Solar Panel Install w/pics Part 1 (dial-up beware)

Here is my solar heater install. This is a relatively large rooftop install for an in-ground 23k gallon pool with spa. My house is perfect for solar - the back faces almost due south, I'm on top of a hill and the house is two-story so no tree shade on the panels (though the height was a little disconcerting sometimes when working at the edges of the roof).

View of subject pool from atop the south roof (don't mind the mess - I'm doing other construction):

http://users.adelphia.net/~hudak/poolx.jpg

I had been doing some other construction in my backyard, and realized that it would be much easier to access part of my roof and install solar if I did it before I built my patio cover structure. This way I could use rolling scaffolding (for at least some of the south roof activities).

I used panel materials and other components purchased from www.powermat.com. The owner, Ken Wright, was very helpful and spent as much time as necessary to help massage my design to the final configuration. Ken is extremely knowledgeable, and he never tried to "up-sell" me; in fact, he worked very hard to help me save money.

His website is an excellent technical resource; if you are going to undertake this project, you *must* understand the content contained on the page that discusses proper mechanical system design and plumbing - it is absolutely critical for success.

On to the project. Ken offers a couple of different systems; I used the Powerstrip Geon; this way I could assemble panels of custom lengths in order to maximize my roof area.

With the Geon, I was able to construct a system with a total surface area equal of 87% of the surface area of my pool. I wanted at least 75% coverage, but the 420 sq. ft. of panel area was too large to fit on my south roof. So since I was forced to put panels on my west roof, too, I just filled it up. Voila...87% (487 sq. ft.).

I chose the Geon as the tubing is pvc-based (not the commonly-used EPDM rubber). Past experience with both of these materials (in other applications) has proven to me that the rubber will break down far sooner.

The drawback to using the Geon is that you have to use glue to assemble the headers to the tubing as opposed to just pushing the rubber tubing on to the header nipples.

So, the first thing that I had to do was put together all of the panels. I did this in my woodworking shop where I have a large assembly table. Couldn't imagine doing this on the roof or on the ground.

It took me six hours to assemble all 44 of my panels. That's 88 headers which have twelve glue joints apiece...1056 tubing/header joints. Yeah, I was glad when that was over.

Starting a glue-up for a 12' panel (The blue tape with the "F" meant female end of the header goes thataway - it doesn't matter which header end goes which way, but they must go the same way on a single panel):

http://users.adelphia.net/~hudak/panelglue1x.jpg

One header on, now the next:

http://users.adelphia.net/~hudak/panelglue2x.jpg

Ready to roll-up:

http://users.adelphia.net/~hudak/panelglue3x.jpg

Rolled and on to the next one:

http://users.adelphia.net/~hudak/rolledpanelx.jpg