Living Lightly

6 Responses to “Ottawa Solar Power – the Future Looks Sunny”

1. Michael Trepanier Says:
   February 9th, 2009 at 5:28 pm

   Quite awhile back (twenty years ago) I found myself looking for a gas powered water heater for my back yard pool. Unfortunately the location of the pool starved it from direct sunlight for most of the day leaving the water temperature too cold to enjoy.

   While I was shopping for the heater something came over me. I think it was the high cost of the apparatus I was about to purchase. I hadn’t given my flat roof much thought until that moment. The roof is flat, black, covered in tar and I had a bad experience once trying to climb up onto the roof in an effort to recover the neighbours baseball that found itself smack in the center of my roof. The roof was hot!! Steaming hot. Probably hot enough to heat my pool.

   So I left the hardware store without opening my wallet, went home and worked out a design, a very simple, extremely low cost and high effecient hot water system that I was hoping would heat my pool. For free!! That’s the magic word. Free.

   Now, I’m sure, in fact I’m positive I am not the first person in this world to think of this idea. But my system worked so well it caused two problems. Nothing too serious that couldn’t be fixed. The first issue (that was easily remedied) the water coming down from the roof was too hot. With my excellent engineering skills (yeah sure??) it was fixed with just a bit of fine tuning of the valves. The slower you move the water through the hose the hotter the water gets. So, open the valves a little bit and voila the water is cooler. The second issue was the overwhelming interest I received from my neighbours and especially from my family. Everyone wanted one. It only started out as a simple project. By the first summer I had erected three systems and heard of numerous installations generated by others with the same idea.

   The cost? 2 shut off valves @ $3.00 each, 2 x 100 ft black rubber hoses @ $18.00 each and 1 x 10ft black rubber hose @ $4.00 ea. That’s it!! And of course a flat roof. I’ve never tried this system on a slanted roof but I’m sure it’ll do the same trick.

   Anyone needing more information can certianly e-mail me.

   Thanks

   Michael

2. Daniel Says:
   April 16th, 2009 at 5:05 am

   You’re a genius! You should probably try to package this and sell it as a service. You could help others, save the environment and at the same time make loads of money.

3. Steve Says:
   April 21st, 2009 at 6:56 pm

   Michael, I’d like to know a bit more. I’m moving into a house with a slanted roof. Thoughts? Also, how do you get the water to go up to the top of the roof against gravity? One last question, how hot would the water get? Do you think I could heat a hot tub?

4. acnerdy Says:
   November 4th, 2009 at 5:39 am

   the cost of Solar Cells for Solar Power utilization has been decreasing over the past years. pretty soon, solar energy would be a more viable alternative than fossil fuels,–

5. roofer in devon Says:
   November 27th, 2009 at 11:54 am

   Oops was doing a google search for roofing and came across this post. Not exactly what I was searching for but much more interesting lol! Oh well, gotta get back to work…thanks, bp

6. darius Says:
   April 3rd, 2010 at 3:41 am

   This is a really good post. Solar Power really helps a lot and would definitely make the future look sunny in Canada.

   If properly installed, renewable energy systems could help reduce the effects of Climate Change and Global Warming.
   I know of another company that was among the first to provide engineered solar thermal and solar electric solutions to

   customers in Eastern Ontario.

   In its first seven years of operation, this company celebrated several key achievements including the completion of over

   100 solar electric and solar thermal installations and the displacement of more than 300 tonnes of green house gases.

   Please visit http://www.isolara.com

   here you will find what I’ve been talking about.