Over the last few months, I’ve had several inquiries from people eager to get into the hydronics industry.

Many renewable energy systems have thermal storage tanks that bridge the gap between when energy is available from the heating source, and when that energy is needed by a heating load.

Last month, we began with a concept for an “ideal” thermal storage tank. This tank was then shown in both a classic four-pipe configuration, as well as a newer configuration called two-pipe.  This month, we’ll look at a morphing of these two piping methods to create a three-pipe configuration. We’ll also look at options for connecting multiple thermal storage tanks together.

Lochinvar’s new Thermal-Stor stratified solar-thermal storage tank is designed to offer the best solution for solar-thermal and ground-source applications

All factors being equal, warm and sunny days produce the greatest “Btu harvest” from any solar-thermal collectors supplying a domestic water heating system. The more intense the sunlight, the greater the heat input. The warmer the ambient air, the lower the heat losses from the collector enclosure.