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tiny bubbles rise and collapse
Tuesday, April 15 2008
Today was a brilliant sunny day, and though temperatures never quite made it into the 60s, temperatures in my solar hydronic array eventually exceeded the boiling point of water at sea level, rising as high as 221 degrees Fahrenheit. The fluid inside did not boil, however, because it was contained in a closed copper-walled system under a pressure of one and a half atmospheres. I suspect that the fluid wouldn't have managed to get this hot were it not for a few persistent bubbles in the pipes slowing the flow rate of the fluid and keeping it from being cooled quickly by the heat sink in the system (in this case, potable water being heated for the house's hot water supply).
At some point I carefully examined the problematic solder junction in the homebrew panel's plumbing and could see that it had resumed leaking after several days of not leaking. The leak was extremely slow, with no detectable flow, just an inch-long and seemingly-frozen outwash of concentrated antifreeze. But when the plumbing was above boiling I could occasionally see tiny bubbles rise and collapse at the location of the leak.
Normally seeing such a defect would cause me to immediately tear the panel open and attempt a fix, but this time I elected to be less rash. I'll wait and see if the leak grows any larger. If it doesn't, then it's not losing hydronic fluid at any detectable rate and can be safely ignored. If I ever do have to go in and fix it, I'll have to cut the pane of glass loose from above it. If it comes to that, I'm cutting the offending plumbing out on either side of the fitting redoing it from scratch.
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