Chapter 5: piping – Beckett SolarHot User Manual

Page 15

There are manufacturers that produce collectors that have plastc glazng (covers) rather than tempered hgh
transmsson glass. Whle plastc has come a long way (copper ppes beng replaced wth PEX), the plastc
glazng sn’t ready for prme tme yet. The glazng looses ts clarty over tme, compromsng performance.
Each collector manufactured on the market today has dfferent mountng hardware. If you want your
collector to have an asthetcally pleasng look on your roof, I would suggest choosng a collector and
mountng hardware that are ether black anodzed or black panted, as a matter of taste. There are
collectors supplied today that have a mill aluminum finish with mill aluminum mounting feet. If you
prefer that look, that s your call. I prefer that collectors appear unobtrusvely on the roof rather than
havng them as a stylstc feature.

The Beckett SolarHot Advantage: The SolarHot collectors come in an extruded
black alumnum casng whch provdes an attractve look on the roof, smlar to a low-
profile skylight. The collector glass is patterned to minimize sunlight reflection and
tempered to maximize strength. The absorber plate is selectively plated over copper
for maximum heat absorption. Layered insulation within the collector minimizes heat
loss. The result is top performing flat plate collectors as measured by the SRCC.

Section 2: Installing a Solar Hot Water System

Chapter 5: Piping

Dependng on whether you are nstallng a glycol system or a dranback/open loop system, you may
have two choces for ppng.
Opton 1 – run your entre ppe n ¾” copper.
Advantages:

• This option has the advantage of being time-tested. Most systems installed throughout the

country (approximately 1.5 million systems) are piped this way.

• With copper you don’t have to worry about the extremely high pressure and temperature you

might get from that first surge of water going through the collector after it has been sitting in
the sun.

Opton 2 (only avalable for Dranback and open loop systems) – run the lnes from the dranback tank
to the heat exchanger and from the heat exchanger to just before you penetrate the roof in ¾” Pex
(cross-lnked polyethylene) and then run your roof penetratons, collector connectons, and collector-
dranback leg n copper.
Advantages:

• The cost of Pex is roughly ¼ of the cost of copper.

• Pex is easier to work with than copper.

• Since Pex is plastic it is naturally more thermally insulating than copper (assuming the same

amount of insulation, you should loose less heat with Pex along your pipe run).

Dsadvantages:

• Pex can’t handle the pressure or the temperature that copper can. High limiting the system at

160

F can circumvent this difference.

• If you use Pex that doesn’t have an oxygen barrier in it, you will need to use a bronze pump on

the collector side to keep the pump from corroding.