Mespe's Solar heated water AP Greenhouse Build

[mespe]

Well I bumped my AP fish tank and cracked the side with the hole drilled in it for a CHIFT PIS
So, I had such success wilth a 50 gallon tank, I'm going full speed ahead and build a AP greenhouse with solar heated water.

The first problem to tackle was how to hold the 20x4 solar pool heater to be used to heat the water. To maximize efficiency for teh coldest of months (February) Sun's angle is 31 degrees.

Thus:



I glued the panel to furring strips. Hoping that it's stay up there.

I located some 1 1/2 PVC conduit, got a decent deal 20 ft length for $4.00
Picked up 15 or so and now we have a hoop.



Right now it's attached at the top with PVC pipe heated and formed,,,
( I will be filling inbetween the pipes with that expanding foam, and adding
brackets along the hoops).



and




Now for the horizontals,,,



I don't want a bunch of 4 way fittings, so thuis is what I'm doing,, these will be glued and probably taped over.

More pics next post

[mespe]

After drilling the horizontals (hole saw is the ID of the pipe)
I cut the excess.
I found that a rounded clipper works much better than a flat scissor top cutter.



It was really neat, after cutting the piece, when joined they snapped together like legos.



I cut about 20 horizontals. Using a drill press and a fixture to ensure consistent results.

The fish tank will be in the ground inside the greenhouse. I'm thinking about 6 or 7 feet square 2-3 feet deep, should be a decent thermal mass.

The solar water heater is rated at 60,000 BTU's

That's were we stand as of this AM.

[eddiemigue]

Very nice. Looking forward to reading about your results. What kind of fish ate you raising?

[JCO]

Mush on you Huskies...great work..better get it in gear, Ole Man Winter is at your door. Keep us informed and photos please. Lookin' good so far. We all will be curious to see how your solar heater works out.

[mespe]

Did some work, but had a disaster too.





Now there isn't that much tension on the PVC pipe to break like that.
Anyone hazard a guess how it broke? I'd be interested in knowing,,,

[mespe]

None the less, continue working,,,



My fish tank it's 6 ft x 9 ft and 32 inches deep, supposed to hold 750 gallons,,,

Thank you University of Akron for the Publuc Surplus auction,,, $30




Here's a side angle - notice the broken PVC pipe? Now look how much tensions is on them. Is there a possibility that the glue substanially weakened the pipe. It was a few days after I glued the pieces that it broke.

[Oliver]

Some things that popped out at me while looking at your pictures.

When using a circle cuter on plastic it often gives a cleaner cut if you run the drill in reverse.

I can only assume that your hoop house is also being used as a greenhouse as well as a thermal cover for you solar heater, otherwise that is a lot of surface area to lose heat through just for a solar panel.

Being in northern Ohio places you at about 41.1 degrees North latitude. That means your equinox sun angle will be 49.9 degrees above the horizon and your winter solstice sun angle will be only about 25.4 degrees above the horizon, if I've done my math correctly.

At 25.4 degrees of sun angle, I am curious about where your plants are going to be in order to keep them from being in front of your solar heater panels. They must be on the ground and you are not going to grow anything very tall, otherwise it will shade the panels.

In addition, it looks like another structure is in front of the hoop house and it looks like that will also shade part of your growing area when the sun gets to be at 25.4 degrees above the horizon on December 21st.

Lots of conjecture here, so looking forward to your response.

Oliver

[mespe]

Oliver, you are one smart cookie. I set up the panel for November & February solar angle. I figured Feb is one of the coldest months,,,

Yeah my solar powered water well is in the way of the greenhouse, may have to take it down. The reason for the well, was to water my gardens. There is a 50 gallon water tank inside the roof.

But now with the greenhouse and it's 750 AP tank, I might rethink my water, but then the well will only block a little sun light, and def, not going to the panel.

Here are some latest pics.





And finally last night after cutting, gluing and nailing/screwing wood



I have partially completed one side

[Oliver]

I am glad to see that you are putting the fish tank in the ground. That will allow you to have the grow beds fairly low.

I have considered the tank-in-the ground concept for cold installations but I don't have a good metric on how far inside a heated structure the tank needs to be. There is a temperature gradient from the outside frozen ground to where the tank is located. The further in the tank in the warmer ground the less transfer of heat from the tank to the outside frozen ground. All of this can be applied to hot desert challenges as well. In that case, putting the tank in the ground for cooling makes sense.

Again, I don't have any numbers or any experience in this but at sometime I believe I am going to be faced with that challenge. In any event, the fish tank needs to be kept warmer than you will probably ever see the ground temperature, even inside the greenhouse. With that in mind, I would insulate the fish tank and heat it in order to keep it above the ground temperature.

Oliver

[mespe]

Ground temp here is 55 F. Hoping to heat up the clay in the ground, as I don't want the water temp to fluctuate too much. And yes my arms and shoulders are still aching from all that digging. Slowly filling the FT up with well water, and some rain water today too.
shovel got some use too, as I started working on the wall near the FT, I had to move the dirt and clay to make room for the ladder.
No new pictures today, but I did find a used exterior door for $10, so hopefully tomorrow I can finish the first wall and maybe even put some plastic up soon.

Considering stretch wrapping the outside PVC poles to the wood frame that I built, then applying that expanding foam inside the stretch wrap. Should stiffen up the wall considerably sticking to both the PVC and the wood frame.

Still not comfortable with supporting the PVC. I think I might run some 2x4 from the center beam to hold up some coduit to hold up the PVC.