Solar Heat Exchange Manufacturing

Wakarusa Elementary School

Wakarusa Elementary School Install Douglas County Jail Install

The school is immediately south of Lawrence, KS, serves approximately 200 students. Working in combination with Tom Braccio, Director of Facilities for the Lawrence School District, the project was introduced, put to bid, contracted for, constructed and paid for within 90 days.

This classic installation involves a SHEM 80 gallon Simple Drainback system pre-
heating the adjacent 100 gallon electric hot water heater. The collector loop is powered by two Sun Task 30 evacuated tube heat pipe arrays. The hot water system serves a kitchen whose hours of operation seldom vary beyond 9:30 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. Hot water flow and use patterns were not known, however, a Hobo data logger was installed on January 13, 2011. This device was installed on the heat exchanger side of the system, with temperature sensors reading cold water feed and hot solar-heated water supply from the SHEM tank to the electric water heater. 100% of cold water feed is routed through the heat exchanger. Douglas County Jail Install

Two sets of Sun Task evacuated tube heat pipe collectors are mounted on two
Unistrut rails on the school’s dated flat roof. The parallel Unistrut rails were set
to rise at least ¼ inch per foot, such that the Sun Task mounting hardware could
attach directly to the rails. The rails were positively attached to steel web trusses
below the roof, with industry standard roof jacks protecting all penetrations.

We started by locating the beams under the roof, and drilling holes for 1/2" all-thread to be fed through.
A black tar roofing sealant was applied directly around the hole, and in about a 3" square surrounding the hole. Sealant was applied to the threads to ensure the nuts were secure.
Flashing was placed around the all thread. Two washers and a nut were then fed onto the all-thread, and the nut was tightened down.
After the nut was tightened, a piece of unistrut was cut and placed around the all-thread. A third washer was put on top of the uni-strut. General purpose adhesive was applied to prevent walking and settling of the parts.
More sealant was applied to the edge of the roof boot. After the boot was fed over the all-thread it was fastened down to the roof with long roofing screws. A washer and nut were then used on top of the boot to secure everything to the roof.
This process was repeated six times for our six roof mounts. The next step was achieving the tilt required for the drainback process.
After the six mounts were finished, short pieces of unistrut were used as spacers for the different heights. On the lower end, no spacers were used, and on the highest end two pieces of unistrut were stacked.
On the highest end, two pieces were stacked. Since two pieces of unistrut didn't need to be joined, like in the middle, shorter pieces were used.
After everything was assembled and securely tightened, the racks for the tubes were ready to be attached to the unistrut sub-rack.
Using the supplied feet, the racks were attached to the sub-racks using self drilling screws. The SunTask tubes don't come with feet for the middle legs, so 90 degree L brackets were used in conjunction with the self drilling screws.
After the racks were secured to the sub-rack, the manifolds were adjusted so they would meet up in the middle of the rack. Then the tubes were installed and the racking installation was complete. We were then rewarded with a beautiful sunset!

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