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Wondering if there is some sort of setting that would be the most efficient? My controller has a range of 12 to 20 degrees for the temperature difference in which it can be set to turn on.
Meaning that the water in the roof panels is either 12 degrees hotter than the tank when the pump runs to circulate the water or 14, 16, 18 or 20.
Panels are in sun from near sunrise to late in the afternoon. Thinking that having it at 12 means the pump kicks on/off more often than at a 20 degrees difference. However, it might take a while to get a 20 degree difference on a cloudy day, if at all. It is set at 16 right now.
lol . nooo
i both love and hate problems like this .. gonna be in my head all day now : )
im bet somebody here has a meter that calculates total usage. i think i would set it at either extremes on like temp / weather days. Both sunny and rainy .. for a set period of time u can note the on time ( number of cycles and duration). See how large the variTion is and bias towards the average weather within the range. i know above way over simplfied but u could just set it on each and see .
Last weeks would have been perfect fot the HOT extremes .. this week looks like rain so maybe even pattern to mental note the pump coming on by uor watch and even noting how long it runs along with number of times it kicks in.
thinking out loud ,
rwr
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In my case, not so much worried about the electricity from the little circulation pump but wanting to get the most hot water into that big tank as possible so that I can go 3-4 days of solid rain without needing to turn on that breaker for the auxiliary heating element, which is 4500 watts.
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If the pump is not a consideration, then it makes sense to me that you would want to set it at 12 so that the water stays as hot as possible for as much of the time as possible.
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The literature I've read says to set it at 12 degrees. The higher temperature settings are for Northern (colder) climates where the collectors need to warm up to a higher temperature before the pump kicking on to avoid a lot of fruitless on/off cycles in the morning. This might be an issue for somebody in Volcano or otherwise at altitude.
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Will turn it down to 12 and see how it goes for a couple weeks.
