, Februarv-March 1980 RAIN Page 1Y • Plagued by funding delays, revoked permits, and rising costs, SUEDE workers question th~ Uniform Plumbing Code. I ; I I I I I j I hoi I Iii , 1 j \ j i I ; i by Ken Eklund and Paul Sansone SUEDE (Solar Utilization for Economic Development and Employment) was a project designed to train CETA employees to build and install solar water heaters and greenhouses in the homes of lowincome people. Ecutope Group joined with the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency Energy Program last year for a project to build and install nearly 70 solar water heaters in Salem, Oregon. The project, one of 15 funded nationwide by a consortium of the Department of Energy, the Department of Labor, and the :ornmunity Services Administration, was plagued by funding delays, revoked permits, and rising costs. After delays totaling about four and a half months, the project ended wirh only 12 systems installed-at a cost twice that projected with the original design. At the center of all these problems is the Uniform Plumbing Code. Ecotope originally set out to install a thermosiphon system with non-toxic anti-freeze solution running through the collectors. We borrowed a time-tested heat exchanger design from Steve Baer of Zomeworks and Chris Mattock of Solar Applications in Vancouver, S.c. They used a tank-in-tank heat exchanger that 1) thermoSiphoned very well, 2) could be assembled easily on site, 3) used fairly common materials, and 4) was low cost. Solar Applications had operated systems of this design in British Columbia for years with good results, and their model was copied throughout Canada. The chief concern of the Plumbing and Water Quality officials was cross-connection -that is, a tic between the potable water system and another system that might result in pollution of the potable water. This pollution usually occurs when there is a pressure drop in the potable system that sucks the fluid from the other system in through the cross-connection. Everyone agrees that cross· connection should be avoided. The conflict is over what the Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) requires for protection. Our interpretation is that the UPC requires only a Watts«>9Dbackflow preventer for a system in which only a possibility of cross-connection exists, and where the fluid in the other system is an FDA-approved substance. The City of Seattle (WA) and King County agree with this position. The State of Oregon Code Division, on the other hand, has now determined that if a doublerwall heat exchanger is not used, then a cross-connection will be assumed . It will also be assumed that the FDA-approved sub· stance will at some time be replaced with a toxic substance. After making these assumptions, they then require that one Watts18900 valve be placed at the water meter and another between the solar heater and the rest of the house system. AWatts®9Dcosts about $30, is easy to install, and needs no maintenance. AWatts®900 costs about $250 and must be installed by a licensed plumber and serviced once a year at a cost of $30. The Oregon Code Division has added $600 to $1 ,000 to the cost of the system (depending on installation fees) in order to enforce a wry shaky code interpretation. Aftel the Code Division indicated it would require the same back· flow protection even if the tank-in-tank system was set up as a drainback, filled with water and pumped, the Energy Program decided to go with a full-scale active system using commercial components. After an unfortunate and costly attempt to fabricate a double-wall heat exchanger fromSoln RoUQI'in the hope of maintaining the goal of lower-cost, owner-built technology, the Energy Program threw in the towel and bought heat exchange tanks from Mar Flo®at four times the cost of the tank-in-tank exchanger. Not (mly were the active systems more difficult than the thermosiphons t(l set up (because of their increased complexity). but they also turm·.d out to be much more expensive-at a cost twice the $600 average cost that appeared realistic for the thermosiphons. Other issues raised by the code people were 1) you can't have someone else assemble a collector with solder connections to be used in an open-loop system unless that person is a licensed plumber (owner-builders are exempt from this); 2) the need for permanent access to any tank more than 4 feet above the ground ; and 3) the requirement for over-bracing of roofs on which coill-ctm s and storage tanks are placed. (The question here is not whether the roof should be braced, but whether it is being braced for an C'!rphant or a 1400 lb. water heater.) All of this has a chilling impact on the development and implementation of low-cost solar water heating. It has hamstrung those agencies that would deliver these systems to the poor, and has se· verely limited the options of the owner-builder. The ambiguity created by an unclear code that allows for capricious interpretation and long delays is a threat not only to low-income service agencies but also to solar businesses as well. If all the edicts of the Stall' Code Division were consistently enforced, many commercial solar systems would be cailed into question. And if large-scale solarization plans (a key component of Oregon Energy Task Force thinking) are rver attempted, the whole effort could be inhibited by unclear codes, unreasonable interpretations, and uninformed local budding officials. These problems can be solved, though, by the adoption of (odes addressed to the issues of solar water heating. These codes, which should be established legislatively, should be performance-oriented and not prt'scriptive; allowing for developm~nt of new solutions rather than forced adoption of the present comml'rcial technology,
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