Amun-ra, the brass fitting with the manifold provides a 15M thread with a flat end... it is NOT designed for use of an olive and does not have the suitable chamfer to seat the olive. To connect to that a 1/2F (aka 15F) threaded union should be used, sealed with teflon tape or similar, with the other end of that fitting a compression or flare to 12.7OD or 19.1OD copper pipe as per the requirements of the installation. If you try to use that 15M with an olive there is a high possibility of leaks. See the images below of the fittings I am referencing:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/103200/Collector%20fittings.png

Please contact your local Apricus sales manager for further clarification.

Hi mick H the connection to the manifold is a flared fitting but the other end of the elbo
needs a copper olive to seal the copper pipe used for feed and return lines.

Mick _queensland Tafe training for solar hot water Plumber reference guide, chapter five 5.2.2
Fittings
(Compression fittings and valves should be constructed of brass or copper.Plastic fittings should not be used).Hows your system going in this rainy overcast weather??

Mick,

The Apricus collectors are provided as standard with flared compression elbow fittings that provide a 1/2" M BSP thread for connection to the copper line. There are no olives involved in that connection as the seal is brass > copper > brass. Did you use the fittings provided in the box with the manifold? Certainly no plastic or rubber seals should be used on any connection to a solar collector unless they are specifically high temperature rated and Watermarked (potable water rated). Such fittings will have a W mark on the side and AS 3688 indicating they are certified.

Mick H.

Hi All,

I thought I might post something that I and my plumber learned the hard way when installing an Apricus (and probably any other ET system) My plumber is solar certified and a good plumber (why I used him) but he had never done an ET system. Well, unfortunately the connections to the manifold were done with compression fittings (good) but the "olives" were the standard nylon type(bad). When the clouds cleared and the system temperature topped out, the fittings started leaking since the olives (seals) melted. He came back and re-did the compression fittings with copper olives and now no leaks. No-one ever mentioned about the fittings to use, so now you know.

cheers, Mick

I have just read the review by MANDO74 and to be quite honest I wondered whether I had written it myself! I have had an Apricus 315 litre 30 tube system installed since December 2010 by Knights Plumbing of Enfield Adelaide. Nigel Knight came out and assessed the situation here in Woodside (Adelaide Hills and very heavy frost) and made recommendations. He said also that they had problems with ss tanks splitting and advised VE. Nigel impressed with his knowledge and his commitment.
The price quoted was $4810 and after the deduction of REC's I was out of pocket to $3725. I have just had a quote from the same company for a 215 litre 22 tube system for my mum at $3295 after all rebates.
The installation went so smoothly and the guys were very professional and efficient. They even swept up. That night we had a warm shower after just a few hours of operation.
It was evident the next day that the system was functioning well...a little too well and has continued to perform brilliantly even on cloudy days in Winter.
On a Summer day like today, temps around the mid 30's the tank temp easily reaches 70 degrees. In Winter at Woodside it MAY be necessary to boost if we have say 4 cold cloudy days, but the lowest tank temp has been 42 degrees without boost. On a hot day the manifold temp often tops out and the system shuts down.
The BIANCO pump works well and the ONLY thing I have noticed is that for a few seconds occasionally on a hot day when drawing off water there is a sound like gravel in the pipes which I assume is either cavitation from the pump or some water vapour / gas moving through. The system is sensitive to taps being turned on and off and the pipes banging I think are a feature of our previous plumbing installation rather than the installed Apricus.
I have no hesitation in recommending the Apricus system and Knights Plumbing of Enfield which I why I have asked for a further quote.
Why Apricus over Hills? Well no one I contacted specifically about the Hills system showed interest, gave quotes or returned phone calls. Not one! Attitudes of casual indifference to my needs and questions prevailed from all I contacted. The CEO of Apricus wrote extensively here and he presented very positive evidence for his system's quality and I think he was very fair.
I was surprised by the indifferent response from Zen contrary to the impressions gained from their advertising. Maybe that is what its all about from Zen. What is the sound of a Zen quote? (well it was minimalism at its very best. ZERO!) Over a 6 week period I asked for many quotes and received only one. I was promised return phone calls and I am not waiting after 1 year!
It was actually quite difficult to find information about Apricus in Adelaide but Knights were the ONLY company who responded positively and professionally. And I am very happy!

mick glad you are happy. Thats the way it should pan out. Not the way my system was done or others. Now I have tuned mine I am very happy as well, sad that it took me to learn and fix my system. Hope you enjoy free hot water.

Hi, I have installed an Apricus 30 tube yesterday, so one day in and I am very happy with it. Amun-ra (Mike) supplied the system and was able to provide knowledge and assistance during the installation, thanks Mike I appreciate it, I am really impressed by the personal touch here. My plumber appreciated the input too and the installation went very smoothly. The sparkies showed up as the plumber and Amun-ra drove off, it all went like a symphony. I have a tank full of hot water now after one day in the northern sun without elec boost.

All in all, I am very happy to be part of the solar hot water club now.
Cheers
Mick

As a note, if you are collecting rebates from the government there are restrictions on tilt angle and also orientation; per their email to me "Sustainability Victoria do not have any issue with modifications to your installation provided that the collector tubes are oriented between 10 degrees and 50 degrees to the horizontal and face within 60 degrees east or 60 degrees west of true north". Not sure of what other states requirements are but its work checking first before you install.

Hi , l just had a talk to "rob" @solaroz and it sounds pretty good......we already have a 30 tube AAE split system which works fine a few months of the year , but winter is pretty hard here on it and with 3 women ...............
Anyway, if l go ahead with this l'll run it as a preheater/heater as we have wood heating that can be utilised ....so with 54tubes ( using their 24 tube model )and wood boosting it would be pretty full on all year around

TheWombatWho said:
Does anyone know if Apricus (or any evacuated tube) system can be used with gas & wood fire booster?

TheWombatWho: Have you found further info on this? we have recently been asking similar questions (planning new house) & found a 30 ET integrated system (tank on roof) which has a heat-exchange coil built in - apparently for just that purpose. I have contacted them & asked about water mark & NSW electrical certification (after the recent solar & bamboo direct story) and they claim they have it.

http://solaroz.com.au/shop/complete-systems/30-tube-heat-exchange-coil-tank/prod_18.html

anybody else: have you heard of this mob or even installed one of their systems? would appreciate to hear about your experience.
and this such system really up to the task (just wonder why nobody else seems to offer it).

micko said:
POLYSUN:

As requested I did the Polysun modelling of a system. It is 30deg installed in Sydney on North, NE, NW, E & W directions. Please see a summary of the results here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/103200/Due-North-Comparison.png

Does anyone have a copy of that comparison? I am about to install an Apricus system at 55 degree NE direction, and would like know how much I am losing due to it.

I am sure you can do it successfully. The only trap I can see is the overheating in summer , reverse hot water flow up to the tubes if not plumbed properly. I also think runonsun have a plumbing device to hook in both wetback water and solar through the lower 2 tapping points in the hot water tank. Usually there are only 2 for this along with the cold inlet. There is available a fitting that allows 2 inlets on the one tapping point, but one of them penetrates up the tank to prevent reverse flows, it also allows the solar takeoff. I think you can also get them from FX Larkin in Woolengong, (or by mail). If you are only using it in winter I see no other issues at all.

Thanks Peter69_56. The stove is only used sometimes in winter when it provides a little bit of warmth in the kitchen and cooking.

I'll have a look at runonsun. I also have the Apricus rep doing some work to try and get an answer.

I have seen some systems that can Runonsun has some good info for you if you contact them. The biggest risk is that if you cook up the tank regularly, the solar has no where to go on a regular basis. I would think you need to ensure you have the right size tanks and tubes for you to go down this path. Also it must be set up right to prevent wetback water from going up the solar lines.

So the answer is YES but with caution. My personal thoughts are to not oversize the solar I would think. I assume you use the stove in summer too?

Does anyone know if Apricus (or any evacuated tube) system can be used with gas & wood fire booster?

We have a slow combustion stove with hot water jacket. Slow Combustion cannot be used with out being connected to hot water system. The old electric hot water system is on its last legs so we are looking to swap over to Apricus 400ltr with 30 tubes BUT if we cant connect the stove then we have an issue.

Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks

Mick, your next drop of hot water is just a SUN RAY away.

Once you get it up, you can sun gaze like the rest of us, hoping for another good solar day.

Mick what are you waiting for there is stainless tanks in town and 30 tube manifolds how many do you want

< Well, the neighbour has a bloody giant gum tree that shades my north roof from about 2:30 on for about 4 months of the year. The neighbour is not likely to remove it soon.
My original calculations gave me a bit under 30 tubes and my current EHWS is 250lt so I was going to use a SS 315lt tank.

So, do you think I should use 30 tubes and live with the loss for 4 months or up the tubes to 40 to increase winter production? I can easily manage reducing summer production and I was going to tilt the collector to optimum winter angle of about 40° (house at Lat=19.25°)

cheers
Mick

I agree with your thought on tilting for winter to 40 degrees(given your shading). Size the tank for 315 litres. Only thing is the 40 tubes. I know you have some shading, but I would be concerned with overheating particularly in mid summer mid day. I guess you could always put in the 40 tubes and remove the guts of some (as spares) if it was too hot. This way you do the job right first time and no need for rejiging it later. Just pull a few tubes and take out the element, replace the glass. Looks the same from the road.

From what I have read everywhere (and thats a lot since I have been restricted to the house for 2 months now), 30 tubes normally would give you 80-90% boost free in Qld with a 315 litre tank. Does the gum shade in winter only? If so maybe 30 tubes and just suffer the loss in winter? I would tilt the tubes regardless, so maybe the 10 extra would make up for the tilt and shade and you will have good overall production.

Hi all,

I have posted before on the forum about switching over to SHW. I am still planning to do it but my supplier/installer guy had problems with his supplier so I am still waiting and looking.
I was after peoples opinions on what size collector to choose, I have my own ideas but am interested in other opinions too. So, my other posts were made before I got hold of a chain-saw and did some "trimming" around the house. The row of palms is gone, the big tree that was going to shade parts of my roof is gone also. So whats the problem? Well, the neighbour has a bloody giant gum tree that shades my north roof from about 2:30 on for about 4 months of the year. The neighbour is not likely to remove it soon.
My original calculations gave me a bit under 30 tubes and my current EHWS is 250lt so I was going to use a SS 315lt tank.

So, do you think I should use 30 tubes and live with the loss for 4 months or up the tubes to 40 to increase winter production? I can easily manage reducing summer production and I was going to tilt the collector to optimum winter angle of about 40° (house at Lat=19.25°)

cheers
Mick

Thanks all, Munter: those numbers for the pump sound valid, thanks for that.

I have to confess to console watching as the sun rises...6...10...29.

Gee the sun's hot! Next up is saving for a solar PV system.

Sharing some thoughts from Ted, who lives in the Blue Mountains, on evacuated-tube solar HW:

We live in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney NSW and I installed a Hills 40 tube system(family of 5) with 315l SS tank. We face a few degrees east of north and there is no shade whatsoever on the system. Initially we had a few problems when the system failed to operate as it should, I rang the distributor, he asked a few questions with no results, then he asked me to go outside and look at the manifolds to check if the heat sensor was in place, it wasn’t it was hanging out of the hole, the reason “Sulphur Crested Cockatoos”, not only had the beasties pulled out the sensor but cut the cable is three places, I repaired the cable and placed it in a conduit for future protection.

During this time we were disappointed that the water temp was only at 40c and I was coping a heap of flak from the boss. Eventually I contacted the plumber, he checked the temp, adjusted the tempering valve with no change. Now with a new tempering valve fitted (under warranty) we have 50c water. We have an Off Peak 2, Booster system, this also did not operate correctly and we found the suppliers relay did not function correctly so it was replaced with no further problems to date.

I would suggest that anyone thinking about this form of system don’t be put off by comments about bad experiences as ours have all been solved, we are very happy, even with a very wet, cold and cloudy summer,autumn & winter, our hot water has been less than $80.00 for the last 9 months for the five of us.

The amount the pump works is extremely variable. This is due to differing weather conditions, latitude location, time of year, its setting and variances associated with the general situation in which it is installed.

I heard that Apricus are now using a more efficient pump to the Bianco fitted to my SHW. Maybe it is the Grunfos mentioned.

I have measured mine over 1 month period during last autumn at 32kWh/year. I used a Power-Mate Lite purchased from ATA Webshop.

I suspect that my pump/system would overall, use an average of 45-50kWh/year. It is on setting 2, (as advised by Apricus) because I live in a double story house.

I have also moved away from the”factory settings” on my SolarStat which would be a further variance that could take place.

If your seeing 74 in the manifold then your tank at the bottom would be 66-68 which is not far from top out temp.In tas with 22 tubes that's pretty good I'd be pleased.Leave the pump on speed one (it pumps for 20 seconds every 2 mins)sounds about right for this time of year.

How much electricity would the pump use?

Here's a stab in the dark with a bunch of simplifications to make things easier. Assuming it runs for 2mins in every 20 then it is on for 6 minutes every hour. Assuming 8 hours of sunshine then the pump is on for 48 minutes a day. The grundfos pump I have has three speeds with power levels at 30 to 60 Watts. Assuming the worst case, you are running at 60 Watts then the pump would use 48 Watthrs which is about 1.2c worth of electricity.
If you were interested, you could try to work out which of the three pump speeds gave the most efficient heat collection process.

FYI,

Just had an Apricus SHW system installed for a hair under $4K. My decision was heavily influenced by this forum and from a local who had a similar system installed and recommended it.

I've got a 250 litre Everlast stainless electric, 22 tube, Grunfos pump and SolaStat-ST with Sola-Stat Relay.

It was looking good until I found out it wouldn't work. The water in the tank wouldn't go past 16 deg C. Read the manuals again; then thought I'd check the fuse box and bingo! The installers hadn't switched the hot water service back on. This was after work at night and it needed an initial boost to get up to temp.

All sorted now.

The roof collector hit 74deg C midday (this is very cool ;0) and the circulating pump kicks in to move that around. This pump seems to be the weak link though; it pumps for 20 seconds every 2 mins around noon when the sun is at the optimum angle. Even when I'm not at home.

The system hasn't used any electricity to heat the water since that first manual boost so I'm excited!

How much electricty would the circulating pump use in a typical day?
I use hot water in the morning then washing up at night and laundry on the weekends.

Chris.

Fifonik, My existing HWS was a 400L dual element. The upper element connected to Peak and the bottom element to O-Peak. My understanding is that it was wired correctly, and I never considered “switching it” as you suggest to a total O-Peak HWS. I have no way of determining what my electricity consumption would have been in that configuration or even how it would operate.

I do however have hard figures for 12 month periods, dating back 5 years, and I am horrified when I compare them with my present usage.

What is accurate to say is, prior to SHW I used approx. 14kWh/day for hot water.

In the Ist year after SHW was installed I definitely averaged 5kWh/day, saving about $450 in that year.

I suppose what is hidden in my previous post, is the fact that due to the meter change that occurred when I had Solar PV installed earlier this year, my usage has further decreased to what I estimate 2.36kWh/day (72kWh/month) and this additional efficiency has been obtained by modifying the SHW system..... as previously detailed.

It is not useful to make comparisons when people have different lifestyles and live in areas with different equipment, weather patterns and charges. I am as I said, adding a different prospective to your thoughts on the economy of SHW and like you, I have hard numbers to support my claim.

2 hamish05:
Mate, you've piled 2 different things: savings from SHWS itself and savings from using off-peak electricity only for hot water.

As you said you don't have major changes during these years. This means that your on-peak energy consumption is reduced only because you had stopped to use on-peak electricity for hot water.
If you had switched your HWS to off-peak, you would have saved 5*365*(on-peak rate - off-peak rate). With my QLD rates (16 Jul 2010 to 1 Sep 2010) the saving should be 5*365*($0.17130 - $0.06990) = $185 (it will be good if you show us your rates). The rest $265 ($450-$185) is your saving from new SHWS. As a result, your SHWS will pay for itself for $3224/265=12 years.

This is much better than my 33 years anyway, however your electricity consumptions were a bit higher than mine (your -- 21 kWh/day + 10 kWh/day off-peak, mine - 15.5 kWh/day + 7.6 kWh/day) and mine are already dropped below minimum limit (during winter I use off-peak electricity for HW and pay $21/quarter, during summer I don't use off-peak electricity at all and still pay minimum fee ~$15/quarter).

In difference to “fifonik” or, to add a different prospective to his thoughts on the economy of SHW, in Dec last year I posted the following under the heading “SHW savings measured 1 year after instillation”.

In Nov last year (2009) I installed a 22 tube Apricus SHW, with a 250litre storage tank, in Melbourne.
It replaced a 400L electric HWS, and services 2 adults, and occasional stop-over visitors.
12 months later I have these figures to share with you.
Net cost of SHW unit after all rebates paid: $3,224.00
My total electricity usage 1yr prior, averaged 31kWh per day, this included 10kWh off-peak (HWS).
My electric HWS was heated both off-peak and at peak times. (2 elements)
After the installation of the SHW my total electricity usage has dropped to average 22kWh per day. (29% reduction).
My off peak reduced to 5kWh per day. (50% reduction). All SHW heating was done off-peak only.
The net savings in electricity costs per year is approx $450. (Using current tariff rates for both years)
There were no other major electricity changes in the household during these 2 years.

I should add the following information in regard to my SHW situation since my Dec 2010 post.
In Feb this year I added Solar PV, which meant that I lost access to separate OP Tarrif metering. As a result I installed a time clock and have it adjusted to supply power only for 2 hrs (max 7.2 kWh) during the night if my “top tank temp” drops to 40 deg.

In an effort to further improve the efficiency, I have also added extra ETs and now have 30 tube array.

Present indications are that my electricity usage for boosting will average about 72 kWh per month or $90 per year.

I think that SHW is easily justifiable, for my family circumstances.

It's understandable why the off-peak electricity is too cheap: during night time factories (and other high power consumption commercial equipment) don't work.

Probably, our HW power consumption a bit higher than it should be because of low angle of panel's installation and midday shade from trees. Unfortunately, I can't remove these trees because of very high WAF <img src="http://www.ata.org.au/forums/my-plugins/bb-smilies/default/icon_smile.gif" title=":)" class="bb_smilies" />

My HWS doesn't have programmable timer. Usually I switch the heater off during summer (so off-peak consumption is zero, however we still pay minimum charge $15 for this that a few cents less than for real off-peak consumption in winter time) and switch it on during winter (I'm lazy and don't want to check in-tank temperature every day for saving a few cents).

fifonik, like S2S, I suspect you don't need that much boost in Brisbane, do you have a programmable timer on your HWS o/p supply?