Daily Home Renovation Tips

As shown in our last article, we had all of brackets installed on the outside wall and were ready to prove the measurements.

Notice the minuscule space between the top of the solar air heating unit and the upper brackets? Sweet.

However, we are not nearly done yet. You can see the green tape on the right helping to still hold the plastic sheet covering the unit.

So, while the unit was on the wall (being held by yours truly ), Bennett when inside the house to use the short piece of duct work for the heated air to mark on the back of the unit where the hold needed to be made.

Look closely at the picture below and you should be able to make out a circular mark over the letter C.

He then returned outside, helped me take the unit away from the wall and onto the ground, where he proceeded to use a marker and the short piece of duct to confirm the size of the  hole to be cut.

He then proceeded to cut the hole for the heated air. 

Now, from our past articles in this series, you will remember that the Solar Max 240 comes with two gaskets, one for each opening in the back of the unit. While we placed the square gasket for the blower assembly directly on the bricks of the outside wall, we felt that was not the right approach for the circular opening.

Instead, we decided to affix the round gasket for the heated air opening directly to the unit itself. First, Bennett applied silicone caulking to one side of the gasket.

 Then, to hold the gasget in place over the opening in the back of the solar air heating unit, he applied duct tape.

Without the duct tape, we were concerned that when we placed the Solar Max 240 back up against the wall that this gasket would otherwise would move and not be covering the opening in the wall for the heated air to return to the house.

And, remember, you also want to place duct tape also around the now exposed inside of the circular opening on the back of the unit for the returning heated air just as you do on the inside of the square opening at the base of the back of the unit where the blower assembly unit will be placed.

Following this, we then placed the unit back up against the wall. Bennett then used the screw driver to insert screws through the holes in all 4 brackets into the top and bottom of the solar air heating device to hold the solar air collector unit in place. Also, don’t forget silicone caulking around each screw opening in the top and bottom of the unit through which the bracket screws attach the solar air collector to the wall.

And, since Bennett did (almost) most of the work on this I asked  him if he would have the pleasure of taking the plastic covering off of the unit. He earned it!

Is that it? Are we done yet? Oh my goodness no.

Return next time when we look start to look at the inside part of the installation process.

To continue with the next article in this series, simply select this link to Part 17.