Swimming pool solar heating systems in France, available from Piscine Kit Direct. Heat your pool with one of the most reliable solar heating systems available for your pool.
Our kits come complete with the solar collectors, control panel, heat exchanger and circulating pump for the collectors. Also required is a fixing kit for tiles, metal, flat or pitched roofs, simply tell us what type of area you wish to install your system and we will provide the right fixings for the job.
NEW for 2007, Evacuated Tube Solar Collectors
"Simply the best for Solar Water Heating"
Renewable Energy doesn't get any better
Heat your swimming pool with solar energy !
Our NEW Solar panels increase the water temperature of a swimming pool by an average of 10°C.
This is your guarantee for more fun and a longer-lasting season.
Navitron Evacuated tube solar panels are founded on a simple principle that almost never fails. When there is sufficient sunlight the water of the swimming pool is pumped through the heat exchanger and supplies a constant flow of heated water to the pool. The collectors have an unmatched efficiency and are available in several sizes.
Solar collectors are perfectly easy
A conscious choice, a wise decision, financially and ecologically spoken
Solar collectors supply free energy,
100% renewable energy.
During the swimming season there is enough solar energy available.
The investment repays itself in the short term by saving on energy costs.
The swimming pool can be used more often because the season lasts much longer.
The swimming pool becomes more attractive by virtue of the higher water
temperature (an average of 10 °C).
A durable, clean and environmentally safe source of energy.
Evacuated Tube Solar Heating Panels
Frost resistant
Heat resistant
This system can be adapted to provide domestic hot water, central heating or swimming pool heating contact us today to start saving money on your water heating costs.
EVACUATED TUBE SOLAR HOT WATER PANEL (20 tube)
High temperature output even in cold weather
Environmentally Friendly, 100% Renewable Energy
Warms water even during winter, as long as the sun is shining
Produces heat even in overcast weather
Easy to fit
Higher efficiency and greater installation flexibility with heat to many of the more expensive brands on the market - as the tubes and headers are all manufactured in the same factory by an OEM supplier.
These top-of-the-range solar panel heat collectors are suitable for heating domestic hot water, swimming pools etc - even in the winter! One unit is adequate for an average household (3-4people), and it is modular, so you can add more if required. A single panel is sufficient for a 200litre cylinder, but you can fit 2 or more for high water usage, or for heating swimming pools or underfloor heating. Some types of renewable energy are only available in certain locations, however free solar heating is potentially available to almost every house in the UK! Every house should have one -really! And with an overall efficiency of almost 80%, they are much more efficient than electric photovoltaic solar panels (efficiency of 7-15%). And if we compare them on a like-for-like basis, the price of a Navitron Solar Water Heater is around 30p/watt (compared to £6+/watt for solar photovoltaics).
Vacuum tube collectors will provide useful heat for 12months of the year, as long as the sun is shining, and can even produce heat in overcast weather. In April, an overcast day without any sunshine is still able to heat a 210litre hot water cylinder to 40°C with Navitron vacuum tubes. A sunny day in April will warm the cylinder as high as 60C using Navitron panels!
FREE DIY INSTALLATION MANUAL (CLICK HERE!!) - 1.9MB (this will take a few minutes to download, so not recommended for dial-up users). This manual covers background information, specifications of the panel, sample plumbing plans and assembly information.
This high tech unit concentrates the sun's energy at the tip of the copper 'heat tube' - like a solid state magnifying glass!
The vacuum tube solar panel has been around for over 10years, and has proved to be reliable and dependable. The vacuum tubes consist of a double wall glass tube (made from strong borosilicate glass ie pyrex) with a space in the centre which contains the heat pipe. The sun's radiation is absorbed by the selective coating on the inner glass surface, but prevented from re-radiating by the silvered innermost lining. This is in effect like a one-way mirror which has been optimised for infra-red radiation. In fact it is very efficient, of the sun light's energy hitting the tube's surface, 93% is absorbed, whereas only 7% is lost through reflection and re-emission. The presence of the vacuum wall prevents any losses by conduction or convection - just like a thermos flask. Because of this, the system will work even in very low temperatures, unlike traditional flat plate collectors. This is why our system can be used to heat up water at the South Pole Antarctic Science Base - where ambient air temperatures can drop below -40°C
The heat transferred to the tip of the heat pipe is in turn transferred to a copper manifold in which water circulates to heat the domestic hot water tank. If a tube is placed in direct sunlight on a summer day, the tip temperature can reach 250°C - so the system easily heats domestic hot water cylinders to 60°C even in cooler weather! The manifold is heavily insulated with a 2" thickness of pre-formed rockwool to keep the heat in. Unlike flat plates, these headers are so well insulated that they should not require antifreeze in normal operation - the temperature of the header is unlikely to fall below 10°C even in very cold weather. The more advanced solar controllers include a low-temperature facility- should the temperature of the collector fall below a defined level, the pump will operate to allow the the water at the bottom of the tank to heat the collector slightly. In normal conditions, this would never be necessary - but it acts as a good safety margin.
How Much Heat Will I Gain?
Average Daily Irradiation (Insolation) Figures for Each Month of the Year:
(Solar energy reaching each 1m2 of the earth’s surface at European latitudes)
How do I connect the Solar Collectors for domestic water heating ?
Obviously it depends what you wish to heat but here are some different options :
1. Domestic hot water and central heating solar system
Typical Parts List
Pressurised Systems.
The drawing above is one example of how to connect the panel. This is a typical installation that would be carried out by a professional installer, utilising a twin coil solar cylinder. These cylinders are far superior to a standard domestic hot water cylinder - and we can supply these up to around 1300litres capacity! Typical solar cylinders are 175 - 260litres. The additional water capacity allows the user to store heat for several days, to even out variations in day-to-day insolation, although larger cylinders require bigger solar arrays - so we recommend sizing the cylinder to your requirements rather than over-sizing. Typically, we would recommend sizing approximately 30-50% larger than your existing cylinder, assuming your existing cylinder is correctly sized. Most households fit solar cylinders of 135 - 175litres capacity. The solar loop in the schematic above is pressurised -this is almost universal for various reasons:
Ease of fitting
Not limited by headroom in the loft area
Most cost effective solution in terms of components and fitting time
Can allow operation above 100°C (eg if you run your system at 1bar, the water will not boil until it reaches 120°C)
Most pressurised systems are pressurised using the mains water pressure. However, it is recommended that solar systems are filled with propylene glycol antifreeze (do not use the cheaper methanol-based or ethylene glycol based antifreeze). Navitron supplies suitable antifreeze, and can advise on quantity. Filling with antifreeze requires some method of filling - Navitron has developed a very low-cost method for fillng the system, and these may be purchased along with your solar kit.
What else will I need to go with this panel?
It depends on your application and the method you employ, and a lot of customers take the opportunity to update their existing hot water system at the same time. There are many ways to install solar, and the schematic above is just one illustration. A really low cost method would be to install the panel lower than the cylinder, in which case it can operate on a thermo-siphon basis (convection or 'gravity feed'). The panel, being mounted lower than the hot water cylinder, begins to warm when the sun shines, causing the hot water to rise, which displaces the cooler water, thus returning to the panel. This system requires no additional energy input, no control system and is self-regulating, simple, cheap and effective - but not very convenient for most situations, and not as efficient. In this case, you will only require the header tank or pressurised system kit plus copper tube and insulation.
Items you will need to source locally:
Copper pipework,
Pipe fittings
Pipe Clips
Screws
Wire
2. Storage Tank and Instant Hot Water System
How do I connect the Solar Collectors for swimming pool heating ?
This is a much simpler application, just decide if you are going to floor or roof mount the panels, we supply you in kit form 20 tube solar collectors, a circulating pump and a controller. If your pool does not use chlorine or salt as a sanitiser you can simply install the panel in line.
Swimming pools are an ideal application for solar water heating, as the temperature required is quite low - under 30°C. Most installers will recommend flat plates to keep the price down - because the amount of panels required is much larger than for heating domestic hot water - however, if you can buy a high efficiency evacuated tube solar panel for the same money - you might as well enjoy solar heated pool water for a greater proportion of the year - instead of just in July and August! If you used flat plates, a rule of thumb for calculating what you need is to fit the equivalent of 50% of the pool's surface area. For Vacuum tube panels, this is reduced to 25%-35% (depending on type of pool, level of insulation, pool covers, indoor/outdoor, above/below ground level etc)- and of course, they will carry on working in the autumn, winter and spring. The collector panel is 2.25m2 so (working on the 25% coverage figure) each panel will heat 11m2 of pool area. A 40m2 pool would only need 4 Navitron panels. Compare this to the cost of heating a pool for a year! Large pool installations can pay for themselves in under 18months!
Installation is very simple. If you have chlorine you will need to fit a stainless steel heat exchanger (this is because chlorine causes copper to corrode). These are part of our pool kits (they are needed for conventional heating methods for the same reason). If you dont have chlorine, you can simply put the solar panel in-line with the pool filter, so that the pump directs water through the panel before returning it to the pool. As the panel will NOT radiate heat on cold days, heat losses will be confined to your pipe runs only - so you do not necessarily need a controller, although one can be fitted, to control a 3-way motorised valve to divert the water through the panel only when the panel is hotter than the pool water.
Solar energy is the cleanest and most inexhaustible of all known energy sources. Solar radiation is the heat, light and other radiant energy that is emitted from the sun. The sun's energy, although plentiful, has been hard to directly harness until recently.
Solar water heater converts solar energy into thermal energy, then heat the water step by step. The beauty of this system is it does not create pollution or harmful emissions, and is extremely economical - the fuel (sunshine) is free! Plus, they are environmentally friendly. To take full advantage of these heaters, you should ideally have an unshaded, south-facing location (a roof, for example) on your property, although they can be utilised at ground level also. This type of Solar water heater is now extremely popular in many areas of the world, are are now becoming much more popular in the UK, due to their high efficiency.
Contact us today to discuss your hot water requirements. THINK GLOBALLY ACT LOCALLY.
Navitron
Official Dealers in France ; Piscine Kit Direct, La Croix de Pierre,
24700,
Menesplet. Tel; 05 53 82 60 06 FAX; 05 53 82 65 10
Piscine Kit Direct
Z.A. La Croix de Pierre, 24700, Menesplet
Phone NEW NUMBER (0033) 05 53 82 60 06 or Fax (0033) 05 53 82 65 10
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