Plans and stages for this week and weekend of January 8th, 2011 were are followed

Old standard water heaterSolar Water Heater

1. finish the hot water tank potable (drinking water) pipes. Installed the tank at ground level instead of above the office because the new one is taller and knowing we may have to give it attention more often. We have piped over CPVC 3/4" in and out and installed the magnesium tube. All three joints are leaking a little. Will redo with blue pipe dope and remove the Teflon next weekend.

Collector Assembling: Assembling the Collector rack and mount are Randal Schwindt, Tayo and Robert Collector mount

2. assemble the vacuum tube collector housing ( all but the tubes and header)
3. assemble the collector flat roof adapter
Worse than assembling a gas grill but easier than installing a heater core in a Ford truck. All aluminum pieces and an overlap of bolts and brackets with the housing kit made for an angled roof and the extra flat roof kit. We used a couple of C shaped pieces for the bottom to give the assembly a larger footprint

Sweating Practicing, Tayo AdedokunSweating pipe by Dr. Randal Schwindt

4. practice sweating copper tubing together First try for all involved. The last connector was an end cap which seemed to heat up faster and did not hold when we applied a test water pressure.

North American Solar Solutions Mini Solar Tube
5. show off the solar vacuum tea maker 50°F water pored into the mini vacuum tube. After 3 hours the temperature of the water was 212°F and a few bubbles.

Solar Union University Workers
6. go over diagrams of the system with the engineering group from Union University
7. make plans for the next weekend