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You are correct - PH 7. - apologies!!
The difficulty I have experienced is that any residual left in after flushing makes getting the correct PH time consuming - often needing further flushing. This is a bigger problem in hard water areas
This is really interesting.
Because Sentinel seems to imply that so long as the cleaner has been flushed out correctly, you just need to add R100 (pure) and you will have a PH 0f between 7.8 and 8.5 and are good to rock and roll.
I guess though, that if there is water left in the system then you would have a slight dilution. Don't think this is likely in this system as it is an evacuated tube system. Famous last words.
Rob Foster
Esteemed
(except me in the long term)
there is NO money in it
see these figures from April 2019...its a graveyard
2000 only fittings in 2o19 and down by a massive %
on the previous year ..oh dear
Rob Foster aka centralheatking
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Yeah. Fortunately I left my ladder behind when I looked at the system. Went back in the evening so I could look at the system pressures while it was cold and met the customer's family. Turns out there was poor communication but one member had found someone who specialised in solar and was relatively local but I think it took me to convince them it needed doing (particularly when I discovered the blow-off had previously actuated). So now someone else will be sorting it out. Hurrah!
Why does it need flushing mine has the same water & special antifreeze mix for the last 10 years. It has a filler from mains water via a double check valve to top up if necessary but in all honesty has never needed doing . Original antifreeze was pumped in via small hand pump before water from mains supply.
Out of curiosity, why if everything is working fine? All the pipework is stainless steel apart from the coil & the panels heat exchanger. The pump packed up a couple of years ago and the fluid mix was nice & clear that came out of the pump.
Rob Foster
Esteemed
out of pure professional curiosity whose solar fluid have you used ? assuming its equvalent to Sentinal R100
Rob Foster aka centralheatking
I think it came from someone called secon solar, bright pink. It said long life, but that's about all I remember. Ta Chris
Rob Foster
Esteemed
They all put fancy colours in to solar fluid to
make it ...'special' in fact the same stuff give or take cooled the Merlin Engine in the Lancaster, all types of Spitfire until after WW2 its not rocket science, it was then, it tastes just like pear drop sweets
I know
centralheatking
Rob Foster
Esteemed
Anybody would be a fool not to
in my opinion , I meet every service schedule on my vehicles
why not....but we are engineers and understand the ramifications of not servicing ,,,just like planes, etc and the armed forces machines
domestic folk do not...my friend has a Honda with over 400,000 on the clock, another is just passing 295,000
centralheatking
I think from reading various articles that the thing that makes the fluid break down is allowing it to boil. On mine when the temperature in the cylinder reaches 85C the solar heat is diverted to a dump radiator. I think in the whole time it's been installed it's only done it a couple of times as its quite a big cylinder & people in the house tend to use the hot water with showers etc.
The issue generally is the glycol absorbing oxygen (that is why overheating it can become a problem). Depending upon how “tight” the system is it can last a long time (8 years plus). However, in time with the absorption of oxgyen, the inhibitors mixed with the glycol starts to convert to acetic acid. If you leave it in long term you should monitor the PH - obviously every time you monitor the PH you let a little bit more oxygen into the system.
I was thinking a dump radiator is probably a really good idea.
Conventional thinking is it's better to heat a lot of water to a low temperature and then use gas to top-up than heat a little water and risk overheat, but that line of thought means that your solar will be insufficient even on the hottest days.
I must say I do like the idea of a solar system that dumps the heat on very hot days and is sufficient without gas top-up more of the year.
Rob Foster
Esteemed
We are learning alot about solar at present, in fact I am non exec dir of a Solar Thermal
Roof company. Barnsy at Sentinel tells me R100 goes down to -28c and up to something silly many times boiling point of water...because
solar thermal system overheat...so the trick is to keep getting the heat away..there is a fella I know who is dev a set up to cool down ...voltaic panels to keep them efficient and then use the removed heat to bang it into a cylinder ...Its all protected by UkPlumbing & Heating Innovation Centre which is open to anybody with an idea at any stage...its a not for profit set up. Rob Foster
aka centralheatking
Back to solar PV. I have this also, I bought a bit of electronics from someone called Optimersion (I think they have gone bust) there are others around. It detects what would go back into the grid & diverts it to an immersion heater, so on average sun I get a reasonable amount of hot water 50- 55C ish, hot enough for most things. On the rare days as I said previously it can go up to 85C at which point the dump radiator kicks in, not that it hardly ever does. There is a thermostatic valve on the hot water outlet that limits the output water to 60C so it doesn't scald people.
Rob Foster
Esteemed
There are a few units like this one, and clever people with pv time their hot water usage for lunchtime , so its back to cylinders out with the combi if you have space...mind you pre warming mains cold before the combi can save loads of uplift energy...there is a few latents going thro on this at the moment...would not know whom tho !
Rob Foster aka centralheatking
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