Free hot water with a solar water heater

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Zasso Nouka
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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Is it an evacuated tube type system CYEK ? Given the price of gas these days you can make a substantial saving by fitting a solar water heater it seems like every house should have one, what ever type is used.

We get temperatures down to around -12 here in January and February so should be fine if it has plenty of insulation on the tank.

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by CYEK »

Evacuated tube type yes. Now Ive just finished cleaning, applying sealer and painting the roof. If I take it down now I got more paining etc to do. :roll:

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Given how much you'd be saving per month buying a new one (with stand) for the other house might be an option ? You get a fair bit of snow up there don't you ? Mounting it on the ground would make clearing snow much easier than putting it up on the roof. Because the tubes are so well insulated snow takes a while to melt from them.

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by DRogers »

Is it really that easy to fit a solar water heater ?

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by CYEK »

DR, hope so.

ZN, A fair bit of snow is an understatement. Mind you most of my Canadian friends tell me its only a light sprinkle. They are getting revenge for all my WHAT DO YOU MEAN ITS HOT YOU WOOSE. iTS ONLY 30c. Have thought of swapping the boilers around and putting the Toyu up north and bring the gas down south and have both connected to solar.

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by Zasso Nouka »

DRogers wrote:Is it really that easy to fit a solar water heater ?
If you've ever run any pipework you'll find it a doddle and putting the thing together is really easy. There are fairly easy piping diagrams on MMC's website to follow so you shouldn't have any difficulty.

@CYEK

So long as you get plenty of sun during the winter it would be worthwhile fitting one up north. Setting one up at ground level means you can run most of the piping underground so there's less risk of any of the pipes freezing during winter. It's also a whole lot easier than scrambling around on a roof trying to get the thing assembled and connected up.

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by DRogers »

Thank you ZN. I've run copper pipping for water so hopefully won't have too many problems but it is nice to know it's possible to fit these things yourself.

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Even though it's seriously freezing outside the solar water heater is still managing to get up to 65C

Image

Which is more than enough to fill the bath without the boiler having to fire up.

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by poorsage »

Do any of you who have solar thermal, or electric panels, live in cloudy in winter areas of Japan.
I’m in Niigata and we have a lot of cloud in winter. Few blue sky days here, nothing like the clear sky’s in Tokyo during winter.
Anyway, if so, how well do the systems work in our cloudy winters?

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Re: Free hot water with a solar water heater

Post by Zasso Nouka »

On cloudy winter days here we get almost no power from our solar panels nor any heat from the OM Solar type roof and our water heater tank maybe increases by just a couple of degrees so if you have a lot of cloudy weather in winter it might not work well for you then. It would still get heat the rest of the year but the time it would take to recoup your outlay would obviously be increased.

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