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Home > Appropriate Technology > RE Hub
Solar Hot Water, Grand Falls System Date of Installation: Early 1980's Type/kind: Small Commercial (Hotel serving many guests each year) Installer: Unknown Supplier: Unknown (but likely Thermo Dynamics ltd. http://www.thermo-dynamics.com/) Experience: The system has been generally good. Results: Helps meet domestic hot water use (i.e. for hotel room use)
This solar hot water system, likely the largest such installation in the province and perhaps the oldest, was installed in the early 1980’s as a result of government incentives to help with high energy costs at that time. Because of the age of the system, record keeping, and a change in management, much of the information relating to installer, costs, etc. have been lost.
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Cost: Unknown, though government assistance was used. O&M: each year maintenance has to be done to keep the system in good working order. Sometimes this can involve removing/replacing a collector, or simply checking over the system to make sure it is running efficiently.
Description of Case Study:
The system was originally installed with three 500 gallon tanks to hold the hot water, though this proved to be insufficient, and so more tanks were installed (ten 100 gallon tanks) for a total of 2500 gallons of storage capacity. After these extra tanks were installed, there were no more problems with the general operation of the system. Occasionally a collector will break, and so the system size has been reduced from the time of original installation.