Tanks for Solar Heating and Domestic Hot Water

 

Central Heating — Solar & Wood With Storage

Heat Storage Tank

  • A packaged, fully manufactured, light weight tank, shipped cratedHeat Storage Tank Diagram 19″ wide and 54″ high. The length varies with capacity. You can walk it into your home, open the crate and have it ready to fill with water in less than an hour.
  • Water can be circulated in a closed loop through the tank heat exchanger, or tank water can be circulated open loop. Use both methods in the same tank if required.
  • Distribution can be designed with hydronic baseboard, radiant floors, radiators, or warm-air duct heat exchangers in a furnace or heat pump system where central air conditioning is installed. Combining warm-air and baseboard, for example, is another advantage with this system.
  • Multiple zones, both open and closed loops can be operated from the same woodburning boiler and tank system at the same time.
  • Conventional 24 volt, EMC controls, reliable and safe hardwired designs are available for switch-over to back up fuels to keep you warm and your home at a set temperature when you are away.

Spiral Heat Exchangers

  • Two vertical spiral coiled copper heat exchangers are available Spiral Heat Exchanger Diagram and are custom made for this variable tank temperature heating application.
  • The HEAT EXCHANGE COILS are piped singly or in pairs for space heating and heating domestic hot water.
  • Coils purge air automatically, critical during the initial system start-up.
  • Heat stratification in the tank assures that the hottest water is delivered.
  • Coils are designed to permit a unique piping arrangement. It allows one set of coils to heat the tank (boiler to tank) and heat the house (tank to house), or it allows the boiler to bypass the tank and directly heat the house.
  • A separate coil is used to deliver DOMESTIC HOT WATER.

STSS Energy Management Control

There are 6 or 7 ways to put together one of these systems. It takes time for an installer to decide which method is best. To solve that problem, we have designed the EMC control. This control monitors the heating balance point between the heating load and the tank temperature and automatically switches over to the oil or gas backup after every available BTU has been provided by the tank. STSS supplies instructions and diagrams. Be sure to order this control with your boiler and heat storage tank.

Piping Diagrams

STSS Wood Boiler Piping Diagram

There’s a myth that there is no alternative to heavy, round 80 gallon or 120 gallon steel tanks to store solar heated water for home hot water use. Up ’til now, they were the only tanks you could get into the front door of an existing home and down into the basement.

Now, STSS CO INC has something better.

Our smallest home hot water tank is 160 gallons. It comes collapsed in a crate 19 inches wide and weights only 121 pounds – compared with the heavy steel tanks that weight 192 to 336 pounds. A copper, coiled heat exchangercoiled heat exchanger comes with the 160 gallon tank. It is packaged and shipped separately, and weighs only 124 pounds.

To get an STSS 160 gallon tank with heat exchanger, you will pay just slightly more than the 80 gallon steel tanks. Shipping charges for the light weight STSS tanks will result in savings for your customers.

An important benefit of having larger storage is realized by the homeowner and the homeowner’s family because they can now install as many as three solar collectors with one tank. The larger collector array is necessary for a family that requires a lot of hot water.

A larger tank gives carryover of heated water into the second or even third cloudy day.

Another myth is that too large a tank will dilute the energy from a solar collector. Our tanks are unique Our stacked vertical, spiral heat exchanger stratifies the heat at the top of the tank because the tank water is not stirred by incoming cold water. Stratification remains undisturbed.

CALL US FOR A QUOTE.

STSS Solar Tanks & Heat Exchangers Piping Diagram