Solar water heating

 Has anyone got the solar panel heating to work on their Las Islas property?

We have tried and failed. There are so many taps to turn and adjust!!

I would welcome guidance or who to ask for advice.

Hi Fugitivus,

I am on the top floor of block 163 and the solar heating was one of my woriies....it works, I didn´t plug in my water heater when we first moved in and had the water connected. I ran the taps for around 3 minutes and even on a cloudy day, as it had been for many days, I still got pretty warm water out of the taps. The electric water heater is a backup and doesn´t need to be turned up very high, I keep it at around a third of the adjustment. As you use the hot water in the electric heater it fills up with the wtaer from the solar panel tank which is already warm/hot and therefore your heater doesn´t need to work very hard to give you a good flow of hot. The tanks on the panels look to be around 100 ltrs, so with the 75 ltrs in your electric heater there should be plenty for four showers.

Hope that helps...

TM

By the way, all three taps in your bathroom must be turned on as should the one in the kitchen...

TM

At the moment we have turned off the water heater and just use solar.  In February and March when it was cold and cloudy we put a timer on the plug of the water heater and had it heating for just an hour a day set on a very low temp and this was sufficient for the 2 of us because the solar is still generating some hot water even on a cloudy day.  We did have to get Polaris plumber out twice then the heater engineer to get it to work correctly

How did you get the Polaris plumber as I tried following various instructions last time I was over and seemed to fail as we had to use the heater.

We're first floor so presume there is quite a bit of pipework to purge before it reaches down to the water heater?

We bought from Polaris in November so guess we have some sort of call on them through warranty?

Can you post the exact valve settings so I can give it a go when I'm out later this month

Thx

Sheer persistence - just kept calling Maria at Polaris world.  It turned out we had a faulty on/off switch and to be fair once this got diagnosed the water heater technician came out within 24 hours. 

The valve on the solar system also needs to be open.  The system is not the best as they are flat panels instead of tubes (these would capture more sun).  We have been here since February so has had cold dark days and hot sunny ones.  For the 2 of us we found during the dull days it best to plug the water heater into a timer and we have that on for 1 hour at tea time on a very low setting.  That’s sufficient for hot showers and washing up during the day.  Now it’s sunnier we have had the water heater turned off and there is plenty of hot water from the solar system.   But we are on the top floor so the water doesn’t have to come down far.  Next time you are out give us a shout at 1633H

we are at Terrazas de la torre - one of the isle blocks.  The older blocks do not have solar panels as they were built before it was compulsory to instal them

Hi Lollypop,

No you do not have solar heating in your block, it is only on Las Islas blocks at the moment.

Regards

                  Clieve