In fact, solar water heaters can lead to greater savings at home or in your organization. Solar energy is found in abundance. It is also free. Thus the initial investment quickly pays for itself and yields significant long-term savings. This is because a large proportion of electricity that was used for heating is no longer needed.

In addition to cost savings, solar water heaters can reduce your carbon footprint. Conventional water heaters use electricity generated from power stations. These installations burn fossil fuel or use nuclear radiation to produce electricity. This results in pollution in one form or another.

Before you decide to buy and install a solar water heating system in your home or workplace, you should check the Solar Radiation Resource Map. You need to know the solar radiation intensity at your installation site through different months of the year. With this, you can calculate the size of your solar collector and plan its orientation.

To get maximum efficiency from your solar water heater, you have to place it at an unshaded location. The solar collector should also be tilted toward the solar path. At noon, the collector should face the sun squarely. Through the season, solar path changes. Thus it is advisable to adjust the panel’s tilt angle and orientation in order to maintain maximum efficiency.

You have a choice between 2 kinds of solar water heaters: passive solar water heaters and active solar water heaters. There are advantages and disadvantages inherent in each system. You contractor should be able to show you the difference and recommend suitable system for you, according to your specific needs.

When you choose a solar energy panel, you should also consider important factors like system costs, local codes, covenants and regulations.

Before you purchase your solar water heater, it’s advisable to check its certification with the Solar Rating & Certification Corporation. This is a non-profit organization that provides performance ratings and certifications for solar thermal products. You should also check the warranty period and coverage.

Finally ask the contractor if the manufacturer is easily accessible. Find out whether parts are freely available. These guidelines will help ensure you pick the right solar thermal product for your need.

Continue Reading:

1. Installing Solar Water Heaters
2. What Are Solar Heaters, How They Work And What They Are Used For
3. The Importance Of Heat Transfer In Solar Water Heaters

If you’re living in the northern hemisphere, your solar collectors should be tilted southward. The tilt angle is 15 degrees plus the latitude of the installation site. This is the ideal configuration that allows you to collect maximum sunlight all year round. For example, Arizona has latitude of 33 degrees. Therefore the tilt angle of your panel should be 48 degrees in order for it to harness maximum energy.

But many homeowners choose to conform the tilt angle to the inclination of their roof. They are concerned about the aesthetics of the installation. Although we will not achieve an optimized configuration in an engineering point of view, such setup serves the user’s needs and wants after all.

Fortunately, solar collectors with tilt variations that fall within 20 degrees (either direction) will not suffer serious loss. In fact, tilting them some 15 degrees northward from its optimum angle can have its advantages. During summer, water will not overheat and during winter more hot water is produced.

Similarly, tilting your heat collectors southward (away from the optimum tilt angle) can result in more overheating during summer and less hot water during winter. Ideally, the tilt angle can be adjusted according to the seasons. But the hardware required to implement this setup may end up as an ugly structure of metal and joints that displease homeowners. There will also be more moving parts to be maintained.

When orientating your heat collectors, you should ideally point them to true south. As compared to photovoltaic panels, heat collectors are more forgiving. Orientations of 15 degrees off true south still enable solar collectors to receive most of the solar energy. Beyond this tolerance, the effectiveness of the heat collector decays quickly.

You may often be forced to make a choice between an east-biased or west-biased orientation away from true south. Perfect orientations tend to be impractical at times. If you’re in this fix, choose the west so heat collectors can be exposed to more heat as a result of higher ambient temperatures in the afternoons.

As you line up your compass to find true south, remember that it is pointing to magnetic south instead. Corrections must be made to locate the optimum orientation. To do this, you need to compensate for the magnetic declination of your site.

Finally, as you are evaluating the installation site, remember that shadows cause your heat collectors to be drastically less efficient. Although solar water heaters are not as sensitive to shading, it is good to place them in an open, unobstructed location from 9am to 3pm so they can be exposed to the maximum amount of sunshine during this critical period. Using a standard shade analysis tool like a solar pathfinder, you can make it easier for yourself to evaluate the shading condition of your location.

Continue Reading:

1. Solar Panel Efficiency
2. What Are Solar Heaters, How They Work And What They Are Used For
3. What You Need to Know about Solar Water Heaters

Instead of wasting energy trying to keep your pool warm, you can make use of solar energy, which can be found abundantly.

You can buy solar collectors from retailers, use a solar pool cover or make your own solar collectors. Either of these works well.

Here, we’ll show you how to make a simple homemade solar collector that can harness energy from the sun.

What you’ll need is as follows:

1. Submersible pump
2. Solar (PV) panel
3. Black PVC pipe
4. Rubber hose
5. Wooden frame
6. Black paint

You can place your solar pool heater on your rooftop or beside your swimming pool.

If you place your solar collector on your roof, you need to make sure there is enough structural support so your roof doesn’t collapse. You’ll also need to make sure your submersible pump has enough head pressure to transport water all the way to where your solar collector is positioned.

For maximum efficiency, you need to tilt your solar collector southward. As long as there is no shading, it can also be tilted toward southeast or southwest  (up to 45 degrees) without serious performance degradation.

Having chosen a location, you can now determine how big your solar collector must be. This depends on the size of your pool. For the sake of simplicity, you can build your first panel and see if it serves you well. If it isn’t sufficient to heat up your pool, just build another one.

First, you’ll need a frame or a board to hold the PVC pipes in place. This is for good organization…

Next, snake the PVC pipes on the inside surface of the frame by using u-joints. When this is done, cover every inch of the PVC pipe surface with black paint. This will ensure maximum solar energy absorption. With this, more heat can then be transferred to the water flowing through it.

To increase the efficiency of solar collectors, you may want to cover the frame with a piece of glass. This prevents heat loss through natural convection as wind blows over it.

In some areas, freezing may occur at night and during cold seasons. So it’ll probably be good to have a drain valve to empty the water inside the PVC pipes. This prevents damage.

After the solar collector is completed, you will have to cut the flexible hose to appropriate lengths and connect them between the submersible pump and solar collector.

Finally, hook up the 12-volt PV panel to the submersible pump to get the solar pool heater working. For this application, we’ll not need rechargeable batteries since the pool heater cannot work when there is insufficient sunlight.

Notes:

• To prevent evaporative heat loss, you can use a pool cover or a solar pool cover. They are affordable and will help you conserve a lot of energy.

• Solar pool heaters, even homemade ones, can last for more than a decade with proper care. To maintain it, drain the pipes when not in use so they do not burst due to freezing. This prevents algae and bacteria growth too.

Continue Reading:

1. Pool Solar Panels
2. What Are Solar Heaters, How They Work And What They Are Used For
3. 7 Different Ways of Using Solar Energy At Home and In Your Office