Does anyone have any experience of the above?

I've worked out roughly how much energy and time it will take to heat a 500litre store from cold tap temprature of 8'c to 85'c flat out and how much it would roughly dissipate back through the rads in the house but am thinking more about how often it would need fueling up as im considering maybe popping more money into the pot and getting a solar heater as it would help keep the system topped up more and help in the summer especially as i think 1 or 2 solar heaters on the roof would be enough with the ood blast from the stove but they certainly aren't cheap things and with wood in plentiful free supply i think its better than using electric storage/gas/oil heating in the house. Its out in the sticks so the only things that are mains fed are clean HARD water and electric (3phase and normal )

I reckon most of the piping i cna sort with a combo of plastic and copper and the get a good plumber in to check the last bits off but am looking for personal experience

PS the thermal accumulator im looking at is an akvaterm, coupled with about 6 rads, using a 9-11kw(to water) stove and some sort of electrical hook up so the radiators are like a normal central heating system but taking the heat from the top of the termal store. The stove heats the bottom and the solar rads as well and the taps taking the water from the middle(take offs depend more on the temp the store drops to but wont be too hard to swap around i hope should i be wrong!

kingpleb wrote:

i think 1 or 2 solar heaters on the roof would be enough.

kingpleb wrote:

I reckon most of the piping i cna sort with a combo of plastic and copper and the get a good plumber in to check the last bits off but am looking for personal experience

Be careful with the pump stopping, he had a powercut so the water stopped circulating, the water in the panels turned to steam causing his piping to burst. You'll want a pressure relief valve I guess?

I believe he also had the system freeze up once in the winter when it was just 2 panels.

My only personal experience with solar is a 40w panel I have setup, I've never seen it make more than 20w even on the sunniest of days pointed directly at the sun.

Just don't count on the panels producing anywhere near what the manufacturer say they will

Cheers MRD.

That's the kinda info im after as I reckon the solar heater would be more of a kind of trickle charger with the main heat coming from the stove every few days but having the electric backup element on hand just in case

In view of the apparent isolated location of your property and the attendant difficulties in providing economic heating and hot water have you considered the alternative solution of highly insulating the property thereby minimising the energy requirements?
Could well make far more economic sense than a contrived engineering solution using relatively expensive equipment of dubious seasonal heat output.

The house is already well insulated and will be getting even more insulation as it gets rebuilt/extended problem is the electric bill there at the minute isnt cheap(compared to ours anyhoo!)

The hope of using such a system is that over a 5year or less cycle it will have paid for itself and by using cheap fuel(free other than time cutting, storing and chopping) the bill will be greatly reduced as a lot of energy is needed to heat water it forms 60% of our current energy use in our home at the minute so the newer property will be much the same if not higher as it will be larger

I have seen some simple ideas work very well to reduce pump issues:
- if the panels are below the hot water store, then convection may be enough to circulate the water (no pump)
- if the panels are above the store, then some installations use a 12v pump powered by a small solar panel so that the water drains back into the store during dull weather and only gets pumped around when there is enough light/ heat

Vaguelyvogue thats a good idea for using a 12v pump powered by a solar panel next to it as its only on when the sun is shining and warming the water