ewarnerusa wrote:
StirCrazy,
It has definitely crossed my mind from the start of this little project. I admit that I have been hoping that the 6 gallons of water as a heat sink will never be able to reach the blow off valve setpoint with this diversion load. Assuming I am leaving the propane water heater burner off. But if the diversion load gets disconnected, then I have all my panels directly wired to the batteries with no control. Which scenario is worse?
I also don't know why my sig won't show up? The box is checked.
Ya if Pianotuna's figures are accurate, I would add a temperature controlled switch to it as what I think you could do is warm up your water initially with propane or even just the solar if you're not using the water and it would come up to full temp (might take a bit longer to get to temp)
but if he is calculating 350 watts loss over 4 hours then you have enough power, potentially to increase the temperature significantly.
I'll do some snooping around tonight and see if I can find something cheap that would work. might be as simple as a 12V switch that has a temp pad you put on the bare tank itself.
