Water circulation without an electric pump.

[Bulbz]

I just needed to know... in the attached image, if I was to keep the chamber (or plastic drain pipe) heated by the Sun or by some other means, and kept the bottom chamber(the one that's immersed in the consumer water tank)... Would it make the working fluid circulate, without the use of an electric pump ?.

[fritznien]

i don't think it will do anything. however i have seen a heat driven pump on a solar collector.  a trip to a solar energy store is in order. you might want to rethink the plastic pipe, stagnation temps can be nasty.

[Bulbz]

It's just a concept for the time being, although I do think I may need to re-think the entry and exit positions of the hoses.

[Yucca]

Hi Bulbz,

Your design will work with a few tweaks, you need to raise the storage tank over the collector to take advantage of the natural convection flow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosiphon

The only downside to these designs is when roofmounting you don´t want to much weight on some types of wooden roof joists so a tank on such a roof must be kept quite small.

[Bulbz]

Thanks for that wave of encouragement Yucca  ...

BTW, does anybody know what makes this tick ? http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uK3XYJLQsZ4