in the night. I'm guessing that it will bring up my bottom and keep it from falling so low. Mmmmm nice even temps.

NOTE: as I write this at 7pm local time the outside temp has dipped to 16.4°C and the inside is remaining steady at the 20.0°C down from the 20.8°C its was at lunch time.

1 comment:

obakesan said...

please note: I do not have a saggy bottom as implied by the analysis of the graphs.