Storage Tank Stand and Pad

Found an hour in my day to:
1. Angle grind flush to the garage floor three half inch concrete anchors that had held my bench grinder stand.
2. Cut treated (`ACQ') 2"x4" lumber as feet for a DIY plywood water heater stand.
3. Cut a 2" thick (R10) Dow blue styrofoam pad on which to set the tank.
I've also found a nice plumber (Colin) from Pagco Construction to help out with code questions and potential crisis moments when I need a pro. He told me that there is no water heater stand requirement for electric hot water heaters in SF. Thank you Colin!

Slow Going

I didn't get much done this weekend. What I did do was buy the following and do a bit of basic carpentry:

4'x8' sheet of 0.703" ply
R13 fiberglass insulation
Dow Blue styrofoam insulation panel
4"x4"x8' pressure treat lumber

With the above I hope to create a ~62"x48" wall behind where the solar storage tank will be. Currently the wall is completely unfinished - just studs, mineral felt, and stucco. On the wall my plan is to nicely, neatly mount plumbing pipe, valves, etc. around the tank. As long as I'm finishing the wall, it might as well be sealed (with Great Stuff (tm)) and insulated. The exact timing of which will depend on when I determine how the solar collector loop pipes are going to be run, as I don't want to seal up the wall before I've plumbed it. I haven't figured out how I'm going to get them from the roof to the garage (attic or outside run). I'm hoping I'll get up in the attic and be able to see a clean hole to the garage. As our attic is cramped, filthy, and bristling with cranium puncturing nails I'll procrastic at least another day on this.

I've decided that I should have a plumber on retainer b/c it's annoying trying to figure out plumbing code. For instance, the solar storage tank has a backup electric heater which I'm not going to use, and it's my understanding that electric hot water heaters don't need to be on stands in the garage, but who knows? I might get an inspector who doesn't like the distance between my eyes and thus deem my homemade stand (4"x4" and ply) DIY devilry. Pay now or potentially pay later.

Pardon the whining, but tinding time for all this with a toddler and a busy schedule is probably the most difficult part of this project.

Panels on the Roof

The panels and the 80 gallon (300 L) hot water heater came this past Friday.
With the help of my two good friends Mark and Tom, we wrestled the two 4'x 8' (1.2 x 2.4m), ~120 lb. (55 kg) panels on the roof. We threaded them through my small house, which was a bear. Unfortunately my 16' extension ladder wasn't quite long enough to make getting them up from the ground possible. Happily we didn't drop the panels, bang up the house or throw out our backs in the process. This is definitely a three+ person job!

The picture is looking north over the roof, where you can see downtown SF in the background. For now I'm leaving the panels flat on their backs until I figure out the exact placement of the rack and how best to fasten the rack feet to the roof joists.

Tom's looking up from where we lifted the panels from our small second story deck to the roof. Two lifted from below and I pulled the panels up. A second person pulling from the roof would have made this process slightly less tense. May all our backs feel fine in the morning...