Mounting the solar water heating collector on the roof

You will need to gain access to the roof and may need to hire scaffolding and you will definitely need some scaling ladders, (scaling ladders have a hook on the end of them that secures them to the ridge of the roof).  At this point it is handy to have a cloth bag to put all your tools in that you need to take on to the roof and tie the bag

to the edge of the scaling ladder so you do not spend half the time of the install running up and down the ladder looking for tools, which is easily done and wastes a lot of time.

On the roof you will need an electric drill or mains drill and the core drills supplied in the diy kit to drill through the tiles.  You will also need an old washing up liquid bottle to be used to squirt water onto the end of the core drills and make it easier to cut through the roof tiles and will cut down on wear and tear on the core drill.

There are also two long bolts in the kit that you will need to secure the solar water heating panel once you have drilled the holes and two pre assembled pipe fittings for either side of the solar panel header unit.  A friend will come in useful, to help you haul the frame onto the roof as it is top heavy and awkward to manoeuvre, (all the weight is at the top because of the heavier header unit).

Next get some rope and secure the rope to either end of the header unit and tie the rope back to itself half way along the header forming a triangle.  At this stage the person going on the roof will need to put on their safety harnesses.  Hold the solar panel upright and lean it against the ladder, the ladder can then be used as a runner to slide the solar panel along whilst the person on the roof pulls on the rope and takes in the slack, the rope should also be tied off somewhere securely to stop the panel falling to the ground, the scaling ladders can be used for this purpose.  Next line the solar panel up and mark the position of the securing bolts by scraping a mark through the vertical slots in the solar panel frame where the bolts go through, then move the panel to one side and leave enough room to drill through the roof tile with the core drill.

Take the small core drill and wet the end with the water from the old washing up liquid bottle and start drilling with the drill gun leaned over at a forty five degree angle (this will stop the core drill sliding around the surface of the tile).

so that one side of the core drill digs into the roof tile.  Once the drill bit is secure move the drill gun to the upright position (ninety degrees to the tile face) and drill through the remainder of the tile.  Change the core drill in the drill gun for the auger bit then drill through the roof lining then pull the solar panel frame back over the holes that you have just drilled in the tiles and drop the bolts through the slots on the solar panel frame, the bolts will hold the frame in position for now.

Now go into the loft space and look for the bolts, one of three things will have happened, if your lucky the bolt hole for the solar water heating panel would have come right through the centre of a roof frame or the bolt would have come through within a couple of centimetres of the roof frame or the bolt would have come through right between the roof frames.  In the first case you can place the washer on the end of the bolt and put a nut and lock nut on in the second case where the hole is close to the roof frame you can use a short piece of two by four inch wood that is supplied with the kit then drill a couple of holes through this piece of wood using the five millimetre drill bit supplied and glue and screw it with the wood screws.  If you have the third situation where the bolt has come out between the roof frames you can measure between the frames and cut a piece of two by four inch wood accurately so that it is a nice tight fit between the frames and very secure, you might need a hammer here to gently tap it into place.  Then drill two holes through each roof frame with the five millimetre bit inline with the end of the horizontal piece of wood and screw tight with the wood screws supplied, you may also want to glue the wood in position but in all honesty it will be secure enough with the wood screws as the solar panel is not that heavy.

Now drill the holes through the pieces of wood that you may have had to attach to the roof frames inside the loft.  Get one person on the roof to remove one bolt at a time, then they can drill through the new piece of wood from the roof using the small auger bit then the bolt can be placed back in and the person on the roof can hold the bolt still whilst someone in the loft can tighten a washer and nut, do not tighten the nut too much though as it can cripple the solar water heating panel frame.  Once this is completed, place the lock nut on and tighten against the first nut and repeat this process for the second bolt.  Now that you have secured the solar panel you can think about fitting the pre assembled piping for the hot and cold connections at either end of the solar panel header unit.

Once again you need someone in the loft to shout out to the person on the roof to determine how far they will need to drill from the end of the solar panel header unit.  This is  so that you will miss the roof frames in the loft as the holes for the piping are much larger than the bolt holes and the temperatures reached by the fluid coming from the solar pane header would be far too high to be in contact with the wooden roof frames directly.

At this point the person on the roof will tell the person in the loft the distance between the bolt (that has already been fitted) and the connection on the solar heating header on the outside, the person in the loft can then gauge whether the pipe connections on the solar panel will be too close to a roof frame.  If the flow and return pipe connections are going to be too close to roof frame then cut a pipe extension to fit between the pre assembled components supplied and the solar heating manifold.  Fit the large core drill in the drill gun and wet the end with the water from the old washing up liquid, once again start drilling with the drill gun leaned over at a forty five degree angle and then move the drill gun to the up right position.

Then change the large core drill in the drill gun for the larger orga bit then drill through the roof lining again, then cut a piece of copper pipe to suite the distance between the end of the connections on the solar panel header unit and the pre assembled piping supplied and connect to each other using the compression fittings supplied.  You should now have two bolt holes securing the solar panel frame and two holes supplying the flow and return from solar collector header unit.  Swap the large core drill for the small core drill and drill a whole for the sensor at the flow end of the solar water heating panel, you can identify this by looking on the end of the header unit and you will see a hole for the sensor in the plastic cover.  Once you have drilled the hole slide the sensor through from  the roof  whilst the person in the loft ensures that the cable goes right through the roof and into the loft space and NOT down between the tiles and the roof lining then slide the metal sensor into the solar water heating panel.

You will need to drill one last hole in the roof  for the 8mm vent pipe that comes off of the flow end of the solar collector panel this will be used to bleed the system of air when you prime the solar panel circuit that runs between the roof and the secondary coil in your new hot water tank.  This vent pipe will be bent back and through the roof and into the loft space once you have drilled the last hole.  We have put the vent pipe in the loft so that you may be able to bleed the system again from the loft space and not have to get scaffolding back in the future if you ever have to replace a component in the solar water heating piping circuit.

Now you have completed the drilling and piping on the roof you may use the sealant supplied to seal around the piping, bolt, sensor and vent pipe hole, put  a lot around the sensor to secure it in the hole as birds think that the sensor is a worm and try to pull it out.  Make sure you apply the sealant on a sunny day to make sure it is stuck securely to the tile surface.  Do NOT fit the solar tubes yet as the temperature reached by the copper pin at the top of the tube may cause damage without the solar panel circuit already being primed with the high heat transfer fluid, the solar tubes will be the last thing that you fit.