Dec
06
Solar Home Heating
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Heat your house with solar thermal (hot water) collectors. You can buy them, I made my own. 1 square foot of collector heats 1 1/2 US gallons of water 40 degrees farenheit in Pennsylvania, USA in winter. The more collectors you put up the more water volume you can heat. Most people use one of these collectors for domestic hot water, showers, etc. I used mine to heat my house. Of course insulate well first, then see if you can use this. You’ll need to add radiant floor heat system to get heat out of tank. It all cost about $2000 in materials, 3 x 4′ x 10′ collectors, tank, fittings, pipe, differential thermostat, pump, insulation, collector box, etc. tonyfixit.
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9 Comments
December 6th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
ok 3 gallons in the collactor at a time how many gallons per min and how hot does it get and why is your tank so big? looks good i want to do somthing like this looking for all the info i can get
the cheap guy
December 6th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
ok 3 gallons in the collactor at a time how many gallons per min and how hot does it get and why is your tank so big? looks good i want to do somthing like this looking for al the info i can get
the cheap guy
December 6th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Go for it Tony. looks like you had some fun building your own solar hot water heating system.
John
December 6th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
I converted my home to a net-zero solar powered home….check out the videos about it on my channel….
December 6th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Most impressive, I am in the stages of something like this. I will be using a “can heater” panel(s) with a fan to drive the air across 2 new car radiators and a thermal siphon to my water tank for domestic hot water via a coil heat exchanger. Any waste heat will go to heating my home, the rest in summer will be expelled out side. I insulated my entire basement including the floors with extruded polystyrene.
My current winter gas & electric is $150 for winter and 2 people 1200 sq ft home +basemnt
December 6th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Instead of the radiant floor heat idea, I cut a vent thru the floor to let the heat rise passively, I’m trying to use less power. Power down, that’s our new direction. Before doing any of this first insulate, then insulate, then insulate again, then see what your heat bill is.
December 6th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
this is exactly what i was thinking of doing. i was wondering how it’s working for you so far this year. Also how big your house is. very nice job. i also live in PA.
December 6th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Thanks for comment. My monthly gas bill for summer is $25, that’s for hot water and cooking. It’s hard to justify the large cost of the type of domestic hot water heater that can accept heat from my collectors. Maybe if someone with 4 teenagers moves in, they’ll do it!
December 6th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Nice job! A shame not to use unit during summer for domestic hot water.