Hazmat operation here!!!

Oh my goodness. While I was writing the last post, I didn't know it, but my daughter's boyfriend had begun unscrewing screws and bolts and other stuff on the old water heater we just brought home. He told me it wouldn't take him long to get the whole thing taken apart. And I thought, "Great!! That will give me a head start!".

I went down to take a look, and help out if needed. He took the top of the casing off (like a lid) and we looked inside. Well, it was insulated with ASBESTOS. So I told him not to go one step further and got us some scarves and gloves to wear. On went the scarves over mouth and nose. We continued working hard to get the rest of the screws and pipe fittings off, as they were rusted fast. But we finally did get everything off to the point where we could pull the inside drum out from the bottom of the casing.

The drum is steel, not cast iron as we first thought it might be. The asbestos ended up in piles all over my porch. YUCK. So we got some snow shovels and started shoveling it into big garbage bags. I'm guessing that will have to go to a hazmat facility.

We got everything cleaned up and I went in to take a shower. When I got out of the shower, I realized that I had left my glasses on the porch. I went down to get them and started sweeping the rest of the bits and pieces of asbestos over to the side. I came across pretty silver beads on the porch. But they didn't roll like beads....no, they rolled like the Terminator! Yes, this was MERCURY! Swept that up as best I could into a glass jar.

Now I'm sure I *will* be going to a hazmat disposal. The water heater is a 50gal capacity tank. Now we have to get our materials and plans and get busy on building the box it will go in. But first I want to test it for leaks.

I also had to do a little research on things like "True South", "Solar noon", and "Latitude" of where we live. Turns out we are at 40deg latitude. That means whenever I get the box built, the glass top will have to be angled at 40 degrees to get the most sunlight out of the day throughout the year.

Tomorrow I will find solar noon and check for shadows. Solar noon is the time of the day exactly half way between sunrise and sunset. So, if you go to the weather website and look up the sunrise/sunset, you can figure out when solar noon is. At Solar Noon, the sun is at Due South. And any shadows will lay due North. You can draw a straight line from True South to True North. This is the direction the solar collectors/reflectors need to be facing to catch the most sunlight through the day.

While facing True South, then you have to check for anything that would create a shadow over the collector. (I think we might have to cut down a tree, but thats ok...its rotting anyway).

Very interesting stuff! I'm going to use this as a homeschool project for my kids. It will throw in some astronomy and might be interesting to them! I know it is to me.

Beyond all of this research, this building project is going to be much more involved than I thought. I'm going to have to break it all down into little steps or I'll be too overwhelmed to finish it. I just hope after all this, that water heater doesn't leak.