Solar showers

This side-building houses two showers and a 1200L water tank.

During the T-week course takers and volunteers shower here using warm water heated by the sun!

Outside the building three zig-zag collectors of two square meter each are attached.
-One collector has the pipes attached by weaving metal strips over and under them, 
-another has the pipes soldered to the metal sheet 
-and the third has its pipes mounted with metal straps and rivets. 
 

The Deuss collector uses natural circulation of the water, here that is not possible because the storage tank is below the collectors. The so-called forced circulation is enabled using an electric pump from a central heating unit.

The system uses a heat exchanger to transfer the heat from the insulated storage tank to the shower-water.The solar shower has a good capacity. Under favorable weather conditions, about 30 people can take a shower every day. Temperatures of 50 to 60 ºC can be reached. As the storage tank is well insulated, the shower still provides hot water days after the sun has disappeared.

After turning the system on the tank will take multiple days to get up to temperature, below is a graph depicting the warming up of the system over the last 7 days of May 2024.