How to play - The SunAmp Guessing Game

[joe90]

28 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The only way I could do that on my cylinder would be to pump from the hot out tapping down to the cold in tapping, but I am sure that would break some water bylaw as there is a risk of contaminating the cold water with hot water,

Is that the case?, in what way could hot water be contaminated? It’s not like the heating loop (with inhibitor) would be involved 🤷‍♂️

[SteamyTea]

33 minutes ago, ProDave said:

but I am sure that would break some water bylaw as there is a risk of contaminating the cold water with hot water

Putting a double check valve may sort that out.

Or put in such a small pump that it could never increase pressure above mains pressure.

Or just for a proper old school gravity fed system.

Odd how many people lament the lack of skills and ingenuity of our old Victorian ancestors, then fit a pressurised water cylinder that does not offer any real benefits, but costs more.

[ProDave]

10 minutes ago, joe90 said:

Is that the case?, in what way could hot water be contaminated? It’s not like the heating loop (with inhibitor) would be involved 🤷‍♂️

I was more thinking the cold water could be contaminated with the hot, it would put hot water into a short section of the cold feed pipe, and if there was a drop in mains pressure could that flow back?

 

I just have a feeling it would break some water bylaw?  anyone care to comment?

 

If I just put a tee directly on the cold in tapping and one side of the tee was the cold feed and the other side of the tee was my stratification mix feed that would only be a small risk?

 

The cold feed in to the cylinder I am talking about comes from the pressure reducing set that came with the tank, does that include a non return valve that would stop any possibility of back flow into the house cols water system?

 

I also have an unused hot water return port, quite high up.  that would be too high for the destratification system, but I recon I could make an extra thermostat pocket out of that which would give me 3 thermostat pockets.

[joe90]

13 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I was more thinking the cold water could be contaminated with the hot, it would put hot water into a short section of the cold feed pipe, and if there was a drop in mains pressure could that flow back?

But it contains the same level of chlorine so I don’t see how hot water in the same cct can contaminate the cold, anyone else?

[Miek]

I don't see any issue with that. It's the same water,  just hotter 

[Hasteron]

On 07/06/2022 at 18:02, ToughButterCup said:

Roll up Roll up! There’s a new game in town - the SunAmp Guessing Game. No, I’d never heard of it either until I was forced to play it.

 

It goes like this.

• Install a SunAmp Uniq summat or other (14kWh - Ok, 13.7)
• Hitch it up to some solar panels
• Wait for the sun to kick the PV to life
• Watch the electrons being converted (via that Mr Eddi and Mr Solis) from this-to-that-to-the-other. (Very pretty little animation too)
• Look at the readout which tells you how many of those tortured electrons are sitting in your SunAmp waiting for you to
• Have a shower, wash the dishes, scrub grandchildren clean before their mother sees them

 

Easy innit? Well no. And thats the game. 

 

See, SunAmp hide vital information from you. Like how much ‘hot water’ is ‘left’ in the tank.

(Sorry nerds, can’t be arsed to describe it more accurately). 

 

Lets imagine the tank is full. Its been a lovely sunny day: full-speed charging of the SunAmp. And I take an 18l per minute shower (excessive I know but want, want, want). 10 minutes later I’ve got rid of a fair bit (say at least 160 litres - you can’t change the flow rate on the part of  my shower that I use [iBox])  SWMBO has a bath - say 50 litres. Both at an unknown temperature but  above 20.

 

How many kWh’s worth have I used? No, I’m damn well not gonna take a thermometer out and measure the temperature during my shower or in her bath.  So I can only guess how much ‘hot water’ is left. Anyway, couldn’t do the maths.

 

Interesting.  

 

Next question: 
In relation to tomorrow’s DHW needs,

• Boost or Not to Boost ? (shunt mains electricity into the SunAmp instead of PV)
• What hot water are we likely to use before tomorrow? 
• Some/any/nowt? Lets say nowt ....
• Well wassa weather forecast for tomorrow then?

 

Partly cloudy for NW Ingerland
Hmmmm, got enough water for our showers tomorrow ?

 

So how many kWh is that likely to be?

The only way I have solved this question (have we got enough hot water ‘left’ for tomorrow)  is empirically. 

 

And annoyingly, the answer to this ‘game’ depends on how much cloud there is locally.

Heavy clouds, easy, no cloud, easy. Partly cloudy: nightmare. Too little PV, I need to boost. Too much and PV generation goes into the grid. Sod that.

 

The problem becomes guessing:

• how much sunlight will get through on a partly cloudy day.
• where is the sun in its cycle
• how many leaves on the trees
• the local wind effect on cloud (we live within the coastal strip: ie. in the ‘cleaner’ air mass)

 

All because SunAmp can’t / won’t / CBA to give us normal users an indication of how much energy is left in the tank

Also I unwind on new rsps a place that brings together the best RuneScape private servers, carefully selected for their quality, player activity, and overall gameplay depth.

This might be the most accurate description of living with solar tech I’ve read in a while 😁