Solar Hot Water

by Kitchen DIY

I just found this at a site that has specialty tips about solar hot water. It’s not bad: Are you looking for solutions for converting your home to provide you with solar hot water? Solar water is an easy thing to come by, if you know how to harness it.

There are several reasons you might be looking to harness solar hot water. Top reasons are:

#Actively heating air
#Passive space heating
#Generating space heat or cooling
#Heating a pool

Before trying any of the solar hot water projects out there, it is highly recommended that you perform a site survey to know just exactly how much solar hot water (or electricity) you can expect to reasonably get, knowing the area of the country you reside in and the solar patterns in your area. This assessment is just about an hour long, but will prove invaluable.

Methods of Generating Heat from Solar Hot Water
The two most popular , and as a result most common types of solar hot water producing machines are the flat-plate type of collector and the evacuated tube.

Flat Pate Collectors
Flat plate solar collectors aren’t as costly as the evacuated tube type, but more of them are needed for the same results.These collectors are simply plates, as their name suggests, much like a car’s radiator inside.

Evacuated Tube Collectors
Perhaps one of the easiest ways to generate solar hot water that is becoming more popular today is to use evacuated tubes (or “collectors”). These are fairly new , and are glass tubes, evacuated of all air (a vacuum is a poor insulator , and will allow heat to flow freely from the outside to the inside metal plates than if air were inside the tube ).

They contain small metal pipes that run from top to bottom of the tube with what are essentially heat fins attached. At about 6 feet long , they have connectors on their ends to connect to your house’s heat circulation system.
A “transfer fluid” that is usually alcohol is circulated in the tubes that can generate, in some areas, as much as 80% of a home’s heat. Since they are made of glass, they are semi-fragile when removed from their mounts, but once attached I have seen them withstand very harsh wind and even hail while not shattering.
Usually found together in groups of 10, these tubes are placed in a mount that, as shown in the picture here, can be affixed a few inches above a roof, or can be mounted directly to it.

The heat created by your solar tubes can be used mainly in one of two ways to achieve the payoff mentioned earlier:

1. Feeding the hot water produced back into a water heater. This greatly reduces the load on the heater, giving maximum efficiency and minimal load when the water heater is called on to do its job. This way, instead of heating incoming water from supply temperature (usually around 48 degrees Fahrenheit), it might only have to take the intake water from 100 degrees to 120, or perhaps not even heat it at all.
2. The heated water/glycol mix can then be circulated into tubes incorporated in a radiant in-floor heating system. This heats the floor of a house using simple copper tubing placed just below the flooring material itself. The difference this can make on a cold winter day is simply amazing.

Coincidentally, this may be a good time to mention that a water heater blanket (for sale at most building supply contractor houses) can save a lot of heat when wrapped around your heater. Head on over to the solar hot water section of this site for more info.

Buying Solar Water Heating

by solarkent

An increasingly popular investment is in fitting solar panels for water heating. Not a new technology and one that is widely used on the continent. After insulation, the most likley to show an actual return on investment, certainly if you are on oil like me!

You will most likely have had a few letters from solar water heating companies through your door, perhaps from smartenergy, simple solar and a whole host of others. Beware! Unfortunately the industry has attracted the same people who 20 years ago were selling double glazing, 10 years ago it was timeshares and they have just moved out of selling dodgy finacial deals into solar panels! Call one of these guys and you are in for a few hours of sales patter, sign now and we will knock off 30% etc etc.. Its just that at £8,000 or £10,000 or £12,000 even with the extra special discount, its still a con!

A decent solar water heating system should cost no more than £4,000 and possibly less. It will only heat a proportion of your hot water, it will not heat the house. Mine, which I have had for about 4 years, allows me to switch off my boiler between May through till September. In late Autumn, Winter and eraly Spring there is minimal overall heat generated.

How To Solar Power The Home In 4 Ways

For centuries we have used the sun’s natural energy to our advantage. For example, it has been used in ancient times to provide natural lighting in temples, for photosynthesis and natural heating for growing crops, to desalinize and purify water, and it has been magnified and intensified to heat thermal power plants.

So, how can solar power be used on a smaller scale at home as clean source of energy?

Basically, there are four main ways how to solar power your home:

Passive Solar Design:

To think that Americans consume up to 50% of their energy to heat, ventilate and air-condition their homes, a large amount of money and energy could be saved by using passive solar design at home.

Passive solar design is the strategic use of the sun’s energy to heat, light and ventilate your home naturally. For example, having a home that faces the sun, that has large, low-emissivity windows, and that is built from heat-retaining materials will tend to be naturally warmer in winter.

And like the Romans used the sun to light up their temples, careful placing of windows and mirrors in our homes can increase natural lighting, helping us reduce the need for electric lighting.

A natural air conditioning solution would be to plant deciduous trees on the sun-facing side of your home. This would provide cool shade in summer, but allow warm sunlight though in winter.

A solar chimney can be installed for ventilation, where the air in the chimney is heated by the sun and rises, causing fresh, cool air to rush in through the home and up the chimney.

Solar Cooking:

Solar cooking is the cleanest and cheapest way to prepare food. Although it is widely used in third world African countries, where fuel and electricity is not readily available, there is no reason we cannot use it during summer at home.

A solar cooker is made from a series of reflective panels in a parabolic shape that focus the sunlight on a box or pot, in which the food is cooked. It usually caters for up to five people, and can make a variety of boiled, roasted and baked dishes.

The one drawback of solar cooking is that it tends to take three to four times longer to cook food in. But if you weigh that against the unlimited power savings and its portability, having a little patience is not that bigger deal.

Solar Water Heating:

Solar water heating has a number of uses, and thanks to technological developments, modern solar water heating systems can be used at home to completely replace conventional boilers or geysers.

As cold water is pumped through a solar collector, the pipes absorb the sun’s energy, and heat the water, which is then stored in an insulated tank for later use. Usually the water can get so hot that it has to be mixed with cold water before it can be used.

Solar Electric Power:

Also known as photovoltaic power, many homes are starting to make their own power at home with solar electric panels. These panels are made up of small silicon cells and need to be directly aimed at the sun to be most effective.

As the sun’s rays penetrate the solar panels, electrons in the cells become charged, creating a current that is stored in deep-cycle batteries. When electricity is needed, the stored power is passed through an inverter to change the DC to AC, which can then be used to power various household appliances or connected to the grid for net metering.

Other than providing you cheap, clean renewable power, solar electric panels have become affordable and simple enough for anyone to install at home. In fact, with the right information it is possible to make your own solar power for under $200, as compared to getting a professional installation for a couple of thousand dollars.

With these four ways on how to solar power your home, there is no need for you to rely on the utility companies or the government for heating and lighting at home. Right now it is very possible for us to use solar power at home. It is just a matter of everyone having the determination, energy consciousness and environmental awareness to take action and harness the sun’s free, natural power.

Build an Intregal Passive Solar Water Heater

The name may be a tongue twister, but an IPSWH is a snap to build, install and use.

by David Bainbridge

The author's "test-bed" a tilted, three-tank IPSWH, provided his family with 70% of their total hot-water needs during a full year of monitoring.



For the do-it-yourselfer searching for an inexpensive, easy-to-build solar water-heating system, the integral passive solar water heater (IPSWH, pronounced ipswah ) is a dream come true. All you need to get going on this down-to-earth water warmer is a discarded electric water heater tank rescued from the local dump, a homemade plywood box to house it in, a can of flat black paint, a sheet or two of used window glass or clear plastic, a few common plumbing fittings and some pipe and insulation. Combine all that with some spare hours of satisfying sawing, hammering and wrench-turning, and you'll have an ongoing supply of hot water provided virtually free from that friendly furnace in the sky.

But before we get into the nitty-gritty of integral passive solar water heaters, let's run through a quick review of the basics of solar heating for those who may be new recruits to this wonderful world of free energy.

We'll be discussing solar collection systems for heating purposes — not for charging photoelectric cells or for other power applications — and there are only two basic types: active and passive. The essential difference between them is the use of external power: While active solar heating systems employ fans or heat pumps to circulate the Btu they gather, passive setups don't. As their name defines them, integral passive solar water heaters work on the latter principle, and that lack of power dependency and resultant energy savings is one of the IPSWH's greatest selling points.

Passive solar heaters can be subdivided into two classes: units in which the functions of heat collection and storage are separate, known as thermosiphon flat-plate systems, and arrangements that combine collection and storage into one integrated unit, namely, integral passive solar water heaters.

Since the flat-plate passive solar water heater is the predominant type in use today, most folks think of such collectors as being the best available for solar water heating. But in fact, for many uses, especially owner-built applications, IPSWH's outshine their flat-plate competition in almost every way — including ease and economy of installation, reliability and higher resistance to freezing.
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HOW IPSWH'S WORK

The design of all IPSWH's is based on a tank (or a series of tanks) painted flat black to absorb heat from the sun and then transfer the tapped Btu to the water stored within. IPSWH's are sometimes called batch heaters, because the heart of the system is the "batch" of water stored in the tank(s). To increase heat collection and reduce heat loss, a combination collection/storage tank is enclosed in an insulated box covered on the south-facing side and top with a glazing material, usually glass or molded plastic.

The standard IPSWH brings cold water into a solar collection tank through an inlet near the bottom (or through a dip tube that enters the tank at the top and discharges unheated water near the bottom), heats it, then moves it along to a backup heater — which can be powered by gas, electricity or wood — through an outlet near the top. This system uses waterline pressure for circulation, eliminating the need for expensive pumps and/or controls. During the summer months, or where it is warm and sunny year-round, the backup heater can often be turned off or bypassed entirely, with the IPSWH providing for all of your hot water needs.

Incidentally, for those of you who may be looking for solar-related business opportunities, IPSWH's have excellent potential for mass marketing/installation in tract housing areas, plus a growing array of commercial applications.