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This video is all about what I consider to be the best kind of insulated pipe
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system for delivering hot water from a solar heating system. I took this picture
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on the day I was laying this pipe to connect my outdoor wood boiler to my
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house and this pipe here is the same kind that would do a great job with any
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solar heating system. So I've got an actual cross-section of piece here a
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little bit left over from the job and I want to show you a few details. First of
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all this stuff is made by a Danish company called Log Store and where I
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live this stuff costs you know about $15 a foot. So it's not cheap but it is
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highly effective for a couple of reasons. First of all the the pipe
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diameter here you can get these internal pipes of a different size. I wouldn't
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ever use any that are smaller than this as you can see here that measures a full
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one inch in diameter ID and so that provides sufficient flow. The other
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important thing about this is the insulation. This is closed cell foam
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insulation and it has an R value of about R7 per inch which is really
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remarkable. The main thing though, this is where people fall down and really make
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a mess of things when they try to create their own system like this, the main thing is this completely waterproof outer layer. If any insulation comes in
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regular contact with water it's going to eventually become waterlogged. Even closed cell insulation will eventually pick up water and when that happens your
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insulating value goes out the window. So you can see here on the side it's a very
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tough pipe and it's dry from one end to the other. So you know where where it
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connects to the solar collector on one side is going to be protected from water
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and ideally it'll actually go into your building on the other end. So you can
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have this underwater for all that matters and the inside is never going to
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get wet and it's going to keep on working for a long long time. So don't
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skimp on the insulated pipe that goes from your collector to the to the end
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use of the heat. Now I want to show you how circulator pumps work. This one's
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made by Grundfos, made by different companies. The idea is always the same
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This particular one I like because the variable speed. See in the side here
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there's a there's the low, medium, and high setting. It's kind of hard to know
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exactly what sort of flow rate makes the most sense when you're buying the pump
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So this allows some leeway. The fluid here circulates through these pipes
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and this fitting is something that you should know about too. This is made by a
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company called Webstone and it does a couple of things. There's a shutoff valve
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here. I can turn that and if I shut this off and I shut off the one above I've
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isolated the pump so I can undo these these bolts and I can replace that pump
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without interfering with any of the liquid in the system. So that's one of
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the things that these Webstone valves do. Another thing is that there's this
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shutoff valve here because whenever you have a system like this you are going to
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need to add some water. It starts off empty of course and this valve here
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allows water to be added. So when it comes time to add fluid in the system I
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can hook up a garden hose here with a circulator pump and it'll pump in the
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water or the antifreeze solution when I open up this valve and it'll fill the
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whole system and because there's a similar valve up top it can let the air
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out and when I see fluid coming out of that other side of the system then I
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know I've got everything all filled up and ready to go. So this is a typical
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circulator pump and it's the kind of thing that you're going to need for any
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liquid-based solar heating system
