Solar Expansion Tank Sizing

Whether your system is designed for hydronic heating cooling geothermal or solar thermal an expansion tank plays an important part in maintaining system.

Solar expansion tank sizing. We include links to additional expansion tank sizing guides from equipment manufacturers such as amtrol extrol and pex as well as links to online calculators that can give an expansion tank sizes based on known water volume of the heating system. Sizing the expansion tank. Determining the size of this tank requires knowledge of how hot the solar collector circuit can become. That subject is analyzed here.

Hydronic expansion tank sizing. For custom thermal expansion tanks the acceptance volume must be sufficient to accommodate the expansion of the heat transfer fluid when the solar loop goes into stagnation. Expansion tanks used specifically on the solar side of an indirect glycol system absorb increasing system pressure by allowing some of the fluid to enter the tank. Most installers tend to use tanks designed for hydronic heating which requires about 1 4 the size and operates on a much lower temperature.

This value is used to select the minimum expansion tank size for your solar thermal system. To prevent the system from exceeding the pressure range allowed by the designer there s a need to park the fluid volume expansion. In indirect systems expansion tanks must be appropriately sized for the system to operate properly. Calculate system volume v total v pipng v.

Calculating the expansion tank size vet through out the course of its life span a closed loop solar hot water system will get exposed to wide temperature changes. 10 10 000 water heater temperature f. Extrol expansion tanks accept expanded fluid in closed loop hydronic systems to control pressure buildup improve comfort and help reduce energy costs. Tanks used in this scenario are exposed to different conditions than typical hydronic expansion tanks and must meet requirement over and above typical tanks.

Part ii of this discussion will appear in an. Thermal expansion tank sizing. Domestic hot water volume. Nearly seven decades after inventing the first diaphragm expansion tank amtrol s lineup now includes specialty models engineered for modern high efficiency systems.

Solar thermal expansion tank sizing guide for bosch and buderus solar thermal systems introduction the following sizing guide offers step by step calculations to determine the minimum volume of expansion.