Renewable Energy Engineering

Renewable Energy Engineering
Solar Energy Engineering and More
Overland Park, KS 66085
United States
sales@renewableenergyengineering.com

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Design Phase Has Ended, RE Solar Research Lab Phase I is Under Construction

LOL! and still counting... sometimes it seems like it has been that long...
The first layer of blocks is all the way in. We are moving the surrounding piles of dirt to fill in other areas. RE Solar Lab is designed with removable floors and walls and a partially removable ceiling and is being built mostly with recycled materials that were obtained locally. It includes solar electric panel as well as solar thermal panel components and technologies.
The functionality and components of the solar charging station that we are currently running will be incorporated here into RE Solar Lab. The original purpose of the charging station was to provide backup power for the sump pump that runs in the driveway as well as allow us to charge our electric scooter and run the garage. Soon the purpose will be extended to include the running of the pumps that are necessary for the collection, distribution and DHW loops.

It's about noon in this picture and the shadow from the deciduous tree hits the RE Solar Lab perfectly. It is February in this picture and the sun is lower in the sky than where is will be in the summer. The tree is growing and believe it will shade just enough of the south side of the lab so that we won't have to cover any of the thermal collectors. On the south side it is initially planned to have a 96 square foot thermal array and later when the evacuated tubes are installed one of the three panels will be taken down and relocated. The beauty of having removable walls it that these types of changes will be easy and swift.
A 12x12 foot deck and...

doors and windows were all donated and will be reused in the project.
Materials seem to be pouring in from everywhere.

For rain water collection and experimentation we have 500, 250, and 125 gallon water poly tanks. These tanks will also provide water for the water closet for our two and a half bathrooms. Current thinking is that there will be another pressurized tank that will be used in the water closet rerouting project.

We also plan to use our fabricated solar heat exchanging barrels and...

many decommissioned gas and electric hot water heaters saved from the landfills and...

three 4x8 foot solar thermal water heating panels, as well as pumps, motors, controllers, glass, Plexiglas/acrylic, thermal fins, and most every heat collecting, heat exchanging, and heat storage component pictured on this site: Products and Projects-R&D.

Here we are at command central, LOL!!! Just have to keep organized.
Looks like green is overwhelmingly our favorite color!

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Building Location and Structures for Phase II and Phase III is Approved and in the Planning Stages

Materials have already appropriated for a 2nd thermal collector array to add up to approximately 180-210 additional square feet of thermal collector area for Phase II. This will bring the collector area up to about 275-300 square feet. In this area the rule of thumb is that one square foot is capable of heating one and a half gallons of water, so we're looking at a storage tank capacity of approximately 400 gallons, but we are planning to go larger. The house is a split and has about 1,100 square feet upstairs that we fully heat and air condition and a 300 square foot room downstairs that we can but mostly do not heat or cool. In this area heating and cooling is most commonly done by forced air and we will be adapting this system to do space heating this way as well as supplement different areas of the house with some small efficient radiators and other methods. It is planned that the thermal collectors for Phase II will be built in the RE Solar Lab just as soon as it is completed.

Some Construction Photos

Mixing and pouring well into the night...

Almost ready to pour... When doing concrete work you need as much help as you can get...

Half inch rebar all the way round set up on chairs.

Well you can't control the weather and this is just going to have to wait till next year...

The hole for the footer has already been excavated. Working on it every day it took almost two more weeks to level, put in four inches in 1/2 inch gravel, tamp, build forms and lay the rebar.

Taking another break...

Its good to find out the building codes. To meet the fire part of code the building code says no closer than 6 feet to the house. The footer would be out one foot so to be sure we went out seven feet.
Some of our friendly neighbors. Almost time to say goodbye for the year. We'll be feeding the stragglers all winter long.