Google didn't really help with this question.
I am looking at evacuated solar tubes, mainly sunmaxx tubes.
I have two roof sections that face south. The largest one (900sqft) faces south-east and is 73% efficient according to http://www.roofray.com/calculators
The smaller section (270sq ft) faces south-west and is 80% efficient.
Now, I have read that some people actually like to face their collectors towards the south-east to catch the morning sun to heat up their storage before showers.
I could tilt the tube rack but then that makes everything (plumbing) a bit more complicated. The collectors can also be turned within their mounts to face the sun more.
http://www.apricus.com/image/Misc/IAM-graph.gif
As seen in the above graph, the collectors get more efficient when the sun isn't overhead.
If I face the collectors SE, then I lose a bit of the early evening sun. But, my latitude is fairly north, so the sun should be still visible to the collectors even at the horizon. I should check tonight to see if that is the situation.
Any comments...
I am looking at evacuated solar tubes, mainly sunmaxx tubes.
I have two roof sections that face south. The largest one (900sqft) faces south-east and is 73% efficient according to http://www.roofray.com/calculators
The smaller section (270sq ft) faces south-west and is 80% efficient.
Now, I have read that some people actually like to face their collectors towards the south-east to catch the morning sun to heat up their storage before showers.
I could tilt the tube rack but then that makes everything (plumbing) a bit more complicated. The collectors can also be turned within their mounts to face the sun more.
http://www.apricus.com/image/Misc/IAM-graph.gif
As seen in the above graph, the collectors get more efficient when the sun isn't overhead.
If I face the collectors SE, then I lose a bit of the early evening sun. But, my latitude is fairly north, so the sun should be still visible to the collectors even at the horizon. I should check tonight to see if that is the situation.
Any comments...