All forms of Natural Energy like Sunshine and Wind, Ground source energy plus also Battery systems, Energy Storage and Recovery.
This morning, we connected the conduit pipes and inspection tube down into the Number 4 Energy Module. Then we pushed in the remaining sand / soil from around the hole and covered it all up.
Module-4-Finished
Finally, we pegged out the red and white warning tape to enclose the area, to prevent accidental “driving” over the module!
We carried on with the task of filling our Energy Modules with water. Today, we finished filling Number 2 and started on filling Number 4 modules.
The water in Number 1 module seems to be holding in, no leaks, thanks goodness!
The facts so far:
The Module number 3 will have to be repaired as it was raised up by the flood we had from the rain water that got underneath the tank, and disturbed something somewhere so we will have to take it all apart again and reset things. We should have put in the water as soon as we finished constructing it last Saturday before the rain came on the Monday!! Oh well!!!
Today, we put on the insulation panels around the number 4 Energy Module. We inserted at least 300 mm thick of insulating boards, more like 350mm to 380mm thick!
Module-4-and-lots-around-the-outside
We did forget to drill down underneath the tank and insert our conduit pipe for the temperature probe so instead, we pushed it (the conduit) directly underneath the insulation layer so it will at least give us some idea of what the temperature is doing in the sandy soil underneath the module. Oh Well!
We then put on 300 mm to 350 mm thick layer on top to form the lid.
Module-4-and-heaps-on-top
Tomorrow, we will put in the two usual conduits for the water “high” and “low” fill points and the two temperature probes for those same points. Then we will push the final sandy soil around and on top of the module.
Also today, we started filling up the existing and completed Energy Modules (number 1 and Number 2) to make sure we don’t suffer from another incident of rainwater getting underneath our water tank and rising them up!
We poured about 3.5 tons of water into our 1st Energy Module (under Bedroom 3) which holds a maximum of 3.7 cubic metres (or 3700 litres) in capacity. Our meter went from a start reading of 200 liters (it is a brand new digital water meter!) and we stopped filling at 3727 liters!
The second tank, under bedroom 2, will need more like 4500 liters to fill it up mostly full. We started and got about 1900 liters in before we stopped work for the day. the rate of filling is only about 12 liters per minute so it will take a while to do the job. Phew!
Today, we dug out the bottom of the hole of the Number 4 Energy Module and inserted the two guide rails to scrape flat the bottom. We then washed the 12 Aquacell plastic crates we needed for this module. We also selected a heap of PU insulation boards and started lying them out on the bottom to form 4 layers, one of 100mm thick, followed by a 140mm thick layer and topped with two layers of 120mm thick foam boards, making a grand total of 480mm thickness of insulating barrier to keep as much heat in this energy module. PU foam is about 0.02 Watts per Celsius per metre thickness so with the thickness at nearly 500mm or 0.5 of a metre, then the U value of this particular part of the insulated bottom of the tank is approximately 0.04 Watts per degree Celsius per square metre of exposure. Now the square area of the bottom is 2metres by 1.5metres which makes 3 square metres so the total heat loss of the bottom portion is 3 times 0.04 (the U value) which is 0.12 Watts per degree Celsius. The maximum temperature we are likely to get in this energy module is about 80°C and so the temperature different between the hot water and the surrounding sandy soil would probably be about 70°C (hot water at 80°C and sandy soil about 10°C so the difference is 70°C). So we would be losing about 70 times 0.12 which equals 8.4 Watts. Another way to look at this heat loss is to change the word Watts into the SI units of Joules per second and there you have it! The hot water would be losing nearly 9 Joules every second all the time, until all the heat is gone! It is a little more complex than that (sigh!) but that is basically the calculation to work out what heat loss we would have to suffer when we have maximum heat storage. Don’t forget, this 9 Joules per second is ONLY for the bottom insulated layer – we have NOT calculated the 4 sides yet and the top too!!! Smile!
Module-4-lots-of-insulation-under-the-tank
Tomorrow, we will start assembling the plastic crates!
Oh My! The buried energy module, Number 3 – our largest one we have done so far, has risen!!
The rain we had today, plus the little we had yesterday, making about 25 mm of rain overall, has caused another flood to gush off from the workshop and the Loke from our neighbours, combined with surface water from our own ground, has collected under the Number 3 module and pushed it up 6 inches!! Unfortunately, the module didn’t have any water in it, we were going to do that later and measure how much we needed to fill them up. This meant that we were given an excellent example of buoyancy in action when a pool of water forms under an air tank like a ship and hey presto – we have lift off!!
The plastic Aquacell crates, wrapped up in its rubber membrane, it what actually moved, leaving behind most of the insulation boards (apart from two sheets along one of the long sides), which means we will have to try and push down the whole unit back into place when the rainwater has drained away. We hope that the weight of the whole unit will be heavy enough to creep back down by itself, but we might dump a few tons of dirt on top to assist. We really wouldn’t want to put water into the tank as it is likely to peel away the rubber membrane off the bottom of the module, stretch or pull the rubber off the edges and leave behind the plastic crates!! The layers of insulated panels underneath will have risen as well but they will press back down again when the weight of the tank above pushes it down. We think (we hope!) that no silt and water borne material has got underneath the module, just water! It hopefully will settle down flat again! Fingers Crossed!
Module-3-Floating-150mm-on-Rain-Water-6
Module-3-Floating-150mm-on-Rain-Water-3
None of the other tanks show any signs of rising so we, thank goodness, can say that the ground water is still well below us and will not be a problem in the long term as they will have water in them anyway!
Rain Stops Play! This afternoon, after lunch, we discovered (by sticking our heads out of the door!!) that it was raining quite hard but it got worse even in those few minutes! We now had over 10 mm of rain in the last hour!
Water is pouring off into our new hole we dug this morning! It is eating channels into the walls of the hole!
Module-4-Hole-dug-and-Flooded
Oh well – British Weather – lovely!
This morning, we started on our “Number 4” Energy Module. It is our smallest one at “only” 2 meters by 1.5 meters for the water tank itself and the hole we dug is over 3 meters by 2.5 meters wide but it is 1.7 meters deep! We had some problems with slippage where one of the walls kept breaking away and slipping down into the hole. This perhaps was because we have dug an extra 500 mm deeper to allow for more layers of insulation boards, so this perhaps is making the walls having to cope with higher sides, but also we had rain during the night and that had softened the ground too.
We got most of the sandy soil out when we stopped for lunch.
Module-4-Hole-dug-and-Flooded1
This module is our primary “large” hot water tank that has the hottest water from the solar array and also would receive any “compressed” heat during the cheap overnight electricity hours by taking low temperature water from other tanks and topping up this primary tank.
The “Number 3” Energy Module has been completely buried and all finished. The three set of conduit pipes were inserted and connected all together in a central point, so that it will come up in the hallway, ready for plumbing at a later date.
Module-3-Finished
It was surprising that we used up quite a lot of the sand / soil to fill the gaps, which is good as we are not suffering from too much excess material that we might have to have paid transport to take it away. Maybe later, when we tackle the largest module “Number 5”!
this morning (only), we half buried the Number 3 Energy Module and put on the insulated lid.
Module-3-Insulation-complete
We sliced off all the edges and dumped the pieces in and around the gaps!