Once more into the Bleach

Thursday 3 March 2011

 Thursday was still drizzling, so we carried on with the truck.  It brightened towards the afternoon, so I could get things outside for scrubbing and drying.  The bed base went back in with the remaining eco-friendly polyester insulation.

 I moved on down the truck, sweeping and scrubbing and bleaching.  This area is planned as a wardrobe.

 Then, with much excitement, we heard from the water heater people that they were able to deliver this afternoon.  The equipment arrived in three parts: a panel, a water tank, and a Mechano set!  The instructions were in English, which was good; but for a different model, which was bad.  So we had to work it out ourselves.

 It's much bigger than expected.  We had been advised by Blind Bill to get a good one of these, as the poor quality ones don't work well, and by Andy Hensman that 'Theros' is a good make.  So we ordered the smallest one they make - 120 litres.  It's very big.

 My little dry stone walled levelled patch wasn't big enough, so it had to be extended for the framework to fit.

 I couldn't lift the tank.  Partly because the glycol bottle had leaked so it was slippery, but even so, I'd never have got it up to head height.  A few emergency calls later, and poor Rob was rootled out of his afternoon siesta to help with the installation.

The instructions failed to clarify the plumbing, either, so Dave had to improvise.  To be on the safe side, we called Andy Hensman, who fits these all the time, and he came on site for a quick safety check.

 Meanwhile, I was still stripping and bleaching in the truck.  All these locker fronts were coming off, as the truck isn't mobile anymore, and it's much easier to have open shelves.

 I stuck some side panels in the projected wardrobe, and started fixing batons.

 Dave, surprise surprise, did some plumbing.

 The poor decking - getting hard to move about.

 The moment of glory - adding the glycol into the closed water system.  The solar panel heats the water-glycol (anti-freeze) mix, which rises into the tank where fresh water is piped through a heat exchanger.  As the glycol mix cools it drops back down into the panel, where it is heated again and circulates back up.  There's no need for a pump.  Clever, hey?