Does anybody have a Solar Hot Water setup - for home????

[hammersley]

Wonder about your thoughts????

 

[testraub]

Back in Japan, I helped the owner of a place we were staying at the beach to make one that did work. Rube Goldberg would have been proud. Used an old rowboat, pexiglass and a toilet float. I'm sure they work, but I'll stick with my "on-demand" water heaters. Never run out of hot water.

 

[JMetzger]

I use to have a Dynasty solar unit but they went out of business & the tank sprung a leak & couldn't parts & had to remove it. It really worked great & never ran out of hot water.

 

[JFaughn]

I've installeed a few systems , mostly for pool heating , have worked with a lot of alt. stuff , infloor heat aided by solar , gethermo .
I use solar electric panels .
Do you have any specific issues ???

 

[hammersley]

Wondering about their actual use by folks who have them...

How do you use the solar panels, i. e. for an RV, powering a light, net metering or ????

 

[JFaughn]

Its more complicated than can be told here in enough detail so that you can just go do it , but I'll give kind of a outline .
If your looking for any amount of power , and when the sun is gone , the pannels are a power source for charging a battery bank , and all componants have to be sized against your consumtion , then you should have a charge controler -some have metering so see whats going on & can be hooked up to long term monitering .
Then if you want AC power you'll need an inverter to convert 12v DC to 120v AC , that has to be size also , for an RV you do not have enough roof space to use large loads [ AC , mico wave , fans ] on a long term bacis .
You can get like a parts kit to install - but your going to pay a preimeum for there deisighn & mark up , if you have the time to learn then you can save a lot .
Start with Home Power mag. , then you should be able to get enough info to build yourself & find good deals .

Home Power Magazine - Your Small Scale Renewable Energy (RE) Source

 

[DieselTim]

solar water heat panels

check out this site for info on solar heat panels



http://kingsolar.com/

 

[Mel Swanson]

Try this lay out

Wonder about your thoughts????

http://www.klenger.net/arctic-fox/solar/index.html

Oh, you just wanted hot water. Klenger's drawing is for electrical. I had just about the same solar set-up. It worked great and worth the investment.

 

[RAlberg]

I use a solar panel on a slide in camper. We primarily dry camp. It was a very worthwhile improvement in my case.

 

[oldcrow]

Solar Heat

I installed a solar hot air system in late 1980. It consisted of four hot air panels 4x12 and a air handler for storage and hot water. The system worked great for about 13 years and by then the plastic material on the panels clouded up and reduced the amount of sun that could pass through.

The system worked by drawing cold air out of the basement floor and moving it through the panels and back into the house in a 10 inch duct to the air handler. The air handler decided if the house needed heat or to put it in storage for later,the storage consisted of a insulated ply wood box holding about 10 ton of washed gravel. The hot air went directly into the out duct work of the furnace to the house. The air coming into the air handler passed through a radiator that heated the hot water also. The system had a few more ducts that would open and close at different times when it was a cloudy day. The best thing about the system was there were no liquid to leak out and only a little air.

 

[LarryWard]

Freon charged hot water solar

In early 80's our construction company used freon charged units made down in Glendale, Ca. Solarmagic was their name, eventually went bkrpt but we like the trouble free performance. No sticking draindown valves (needed for freezing protection) problems that could bust up your water lines. No electrical pumps needed for circulation. Mine works fine after 26 years. R22 charges system and should only need recharge if leak occurs. Perhaps they have other refrigerants in use now.



Later company In Nevada City, Ca. made smaller versions that were easier to handle up to a roof. Mine needed a light crane. It consisted of a 4 x 8 glass covered black coated copper collector that contained liquid freon during night cool down. Daytime sunlight heated freon into hot gas that moved upward via 3/4" copper tubing (150' or so) into a 70 g. static water tank of copper acting as a storage heat sink. Another lengthy copper line had the pressured cold water line coiled into same water tank picking up heat from storage hot water. An effective heat exchanger. It came with an adapter set of valves all assembled to hooked up ahead of water heater permitting one three choices, total solar only to your house, solar backup to water heater or no solar. The 70 g copper water tank is encapsulated totally in thick foam and that has a metal protective cover. Suprisingly the static water storage has very little need to be replenished even after several years. It has a small vent to atmosphere. It is clearly a better choice in cold climates subject to freezing. So troublefree. I should remove the glass and clean it from a bit of liming that is beginning to fog it. They used a schrader valve for freon access. No moving parts just hot moving freon gas making its rounds to the water storage then back to the collector.