Is your Solar Hot water pipes insulated.

[Mr 672A]

In my entire Life I have always done everything myself as I have been gifted to do just about anything from brick laying to concreting to tiling and i'm mean jobs over 200 sqm, building a massive extension on my first house that doubled it + a bit the size of the house, Plastering, I have put Fibro glass pool in, I have plumbed dozens of pools (solar) for my mate's business, I have put in a few Solar heated pools, I have wired all those pool in my contracting days and in between all this played with Electricity and Electronics + built cars, engines (mostly 308's and 253) and to finish off my Satellite hobby.
Now Very rarely I get anyone to do anything for me but 9 years ago approx, I found myself installing a large 9M dish in Sydney with friends and unfortunately was not back home in time to supervise the installation of our Lo-line 3 Panel 340 Ltr hot water system. Yep three panels up the roof (Not facing north due to PV panels stealing most of the northern roof)and a 340Ltr tank on the ground. Now to get the rebate I had no choice but to get an installer (licensed plumber) but the rebate was not worth the cost of the installing so I should have waited because I could have done a 100% better job as pipework was all over the place and not straight, broken roof tiles, the 3 panels were not straight on the roof but most importantly in the quote the Solar pipes going and returning from the panels to the tank should have been insulated which there weren't.
Doing some testing using one of those infra red temp testers from company 3M similar to the the ones that the V8 Supercar commentators use to measure the track temperature I was very surprised that with this horrible dull pommie style winter we are having the water temp leaving the collectors in between clouds on some days is around 60 Deg but by the time the little pump pumps it in the tank it loses up to 9 degrees. Now to make matters worse we have 5 whirly birds to keep the roof cool in Summer but they also keep the roof cooler in winter thus cooling those exposed copper pipes.
REMEDY.

I purchased from bunnings 30 X I metre long pipe insulating tube to suit 1/2 inch copper pipe and I will have to splice it to get it over the pipe and lightly cable tie it. This 1/2 internal diameter tube comes with two external sizes. I got the fattest one and even if I can reduce that heat loss by 50% it will be worth it because most of us do know what happens when your hot water is not hot enough. Mr Legionnaire's disease could show its ugly face.
I will give you some readings after my body recovers from installing them and we get some sunny days for a change.

[weirdo]

Similarly I was working away from home when we got our solar (electric assisted) hws installed a few years back
To get the rebate, the plumber had to get it inspected by one of the councils plumbing inspector.
And whereas our installer had used the black foam pipe insulation, the inspector made them paint it all white!!
I kid you not.
I just shook my head
obviously he didn't want the pipes to get hot from the sun lol
just a word of warning on those infrared pistol thermometers (especially the cheap ones)
they are not all that accurate from a distance
test it yourself by taking a reading at say 3-4 meters away and then a close up reading

[Godzilla]

just a word of warning on those infrared pistol thermometers (especially the cheap ones)
they are not all that accurate from a distance
test it yourself by taking a reading at say 3-4 meters away and then a close up reading

Sounds about right.

I use one for measuring and storing multiple data when we do track days, its the Fluke 568 (not cheap), they work on a distance to spot ratio of 30:1 or 50:1, so the further away, the larger the spot being measured.

To check the temp of a pipe you would want to be up close, otherwise the spot would be just catching the cooler outsides of the insulation and surrounds around (background) of the pipe.

Unsure of the distance spot ratio of the cheaper units, but id guess you would want to be pretty close to have any form of accuracy.

Edit, i just took a look at a Supercheap Autos one, the distance spot ratio is 8:1.....not very good unless your really close and only measures -50 to +380 so pretty much just a basic tool to pull a temp, the Fluke goes to 800 which is what we need to monitor brakes and exhaust manifolds on systems without individual port pyro probes.

[Mr 672A]

test it yourself by taking a reading at say 3-4 meters away and then a close up reading

I treat the ir temp reader as just an average true temp reading. I always compare an apple with an apple in saying that I try to keep the distance from the object I'm measuring to the Pistol grip device the same each time i'm doing temp readings. Today I will have fun cutting all those insulation tubes up the guts.
Paint them white? are you talking about the insulation around the pipe that lives inside your roof or maybe running outside on the wall of the house or near the HWS.?

[Mr 672A]

Sounds about right.



To check the temp of a pipe you would want to be up close, otherwise the spot would be just catching the cooler outsides of the insulation and surrounds around (background) of the pipe.

My 3M one is not cheap I've had it since the work days. I don't remember what range it has but it does what I want. I have use this device for just about anything including measuring the temp of a Car's engine extractors times to see if one of the 8 ports is a little cooler or hotter that the other during start up or other

[bazzle01]

Back to the subject.
Yes my pipes are insulated with the black foam. Not cables tied as they can cut into the skin over time but contact adhesives used along the butting face.
Where they go up the wall and along the top of my roof (colorbond deck) I put a colorbond channel over them to stop UV and bird damage.

Baz

[Mr 672A]

Back to the subject.
Yes my pipes are insulated with the black foam. Not cables tied as they can cut into the skin over time but contact adhesives used along the butting face.
Where they go up the wall and along the top of my roof (colorbond deck) I put a colorbond channel over them to stop UV and bird damage.

Baz

Job finished. Used cable ties as the insulation material had to be sliced but the cable ties were lightly pulled. Took some good pics. If members ask me nicely I will post them.

[Mr 672A]

Back to the subject.
Yes my pipes are insulated with the black foam. Not cables tied as they can cut into the skin over time but contact adhesives used along the butting face.
Where they go up the wall and along the top of my roof (colorbond deck) I put a colorbond channel over them to stop UV and bird damage.

Baz

I wonder how much temp the foam insulation can take. What do you think? The guy from bunnings said max around 100 deg C and I can tell you this the solar collectors on a hot summer day can get to 90-95 deg with no problem but the tamk does not except that temp. Do you know that if Tank temp is towards Max at night the lo Line pump circulates the water to actually cool the tank down a little. Some have asked me how do I know this and I don't tell them anything. I just say IT DOES. I have a spare Lo line pump PCB Board and have swapped it over and it does the same as if its a hot day and the tank in our case is 340 lts is still rotten full bore hot say over 75 deg the pump will circulate the water out of the tank to the collectors to cool the water before returning back the tank a lot cooler.

[dogsbreath]

I think you need to use UV stabilised product if out in the weather or cover it with aluminium lagging tape for protection as an alternative.

[Mr 672A]

I think you need to use UV stabilised product if out in the weather or cover it with aluminium lagging tape for protection as an alternative.

No the work I have been doing so far is inside the roof. I'm about to redo the outside bit that a Licensed Plumber yes a man with a license did, what a ugly, shocking job of the two copper pipes coming down the wall. I will be replace that ugly 50mm PVC bent pipe with the copper pipes inside it that is made out of THREE PIECES of PVC pipe within 1 M with one 50MM Electrical duct with a nice lid on it and have the insulated pipes which I had to insulate years ago coming out of the that duct..