Thermosyphon solar hot water and wood stove, troub

[karenkreisel]

It is a thermosyphon solar hot water system with a wood stove hooking into it. Most plumbing is with ½ copper, except in and out of the tank with pex changing to copper.
The cold feed from the house comes into the cold on the top of the tank, which actually goes to the bottom inside the tank (new 38 gal electric hot water with the electric element taken out). The hot feed to the house goes out the hot on the top of the tank. There is a pressure release on top of the tank. The tank is located in the chimney more then 2’ above everything else. The cold coming out of the bottom of the tank tees to the wood stove and to the solar panel. This continues down to just before the panel there is a check valve, air release valve, drain, and dole valve. Water enters the panel, ideally is heated by the sun and exits the top of the panel where we have a pressure release, air release and another check valve. (We will take out this pressure release and the check valve). This makes its way toward the chimney where there is a temperature gauge and a pressure gauge. Then up to just before the tank where there is a tee for the wood stove hot water and into the center of the tank (where the electrical element was).

The Wood Stove. The cold comes down from the tee coming out of the bottom of the tank down to the stove, where there is a drain, then using type K copper enters some coils tilted slightly upward set on top of the stove surface and continuing up next to the stove pipe, then a check valve, teeing into the hot from the solar panel into the center of the tank.

Questions I have are:
The water is not circulating so we will remove all check valves.
Do I need any valves in the wood stove part of the system?
Does the solar part of the system sound good?

karen

[wildwood]

We have an identical system that works like a charm. here is how ours are different. first do not remove the pressure release valve. that is your protection from a blow up. Make sure your check valves are headed the right direction. We found that even with check valves we needed to isolate one system or the other. It just seemed to refuse to circulate with valves open on both sides of the cold and hot water tees.In other words we shut off valves on the cold and hot lines of either the solar or wood when we are using the other system. When is starts to get cold we shut off and drain the solar and use only wood. Then when it warms up back to solar. The one main thing here is never, ever build a fire without putting your wood hot water system back on line first! If you forget to open the circulation valves you are asking for a pressure buildup and an explosion! Our wood stove has the coils inside the stove and our water easily gets to 140-170 degrees. We use 3/4 and 1" solid copper line for almost all of it. Maybe your lines are too small or you are not gaining enough heat to make it circulate. Also it helps to insulate your lines to and from but I suggest a fiberglass wrap as we used foam pipe insulation and our water got so hot it melted the foam!!! Just a few ideas..hope it helps