Chapter 6: insulation – Beckett SolarHot User Manual

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Whether you plan to upscale your system and go with copper or stick with Pex be sure to use ¾” I.D.
ppe for all of your runs to and from the collector for a dranback system to nsure good dranage when
the pumps are off. Referrng back to the basc desgn prncple of a dranback system, make sure that
all of your pipe runs are sloped to allow gravity flow of water from the highest point in the system (the
top of the collectors) to the lowest pont n the system (the storage tank). If you have to run the ppe
through an attc or crawlspace where a long sloped run s requred, be sure to support the ppng to
nsure that t doesn’t sag (and thereby volate the dranback desgn prncple). It s pontless to nstall a
hgh qualty system only to have t fal two years after nstallaton because the ppes weren’t supported
and started to sag over tme.
If you are nstallng a glycol system, you need to use copper for all of your ppng runs (wth glycol you
only need to use ½” I.D. copper.). You want to give special consideration to how you flash your copper
piping as you penetrate the roof. Use copper pipe flashing (see photo). Use roofing tar underneath the
copper base and on top of the base underneath the shngle. Once you have placed the ¾” ppe through
the recever ppe and rng you wll sweat the rng to the ppe to elmnate any chance of leakng.

The Beckett SolarHot Advantage: The Platnum seres of collectors ncludes unons
wth gaskets to facltate nstallaton on the roof. The mountng hardware s desgned
to allow you to easly snap the collectors nto ther lower mountng clps, reducng your
handlng tme once on the roof.

Chapter 6: Insulation

By nstallng a solar water heater, you are tryng to reduce your energy
requrements. Whether you are dong ths to reduce your power bll
or to be a better steward of the resources we have been gven, the
objectve s the same. The last thng you want to do s spend a few
thousand dollars nstallng a solar hot water system only to have the energy that you have harnessed
squandered as t reradates your collected heat back through un-nsulated ppes or storage tanks.
There are a few consderatons when t comes to how much nsulaton. More s better, but t s subject to
the law of dmnshng returns: more nsulaton wll cost more and there are physcal lmtatons to how
much nsulaton you can have. For any outsde ppe runs, I would recommend nsulatng them to the
greatest thickness that you can find and will fit. Any pipes running through interior walls will be limited
by how much nsulaton can be nstalled (generally not more than ½” wall nsulaton on a ¾” ppe). Any
ppes not runnng through walls should have 1” wall thckness nsulaton.