I was bored the other afternoon and decided to monkey with my solar installation. I bought all the pieces so I could test for leaks, so why not install it. I cut the 2" riser pipes, assembled the 2" quarter turn valve, 6" lenght of 2"pvc pipe then a 2" tee with a treaded 1/2 mpt. Placed one assembly into each riser. Wanted them at the same height, but lucky the ended up a 1/2" different. The valves needed the difference in height in order to make the quarter turn to cut off the water flow. In each of the 1/2 mpt put a couple and then a 1/4 turn valve. On the fill side, water going to the panel placed a female hose adepter and on the return side put in a pressure guage. Connected a garden hose and filled the system up. During this process let the water run into the pool until all or most of the air bubbles are out of the system. Turn off cut off valve to the return and got the pressure to hold at 24 pounds. Tried to get more pressure and the bottom end cap that I put on got blown off. I sounded like a shotgun going off, must have still had some air in the system. The pvc end cap did not have a ridge at the end so the clams could hold onto it with that kind of pressure. Put some screws in near the edges and tried it again. This time I stopped at 24 pounds, Two has marks past the 20 mark. It held that pressure for the next few hours. All this work was done between 7am to 8am. From the first blow out some of the connectors showed leaks, tightened those up, using two hands on the screwdriver. Forgot about this and went to do some othe work. Around lunch time I hear a smaller blast. went up to the roof and the end cap connector blew up. This is a rubber connector that you buy at the hardware store. This one has been up in the direct sunlight for about a month and has had its clamps screwed very tight. One of the clamps cut into the rubber by the ridge of a panel header and weakend a spot so the expansion of the water and air in the system mad anothe blow out for me. Went to the hardware store and got anothe connector, this one with an aluminum shield around it, also I tighten enough to hold from leaking. Pressurized the system again and it held. On the real test opened up the 2" pvc valves and see if I gained anything in my solar operation.
I turned the three way to send water up into the solar and hit the function buttom to the cleaner mode, this way the higher pump setting would blow out the air. After a couple of minutes and when a the big bubbles stopped coming out I switched functions and hit the filter function and turned off the cleaning function. Gave it a few minutes and then reached down into the pool to feel the return lines and the water was warm coming back into my pool. Tis was about 3pm and it ran that way for the next few hours. At 5pm felt the pool water and I could not tell if the pool wat was any warmer, but I knew that warm water was going back into my pool. My filter is set to run 12-5 and at a slower speed, 1700 rpm.
As a result I now can make chlorine and hot water at a slower pump speed and use less watts in the process. I also have a method to find any leaks in the solar system and a positive way to drain the solar when and if a freeze comes this winter. When the solar is not in use I put in a drain hole on thr three way valve so the water can drain back to the pool and take the pressure off the VRV.
My next thing to find out is if I can cet the Easy touch system to control the solar and get all the air out.
Advise from the Forum is right you do not need all this extra stuff. The system works the way it was put in, but needed a little fine tuning. The VRV was better placed in the lower panel corner. The clamps needed to be tightened. If your panels are lower to the ground you would not need higher pump speeds.
As of this week we do not need the heat from the solar for the pool, but come this fall and early winter it will come in handy.
