Hands-on Solar Training!

I attended the Solar Water Heating hands on training through SEI a while ago and had to post about it. It was such a great time. For all of you solar geeks out there, I actually met Chuck Marken, Ian Woofenden and Ben Root! HA! They imparted some serious knowledge, and we all had fun learning it.

The course began with classroom presentation and theory. The next day we went out for a solar tour of Guemes Island. There are tons of renewable energy (RE) projects on this tiny island. Probably has nothing to do with the fact that Ian lives there.

For the hands on portion of the course, we installed a 30-tube Apricus solar thermal collector on a 20' shipping container! The property owner (kickass guy!) will be building a house soon and is setting up mobile workshops/living spaces to make the job as comfortable as possible. We were guided during the hands on class by RE contractor The solar system consisted of the Apricus collector w/ customized heat dump, SuperStor Ultra stainless steel storage tank, Apricus controller and pumpstation, and a propane fired backup water heater.

Through this training and my own studies I have gained the experience needed to size and install solar water heaters. I encourage all of you to take these SEI classes NOW! (they always fill up early...even the online classes). To date, I have taken 4 SEI courses. They are the original RE educators and were the only ones doing it when I first began exploring solar power.

Enjoy the pictures!