Daily Pill
Simple hot water
I have not had any more time to work on the solar hot water system. The temporary hose hot water system has been working so damn good that it just seems logical to keep and expand on that simple idea. Today we decided to make the hose a little more of a permanent fixture on the RV and expand the capacity to double the size. So, we purchased another 100 foot black garden hose, some pipe mounting brackets, and a few hundred self drilling sheet metal screws. We painted the brackets semi gloss black to match the hose, and spent a majority of the day siliconing, screwing, and mounting hose to the side and roof of the 5th wheel. After 98 brackets, a few hundred screws and some sore knees - we got the job done. We'll see how long the hose lasts before it starts to leak. It actually doesn't look too bad.Today's testing shows that we have 4 3/4 gallons of hot water just from our stupid black garden hose. It smells a bit like garden hose, but for showering and doing dishes - it's perfectly fine, we don't drink from the tap anyway.
I can barely move my hands. Over a week and a half of carving has done some damage, I think it's sore muscles, but I can't tell. I can barely move my fingers. I am hoping that a couple of days "off" will help me recover.
posted by VirP at
3:20 PM
2 Comments:
How will this work out in the winter with possible ice? Will the hose freeze up?
Anonymous
Absolutely, the hose will freeze good and solid if we were to leave it filled with water all of the time. It's designed to be used when then sun is out and it's above freezing of course. 90% of the time we'll be able to use the garden hose for hot water. For those times when it's cold/overcast or below freezing we just flip a switch, the hose is taken out of the loop and the hot water heater is the hot water source again. Once the hose is out of the loop, we can let the hose drain out to keep it from freezing and expanding. It's the same kind of problem that anyone using solar hot water runs into, you need to deal with freezing in some way. Our's is a manual system and during the summer months there's really little to no chance of the hose freezing up over night. Our permanent home will be in a place where freezing is not much of an issue even in the winter time. That said, we'll likely work on another hot water system that covers the freezing days so we never need to use propane to heat water...
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