Jay H
Senior HTF Member
In my ever looming home purchase, I'm considering taking my first step into green-ness by putting in a Solar DHW (domestic hot water) system. I'd love to go full electric via solar panels but it's too expensive for me at this moment and as my house is gas, isn't as cost effective, but somewhere down the line, would love to install a solar collector, inverters and some kind of switch for regular home use and only use the grid as backup.
Anyway, back on subject, has anybody here have any XP in Solar DHW, which I think is a good first step for me? I have a fairly new gas basic 40g water heater in the house I am about to purchase and one of my near-long term goals would be to install a solar heater system. Has anybody done this as a DIY project? I am currently reading up on the two different systems commonly in practice. One uses heat exchanger with glycol connected to a solar panel sized to meet your requirements, and another seems to basically use copper piping to pump water up to the panel and gravity back down to the expansion and storage tank.
If anybody has done this work themselves or bought a kit or even hired an installer, how is it working out? Any problems in winter so far, how much was it, etc?
Thanks,
Jay
Anyway, back on subject, has anybody here have any XP in Solar DHW, which I think is a good first step for me? I have a fairly new gas basic 40g water heater in the house I am about to purchase and one of my near-long term goals would be to install a solar heater system. Has anybody done this as a DIY project? I am currently reading up on the two different systems commonly in practice. One uses heat exchanger with glycol connected to a solar panel sized to meet your requirements, and another seems to basically use copper piping to pump water up to the panel and gravity back down to the expansion and storage tank.
If anybody has done this work themselves or bought a kit or even hired an installer, how is it working out? Any problems in winter so far, how much was it, etc?
Thanks,
Jay