Solar Hot Water Heater
Lisa A Duke May 7 2010 01:55:38 AM
When we bought our house, we knew it needed some cosmetic work. What we didn't know is that a lot of the work would be on the systems of the house - the stuff nobody sees, where you don't get to pick a color, and the stuff that's expensive.Toward the end of last year, the hot water heater started giving up. We went from unlimited hot water to lukewarm showers - not a nice way to go into winter.
As this was happening, I was getting more and more interested in ways to reduce our monthly bills and was researching solar power. What I found was that solar power is clean and very cool, but that it is not very efficient at the moment. You can't just throw a pair of solar panels on the roof and wait for the checks to roll in from the power company for all that extra energy you are producing, at least not in a family that works with computers for a living. And the initial outlay is tremendously expensive.
There are companies out there that will install panels for free and lease them to you. You get the lower power bills right away, and eventually you own the panels. It's an intriguing idea, but I want fewer monthly bills, not more.
In my research, though, I learned that there are systems that circulate a fluid through the panels and down to the hot water heater. The fluid stays in the tubing so it doesn't mix with the water and contains a non-toxic antifreeze so that it doesn't solidify when the temperature gets below freezing. I wasn't very excited about fluid in tubing (I worry some day we'll get a leak) but honestly there are water pipes all through the house anyway, so it seemed like a moot point.
One of the major advantages of this system versus regular solar panels and a regular hot water heater is that with regular solar panels, a lot of energy is lost on the conversion from direct current (DC), what the panels produce, to alternating current (AC), what regular houses and appliances are set up to consume. With the solar panels heating the solution, the system we went with is much more efficient.
When the solar panels collect enough sunshine to heat the solution, the sensor on the roof kicks in and tells a little motor to circulate the fluid. The heat is transferred to the water. If it's cloudy for a few days, the water heater has an electric backup that kicks in. Additionally, the water heater is super insulated, so very little energy is wasted. So we went with the VELUX Hot Water Heater and two solar panels.
The solar panels lay flat on our roof and look a bit like skylights. We went with a bigger system than what Darren and I need, but this house has 4 bedrooms, so when we have guests or sell the house, we don't want that to be an issue.
The hot water heater is bigger than our old one was and we needed room for the unit that controls when the fluid circulates, so it had to go in a different area of the basement than where the old one was. But the team did a great job getting it installed and hauling the old one away. For more information on the system, check out the Velux website.
When I tell people this story, I'm usually asked if we investigated the tankless water heaters. Honestly, we did not do as much due diligence as we should have for a real comparison, so before you buy, do your own research. I know that Darren, being from England, was familiar with the option and not really interested. And the tankless are energy efficient, but not really as "off grid" as I hope one day to be.
Dan from The Sunshine Boys did our install - we had a good experience. I will say if you decide to move forward with the project, be sure to keep in mind that there's a good bit of paperwork involved in the federal and state tax credit process, and that timing does matter at least at the state level, as sometimes there is only so much funding available and when it runs out, it is gone. We'll be working on this for our 2011 taxes, so we will see how it goes.
Here are a few photos of the system.
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