Yesterday I set up the four test arrays on the Cooksville Commons across the street from the institute. They were in full sun all day except for about an hour in the afternoon when we had 10–30 percent cloud cover. I am providing the data below. This is raw data that will be of interest to other home builders. Tomorrow I will provide analysis.
Here are a few details. The temperatures generated by each panel were measured automatically at the water outlet every 10 minutes with a data-logging thermometer. Every hour I measured the flow rate of each panel in gallons per minute. I also measured the reservoir’s temperature every hour and extrapolated the 10-minute-interval temperatures using the given equation with an R² of over 0.98 (meaning the extrapolated temperatures are quite close to the trend line matching the observed temperatures). The ambient temperature was measured from a weather station about 5 mi southwest of the test location (source). We had 93–98 percent humidity and almost no wind all day. The different test arrays are explained in a previous lab note (Lab Note 1.02).
“Lab Notes” are a series of posts chronicling the daily progress our research projects. Research Project No. 1 is the testing and installation of a solar heating system for domestic water and space heating. These notes may be useful for anyone interested in building such a system at home. Others might prefer the more succinct guide to solar heating, videos, and other formal publications that will result from this research project and be posted to the website as they are available.
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