·The Exchange Rate:
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·The Weather:
Temperature: 70°F
Conditions: Thunderstorms and Rain

Tomorrow: Thunderstorm. High:89 ° F.

The Salahis had their minute with the President when they crashed a party, even some tourists who just went for a White House tour ended up eating breakfast with him. So if I had the President's ear for just one minute, this is the plea I would give.

Last Sunday we had baptism, hosted here at CLM. The service was done inside - again because of a lot of rain. (Apparently, it rains just about every day - and sometimes 6-8 times a day). But, thankfully, the sun came out and we were able to go down to the pool to watch 10 people be baptized - including one of our older CLM girls, Josiele. We praise God that she has decided to give her heart to Christ and follow him. We pray for many of the others to follow suit.

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It has been a bit of a challenge, as Luquinho can be somewhat of a Dennis the Menace. Most of the recent problems have been related to his desire to decorate his room for Christmas. First, he tried to decorate it with an entire roll of tape, which he was able to clean up easily. From tape he moved to candles. He set the curtains on fire and the room was a mess from the fire extinguisher powder. He spent 5-6 hours cleaning that one up.

At that point, I decided to help decorate and bought them a small Christmas tree and we made some ornaments. That went well until he decided to paint them, but thankfully he only made a small mess with the paint.

Since then, things have calmed down. The boys were even able to go for 2 weeks straight of keeping their room clean. So they have won the reward of painting the walls in their room. They are excited about it and by process of elimination they have picked blue and orange as the colors they would like. Red was too violent, yellow and brown were too disgusting, etc. So, blue and orange were all that were left. The process of painting may be another adventure; however, hopefully, it will give them more appreciation for their room and cleanliness.

We were able to get a rented bus from the city to make one trip rather than several kombi trips. To make the day less chaotic, the CLM team split up the kids so that each adult could be responsible for just 2-3 kids. When we first arrived it was very overcast and chilly. So we started with some paddle boat rides and carriage rides. Within an hour, the sun came out and there were more kids than water in the pool. The smaller pool lost half of its water while we were there. After lunch they opened an inside heated pool for the babies. I took Maria Luiza and had a wonderful time in quiet, warm water. She has no fear of the water and just giggled and splashed the whole time.

We discovered a few more siblings of a couple of the CLM kids. One of the little girls met her little brother that she hadn't seen in a few years. Apparently the rest of her siblings have been removed because her dad took the little brother to a bar with him and gave him some to drink. This may help move her release for adoption. Pray that the process may be moving forward. Our CLM baby also met her two older sisters. They seem to have more fetal alcohol characteristics. Maria seems to be the cutest and most animated of the siblings.

As with Brazilian style, Santa Claus was about 2 hours late! The kids didn't complain about the extra play time and then received their gift from the judge. I would guess that 1/2 the bus was sleeping on the way home. We are thankful for the special time that the Judge provided for the CLM kids.

Why Solar Hot Water?
Heating water requires a lot of energy. For example here in Brazil we use instant water heaters that are built into the shower head. To raise water by 45F degrees (from 60F to 105F) about 5,000 to 7,500 watts are required. That is equivalent to heating your shower water with four or five microwaves on at the same time! In America typical water heaters have 4,500 watt heating elements (think 45 100 watt light bulbs on at the same time). Needless to say with electricity costing 0.22 cents USD per kilowatt hour here in Brazil, there is a financial incentive to find an alternative way to heat water.

Before I get into how I built the heater here is some basic information about it:

The solar collector is approximately 27ft2 (2.5 m2)

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Building the Heater

The solar water heater consists of two basic parts, the hot water tank and the solar collector. The tank is 310 liters (80 gallons), it sits in the attic and is insulated with spray foam insulation.

The solar collector is made up of 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch PVC pipe and florescent light bulbs. The collector is encased in an insulated box with glass on one side.

The solar collector is approximately 2.5 m2 (27 ft2), the pipes that are exposed to the sun have a total volume of about 18.5 liters (5 gallons), which is equivalent to 6% of the volume of the hot water tank. (Meaning that if the water circulates 16-17 times all the water in the tank will have been heated once, in theory).

To make the plumbing part of the heater I bought 64 T fittings and with them made 2 pipes, 32 T's each with the T's butt up against each other. Then between the two I put a pipe that was just a bit longer than a florescent bulb.

To prepare the bulbs I tore off the metal parts on each end, then poked a large hole in both ends so that a 1/2 inch pipe could fit through. (Click Here to read more about this step) Then I pushed a piece of a sponge through a couple of times to clean out the powder. When I was done I had a long glass tube. While I was taking apart the bulbs I used a mask and was sure to wash my hands and cloths afterwards, since they contain mercury.

Close up of the bulbs and pipes, The entire array, The solar collector in the insulated box.
Click for larger images.

The bulbs were painted black on the back side, and the pipes were completely painted black. Then I closed off the ends of the bulbs with tin foil and a bit of spray foam, since they are just used as a basic insulator its not that important that they be air tight. The solar collector was lined with black plastic, underneath were some Styrofoam sheets to help insulate the heater.

The Heater installed (before glass I tried transparent plastic sheeting but it wilted in the heat), Installing the Water tank
Click for larger images.

The panel was installed at a 35 degree angle and about 1 foot below the bottom of the water tank. It is below the tank so that it does not act as a water cooler at night. Basically, the cold water is already at the bottom, so it should not circulate with the water in the hot water tank. Click here for more on how to connect it to the water tank.

On sunny days when the outside temperature is in the mid 80's the water heats up to about 135 or more. Even on cloudy days the water heats up to the 90's.

How to prepare the florescent bulbs

There are two ways to break open the ends.

Method #1:

The simple, but tedious way is to puncture them with a screw driver. Here's how I did it:
First I tore off the metal caps, then I put a screw driver in the end and wrapped a rag around. The rag is dual purpose. One, it helped protect me from the mercury inside (I also wore a mask and did it in a ventilated area), the rag also helped slow down the air as it flowed into the bulb. The bulbs seem to have a near vacuum inside them, so when they are punctured the air enters pretty quickly, and can propel some of the debris from the puncturing into the other end and break it. The rag helps slow the air down. After the bulb was broken on both ends I tapped out just enough glass so that a ½ inch pipe could fit in I found G.E. bulbs to be the easiest to work with. Afterwards be sure to wash your hands.

In the end the bulbs are just for insulation so they don’t have to be perfect. They just keep the hot air around the pipe, and the ends are sealed off with foil, which covers up a lot of the imperfections. Of the bulbs in my collector about ½ of them have breaks or small imperfections. But it doesn’t seem to matter, it still increases efficiency.

Method #2:

Here is a link to the other way to break open the ends. It isn’t nearly as simple. I haven’t tried it, but it was published in a magazine so I am sure it works. I found it with an article about a florescent bulb solar air heater. It uses common items to build a glass cutter. From what the site says, it should make nice looking cuts. Link to cutter instructions

Connecting it to the water tank - I put 5 holes into the tank. They are listed here from highest to lowest.

Supply to the Solar Heater. This pipe connects to the bottom of the solar heater, it also connects to the bottom of the tank. It supplies the solar heater with the cooler water that settles to the bottom of the water tank.

Cheap $30 Backup System for Cloudy Days:

On mostly cloudy days the heater reaches about 90 degrees, on very cloudy and windy days it wont get above 80 and may only reach 70. So I came up with a backup. (Note: while I have this tested and installed, I actually have it unplugged to save electricity). I bought a 'Bucket Heater' that automatically turns on at 80 degrees and turns off at 110.

I suspended it inside the water tank so that it only heats the upper portion of the water. I assume that if it were resting on the bottom that the hot water would rise. By the time the hot thermostat measured 110, the water at the top of the tank would be well over that.

Why I built the solar water heater this way

After doing a lot of research on the internet, and a couple experiments I came to a few conclusions.

HDR pictures are a composite of multiple pictures taken at different exposures. For example, if I were taking a picture of a sun set I would take one with a short exposure which would capture the colors and details of the sun set, but leave the foreground dark and blotchy. Then I would take a picture with long exposure, capturing the foreground but leaving the bright sky washed out.

After that the two pictures are run through a program (photoshop, or even some online services) and it creates one picture by combining the images.

It also is able to understand how the camera interprets color and is able to increase the color saturation in a natural way (or in an unnatural way, for example the picture of the tree). So you end up with a picture that captures the sunset with all its color.

Here are a couple of pictures I took using this process:

Click on a picture to see it in its original size.

Children's day is a national holiday here in Brazil, similar to Father's Day and Mother's Day. Sunday the church plus 50 some others from the community came over to CLM for a wonderful lunch and activities planned by the church. Sunday was also the opening day for swimming. The kids had their bathing suits on at 8 am waiting for the pool to be open at 3 pm. On Monday, we celebrated CLM as a family. Mike & Mary introduced the kids to street hockey which has quickly become a new favorite. Mike also put up a jousting beam across the pool which was thoroughly enjoyed by the older boys. Jake & I organized some water balloon games. We finished off the day with swimming and hot dogs and chips at the pool.

We praise God for these kids - that we can be a part of their lives and daily try to show them how special they are and how much God loves them.

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