Drip,Drip, Trickle, Trickle, not the sounds you want to hear on your roof. (unless it's rain) !!!

When we returned from our excursion away we returned to the slightly annoying problem of a leaking hot water service.

Our old evacuated tube solar hot water system  had sprung a leak. Brian got up and investigated  but we were really concerned that if we touched it ,the whole thing might totally  go.
So we started doing some online research and found one we liked and travelled to Dubbo to check it out. We  eventually decided on a SolarOz brand which was slightly different to our existing one, in such that the hot water that you use comes from a copper pipe coiled around the inside of the tank rather from just in the tank itself.
It took quite a while for it to arrive from Melbourne  to Dubbo and we  were very grateful  to Tammy from Central West Heating  
for her patience and  help in finally organizing the hot water service to be  there for us to pick up.

We had been managing with the old service by Brian climbing up and down  to the roof and turning the tap on and off as needed.
Our son AJ came over that day to help and we unloaded everything and he started erecting  the support frame.

Whilst Brian started connecting the header tank and some of the fittings.

The next morning My brother Don arrived to help and he and Brian  got up and emptied the remaining water  from the tank and tubes,by first draining the tank and then tipping the system up carefully to drain the tubes back into the tank and then repeating  a few times until all water was gone( this was still  surprisingly very hot)

  They slid the old empty system  across out of the way to  make room for the new frame .

Carried the new tank over and pulled it up onto the roof and fitted to the frame.

Next it was the tubes  turn ,Don and I did those while Brian and AJ did the fitting up top. Each one of the 30 had to be lubricated,  have a rubber seal placed on it and filled with water and then passed up to  the roof.

Finally the last tube was fitted.

The system works so well we all had hot showers a few hours after it was finished.
The next day  it was  working so well ,boiling water was spurting out the overflow pipe and we have had to cover with  shade cloth.

(Please note this  photo above is not a video,just a screen shot off a video)

Yesterday afternoon and today Brian started the slow and  difficult task of removing and storing the old evacuated tubes from the old system. We were lucky to get them all down with  any breakages.
We then dismantled the tank off the frame and removed both off the roof using a slide off with straps system.

Now that it is all down on the ground, Brian will take a look and decide if it is worth tackling a repair and if so we may decide to  rebuild at the back shed( on ground level)  to supply hot water to the laundry and our second shower that is  in the process of being sorted.
It's been a huge few days, but the effort has certainly been rewarded with glorious  abundant hot water. This type of system has worked extremely well for us for the past 10 years and we hope that this newer improved version may go much longer...time will tell.
So until we meet again, please take care of you and yours,
Cheers,
Jane and Brian.