Getting your new or existing house project producing its own solar hot water is a great task to accomplish . You’re going to love the savings you’ll achieve on your utility bill.
Let’s look at some tips for preparing for a new solar hot water system.
One of the things we often recommend to clients when considering a solar hot water system (or anyother renewable energy technology for that matter) is that they should thouroughly asses what kind of energy losses are currently present in their development first. The importance of this step cannot be underestimated. There is a litter common sense to this , since how well a home is constructed from the standpoint of its thermal insulation effectiveness will decide how much of the heat you create will get lost under the door or between the window panes .
Yet another point of contention in your quest to contain the solar hot water heat you generate is that the colder your climate, the obviously harder your system will work to keep things warm. A house in New York will do a little worse as one in Arizona , but enough of that. (Hey, you’d be surprised how many people this sort of simple concept slips by…more on that later).
Now for a discusion that is a little more scientific. Temperature and heat energy are not the same . The reason we’re examining this is because the magnitude (in capacity terms) of the system you install always plays a teetering act between the energy use of your home and the energy available in the environment in which it sits . Ever attempt as a kid to boil a cup of water with nothing but sunlight ]? It is completely within reach. The 2 factors just mentioned would be reflected in that simple system by 1) the size of the cup and 2) the heat available and temperature of the air that day.
The terms used to describe a solar hot water storage system can be confusing. It all “boils down” to a technical term – specific heat, which is just the ability of a substance to store heat. More in-depth, it is the amount of heat needed to increase the temperature of a specific amount of some substance by an exact amount. The units used to express this measurement are either:
1) 1 BTU / lb / degree Fahrenheit
(notice the units: heat / weight / temperature) or:
2) 1 Calorie / gram / degree Celcius
Using the first measurement as an example, this means that for every pound of water in your solar hot water heating system, when it gets heated by 1 degree F, it now holds 1 BTU of thermal energy.
Take note of the change between tyring to lift the temperature of a setup with 600 lbs of water vs 5,000 . It will require many more BTUs of heat energy to raise the temperature to the same reading in Fahrenheit . This leads to another obvious conclusion: the bigger the system, the bigger the amount of heat energy that will be taken to lift the temperature.
The only one really qualified to asses a home properly for its energy efficiency is a heating contractor or home energy auditor. Keep looking for ways to save energy, and your solar hot water system will be up and running in no time.
