Background
The Arcata Educational Farm is a CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture establishment) that provides local organic produce for members/shareholders and hands-on agricultural education for local students and residents. Adjacent and connected to the farm is the upcoming Bayside Community Garden, a place for residents to grow their own produce and learn how to farm organically and sustainably.
As part of our ENGR305 class, our team was asked to fix the solar water heater system there (the previous one developed a leak, presumably from the winter freeze and subsequent cracking) . We would like to improve the new system by winterproofing it and also by integrating its output into an efficient vegetable-washing system that could potentially double as a rudimentary shower for workers.
Opportunity Definition
- Who
- ENGR305 Spring 2010 students Melissa Pawson, Kristy Lindquist and Roger Tuan are assisting Phil Lucas, our client at the Arcata Educational Farm.
- What
- Retrofit, repair, and improve the solar hot water system at the farm.
- Water Heater / Storage Tank - We know it's a Reliance 606 series heater, but we still need the exact model number.
- Product manual (for connection instructions, etc.):
- Related patents (including diagrams):
- Solar Collector:
- Colt, Inc. Model C-141C solar collector. An UNVERIFIED guess is that it's actually a closed-loop system meant to be filled with glycol and not water, but this needs to be confirmed.
- Piping: The piping from the previous system is still mostly intact and can hopefully be reused after a check for cracks and leaks.
- Vegetable washer / shower: We'll need to track down a flexible hose and washer/shower head and perhaps improvise a shower stall. We'll also need to research various methods of effective vegetable washing and design the station accordingly.
- Why
- We were asked to fix the solar hot water system so the farm will once again have access to hot water. This could be useful for future community events held throughout the year!
- When
- Our project will take one semester, approximately 15 weeks in duration and ending around May 15th.
- Where
- The Arcata Educational Farm is located at 930 Old Arcata Road in the Sunnybrae neighborhood of Arcata.
See Also
- Solar water heater - Basic principles and operations
- Parras, Mexico's solar water heater projects - Contains data logs and graphs from their testing phase
- Hotel Perote's solar pool heating project - One of the specific sites in Parras. Contains additional examples of the kind of mathematical/physical calculations that we'd probably want to incorporate.