Monday, June 1, 2009

Integral Passive Water Heater Solutions

Heating up water and your home is expensive. 
Using a Passive Solar Water Heater can save money by pre heating the water for yoru traditional water heater or even heat enough to forgoe a water heater all together. 
It depends on yrou location, solar access, and what you want to do with the heated water. 

There are many type of designs that can be used to heat the water. 

There are two basic categories of active solar water heating systems - direct or open loop systems and indirect or closed loop systems



For a few hundred dollars and a weekend of labor, you can build one of these solar water heaters.  It will pay back its initial cost in a year or two.   One of these water heaters can save about 4000 KWH in a year. 

http://builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/ISPWH/IPSWH.pdf
Written by David Bainbridge

Here is a basic overview of the passive solar systems. http://www.greenbuilder.com/sourcebook/HeatCool.html

A unique way to heat your home is to have a radiant heating system under the floor using a passive solar heater. The solar heated water is pumped through distribution piping located in the floor of the home. Lower temperatures are used in this type of system (the slab is not heated above 80 degrees in most cases). The auxiliary heat can be connected in series with the solar system's heated output water or it can be connected to the solar tank to provide a minimum temperature.

A passive solar water heating system uses household water pressure to circulate water through a solar collector to a storage tank or to the point of use. Active systems employ pumps and controllers to regulate and circulate water. Although passive system are generally less efficient than active systems, the passive approach is simple and economical.

Passive water heating systems must follow the same parameters for installations as active systems - south facing unshaded location with the collector tilted at the angle to achieve maximum sun from 9 am to 4 pm.  Since the storage tank and collector are together, roof structural capacities must accommodate the extra weight which can be 300 pounds or more.

Here is a cheap 500 dollar Kit increating your own batch Water Heater Kit. 

0 gallon glass lined steel tank covered by our 1-1/2" thick Sun-Lite® solar collector cover panel. The kit is designed to pre-heat water going to your conventional water heater or in southern climates could supply all your hot water. This kit provides an excellent dollar per BTU ratio!





No comments:

Post a Comment