Constant problems with solar heating

dazmund156

I wonder if anyone could give me advice on a problem I having.I had one solar evacuated tube panel fitted three years ago and a much bigger hot water tank.The system performed brilliantly for the first six months but came up with various error messages on the control panel (faults 2,7,and 9).The guy who fiited can back straight away and flushed the system with a small tank on wheels with a hose on it (sorry I'm not very technical).Again the system ran fine for a couple of months until the same warnings came up and it shut down again.He again flushed the system but it its now shut down again.We wake at 6am each morning to the beeping of the control panel warning us of one of the three faults.Does anyone know are these systems unreliable? do the need to be serviced every six months.Is it dangerous to turn the power off or will I boil the fluid in the panel.Any advice would be gratefully recieved

johnjoe 123

it sounds like you hav a leak. . hes not flushing it hes repressurising it leve the power off at nite so it wont alarm u in morn but turn it on then, its prob making a thrashing noise which is just air get him back and find the leak then fill it again!!

dazmund156

Thanks John Joe , I will give that a try

dathi

is there a heat dump on your system ie. a small rad that the controller diverts excess heat to when your tank is up to max temp. if not what could be happening is on very hot days when the tank reaches max temp the controller shuts off the pump and the system stagnates . if this happens the water boils in the collector and steam escapes from the system then when it cools down there is not enough water in the system.

dazmund156

No I don't seem to have a rad anywhere and the guy who installed it told me we were not using enough hot water and that's what was causing my problem.Is it really true that I could not leave the system for a week in hot weather without having problems as he suggests?

dathi

ok tell us how many tubes you have and how many litres your cylinder holds if your installer says you are not using enough water sounds like he,s not interested in fixing your system as i said you need a heat dump for the really hot days when the cylinder gets up to temp there are two ways of doing this the easy one is as i said that you divert the heat to a radiator so that the excess heat is given off to the air. or you can use a set of relays to open port valves on your cylinder and central heating and turn on the pump this setup lets you dump the heat into the central heating where it will disepate

dazmund156

The panel has 12 tubes.I rang the guy who installed it and he has suggested a dump valve but from what he is saying I think this just dumps the water down the drain when too much is produced which sounds like a bit of a waste