SunEyes and Shading.

I went down to the PG&E (our local utility) Pacific Energy Center to borrow a Solmetric SunEye from their tool lending library. They currently have this GPS-enabled model. I've used their non-GPS device and look forward to the simplicity of using this one. I hope to make it up on the roof this weekend to take readings in promising areas of the roof.

My SketchUp model now sports shadows. Below you can see the shading at noon on winter solstice (Dec. 22).

Our chimney is 74" (187 cm) tall! It casts an unfortunately long shadow =( At this point I'm thinking that the two panels can be squeezed between the skylight (circle in square bit) and the west edge of the roof, but this will make them quite visible from the front, especially since I'm planning on tilting them up at 49 degrees. The good thing about this location is that it keeps the pipe runs short and leaves a good deal of unshaded space on the roof should we ever want to install a photovoltaic system. Another possible location for them is in front of the two sewer vents.

In other news, thanks to Bob and Adam at SunEarth I got a detailed mechanical drawing of the collector that I would like to get (SunEarth EC-32). From that, I created a SketchUp model of the collector so that I can start laying them out on the roof of my house model. woO!