There Is No Denying It – Solar Hot Water Works
I’ve just come back from closing out our latest solar hot water installation with a client in Durham and as always enjoyed seeing such a simple technology at work. At 9:30 this morning, their collectors were already at 90F on a fully overcast day, their 80 gallon solar tank had nicely stratified hot water, 114F at the bottom, 135F at the top, and everyone had taken their showers already.
In terms of technology and how it works, there are many advantages to solar heating for your water system over traditional water heating. Not the least of which are lower costs of operation, cleaner air and a cleaner conscience. With solar heating you can heat your water well beyond the temperature you need without an energy (cost) penalty thus storing the heat for later use. Because we are heating the water with a “free” source of energy (the sun) and we use anti-scald valves, we can safely store water at temperatures of 145F-150F through solar heating. This gives us back up heat for those days when we either have higher than normal demand or we have a long period of cloudy cold days.
With the power to their hot water tank turned off, they’ve told me their showers are just a little more enjoyable now that they know they haven’t burned any coal to warm it up.
