Weekend

Stratford A+P show with Brendas lot and Dad and Mary. Looked at the new farm machinery. Dad seems very taken by some little off road 4 wheel drive trucks which He thinks he can fit his sit-on-mower on the back of.

Out to Makahu to catchup with the extended family (a cousins 50th birthday do) - a good catchup and boozeup was had by all. There is certainly a horde of us when we all get together.

My Uncle showed me his installed (retrofitted) solar hot water heating system. He ended up with an active system in the end (extra $600 for pump and controller) since his hot water (header) tank wasnt higher than his placement of the solar panels. Looks like quite a good system - its all low pressure and fits into the existing wetback and hot water cylinder setup. The Panels heat the water directly in parallel with the wetback piping. The controller senses temp diff panels and water cylinder and fires the pump on or off accordingly.
Whole setup cost him a bit over $2000 ( 2 panels + pump + controller + piping + installation) About $1800 for parts and the rest installation, copper tubing (not much as its pretty centralised) and the Grab-and-Snatch Tax.
He gave me the tech and installation manual for some bedtime reading.