Solar heating panels

[Poconos]

Never tried the reflective stuff. Probably would be more efficient but I'm wondering how it would hold up. The area is quite windy at times and even the tarpaper would blow and tear sometimes. I'm also not interested in squeezing the last % of efficiency from the thing either. I've got a lot of space back there so if I ever decide I need more heat I'll just add more pipe and roofing. Can you imagine a couple acres covered with 1/2 black pipe?
Al

[medvampire]

That settles it… I tossed them on the ground for now and next year I will add some reflective material under them when I build the racks.
Al.....I am trying to picture a few acres of reflective surface with black pipe. I bet you would blind the air planes as they flew by.

What if a guy did something like this? Think the panel would melt? Have the top adjustable so you could get a ball park aim at the lower solar panel. I have about 5 hours a day due to trees so I want to get the max I can get out of the system.
Steve

[matt4x4]

The more light you can reflect onto it, the better your gain - that would work well.!

[poolbuoy]

Here is my set up easy to build and stays clean. also can be used to store wood under.



here is the solar valve:

[ShelleyAnn]

I have 2, 9' x 3' panels on black plywood that run east/west the long way. In an attempt to eeeek out every 1/10th of a degree of temp I can here in the mile-hi city, which do you think would get me more: proping the long edge up to angle south to the sun, or proping up the short end to face east in the am and west after noon as the sun passes? Currently, they are mostly flat on the ground north/south and I prop up the west end about a foot torward the sun in the am and switch it the other way after noon.

Yes, it's a big pain in the patoozie, but at least I can still get my Florida born behind in the water. Hey, a degree is a degree!

Shelley

[poolbuoy]

I have a 15 mil solar cover, a little pain in the you know what, but Between the solar cover and the solar collector my pool stayed at 78 this morning and was up to 85 by 3pm. I also had to vac today for 1-2 hrs because of Algae.
So I missed two hours of good sun. The air in Mass. today was dry and warm so it felt good when you got out and put a towel on and then felt even warmer when I got back in. One word: GREAT! I had some friend over and really injoyed it...

[matt4x4]

Shelly Ann, I would stop adjusting the panels because it sounds like a lot of work (unless you're really bored and actually enjoy it0.
Your best bet is to set the panels east west lengthwise and angle the panels to face the southern sky.
Before 11:00 am and after 5:00 pm, the sun is relatively low on the horizon to make much of a difference on heat gain, you want as much gain as possible between the hours of 11 and 5, since the sun is pretty much over top in the southern sky, facing south will give you the best gain.
Besides, all teh propping would induce unnecessary strain on the panels reducing their life span I would think