Go Solar for Free Hot Water

(Page 5 of 6)

February/March 2007
By Bob Ramlow 
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Closed-loop and drainback systems should always have a separate storage tank for solar-heated water and a backup water heater. The same tank can’t do both jobs efficiently. Typically, the output of the storage tank runs to the input of the backup heater. When solar output is sufficient, the backup heater doesn’t come on.

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Collectively Speaking

There are two popular kinds of solar collectors, flat-plate and evacuated-tube. Flat-plate collectors are by far the most popular kind of collector and work well in all climates. They have been around the longest and are efficient and competitively priced. They are shallow rectangular boxes with glazed tops and insulated backs and sides. An absorber plate inside gathers solar heat and transfers it to a network of copper tubing, through which the solar fluid flows. They are the only collector that sheds snow and frost well. They also operate precisely within the temperature range needed to heat domestic water — below zero to about 180 degrees — and rarely overheat.

Evacuated-tube collectors from different manufacturers vary significantly, but all use rows of glass tubes, each containing a heat absorber. A vacuum sealed inside the tubes insulates the absorbers. These collectors overheat more readily than flat-plate collectors, so care must be taken never to oversize the collector array or undersize the storage tank. They tend to cost more than flat-plate collectors for equivalent heating capacity, but prices for high-quality evacuated-tube collectors are falling. They also are more fragile than flat-plate collectors and don’t shed snow or frost well. On the other hand, they work well when there is a consistent year-round, daily load on the system. In addition, they’re less susceptible to the forces of wind, because there are spaces between the tubes, unlike the large closed surface of a flat-plate collector.

Solar water heaters can last 40 years or more if the design is appropriate to the climate and the system incorporates high-quality materials and workmanship. Investing in a solar energy system could even be considered patriotic, because solar keeps our energy dollars at home and reduces our dependency on others. You will spend a certain amount of money to heat water in any case, so why not choose to do it with solar energy? Your pocketbook, and the environment, will appreciate it.

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