Daily Home Renovation Tips

In Part 13 we discussed the larger brackets we purchased to hold the Solar Max 240 solar air heater to the outside wall and the preparation of the blower assembly and duct on the outside wall.

Today we continue focusing on the approach we used to install the unit on the south wall of our home.

First, let’s talk about that wire coming out of the lower area of the back part of the unit. This wire is for the temperature reading inside the unit and will need to be connected to the blower assembly on the inside wall.

But, how the heck can you get the wire that is inside the unit to go through the wall of the house from the outside via the guide openings in the blower duct assembly all the way into the house? I mean, picture yourself and a second person holding this 4 ft X 7 ft X 7 to 9 inches deep unit outside the house sufficiently close to the wall while a 3rd person tries to guide it through the opening?

I don’t think so.

So, what we did was to use some old speaker wire.

We simply took the speaker wire outside the house and guided it through the two guide openings, one after the other, in the blower assembly component. 

Then from the inside of the house we reached into the blower assembly unit and pulled the speaker wire through the third guide opening on the left side. Here’s a closeup of the black and red speaker wire we used; you can see it in the upper right corner of the closeup picture below.

Then, when we were ready to place the  Solar Max 240 on the outside wall, I held it on the brackets about a foot or so away from the wall while Bennett wrapped the part of the speaker wire that remained outside to the temperature wire that came from inside the unit.  He then went inside the house to pull the grey temperature wire through the blower assembly and into the house.

He then returned outside to finish the placement of the Solar Max 240 on the brackets.  Once the Solar Max 240 unit’s installation on the outside was finished, we returned to inside the house where he connected the grey temperature wire to the electrical component of the blower assembly. The picture above shows the grey temperature wire, in the upper right of the photo, connected to the appropriate wire by Bennett’s index finger. 

Next time, we return to the installation of the solar air collector on the outside of the house as we skipped some very important tactics to focus on this article on the unit’s temperature wire.

To continue to the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 15.