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firey little holes
Wednesday, September 21 2005
Unsatisfied with the amount of heat being produced by my solar pane, I took several measures today to greatly improve its efficiency and reduce the amount of heat being lost by radiation. For starters, I took those big one inch thick styrofoam sheets I'd bought yesterday and arrayed them tightly an inch and a half behind the collection plate. I'd glued aluminum foil to the side of the styrofoam nearest the plate to reflect back any heat radiating in that direction.
Later I stretched a sheet of clear vinyl, a material similar to that used in shower curtains, across the sun-side of the panel. By then it was 4pm and the sun wasn't in an ideal location in the sky, but I nonetheless detected a sharp increase in water temperature coming down from the collector. Such measurements are always done subjectively, with me pressing my hand or cheek up to the copper pipe, particularly the place where the pipe passes vertically through the first floor "office."
When installing the styrofoam and vinyl, I made heavy use of nasty spray foams and glues (such as Great Stuff, advertised with cliché big-headed homunculi, and Gorilla Glue, which is not). It inevitably got all over my hands and then I had a bitch of a time getting it (and everything that stuck to it) off. I resorted, as I sometimes must, to scraping the dried glue off with a knife, sometimes taking off the top layer of skin in the process. This is normally a painless procedure, though occasionally I'd nick a little too deep and leave a firey little hole to the part of me that is still entirely alive.
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