Hot Water for Your Home with Solar Panels

Posted under solar power by Graham Greene

If you think the cost of making the switch to solar power is too cost prohibitive then you might not have realized that you need not necessarily have to solar power your complete house. How about just a basic system for heating your water? You can construct your own solar water heating panels just to provide your house with inexpensive hot water. A sun-powered water heating system is made up of solar cells and a tank for holding the heated water. Depending on the climate a solar hot water system can cut back the cost of heating water by almost 85%.

There are two categories of residential solar water-heating systems. They can be passive or active. The major difference is that an active system will also contain a pump to distribute the heated water. The water in the tank will be heated by the DIY sun-powered heating panels. However if there is insufficient sunlight mains electricity is normally used if the water temperature drops below a minimum setting. Hot water is thus available all around the clock.

To start to build a solar heating system you would build a solar collector which is made from your solar water heating panels. Water will flow through the collector where it is heated. In the case of an active system the water will be pumped through the collector otherwise it will flow through natural convection (passive system).

Solar water heating panels are easy to make. The collector is an insulated box that's covered in glass that has got a sheet metal solar absorber that's attached to black painted copper pipes. A parabolic mirror can also be used to concentrate the sunlight before it is soaked up. The heated water will then flow back to a collection tank where it is ready to be make use of by the household.

It is important to bear in mind that in times of extended sunshine the water can reach very high temperatures and thus steam pressure will build up. A carefully designed system will allow the pressure to be released or excess heat to be soaked up through a heat dump.

With the widespread popularity of DIY, ecological concerns and escalating electricity prices, many people have been building their own DIY sun-powered water heating panels. These can either be made from scratch using designs and materials in discussed in this Green DIY Energy review. It's also feasible to buy kits that contain all of the elements you need and are easily installed. DIY sun-powered heating panels are much less expensive to supply than generally available ones. The installation costs of a commercial system are often quite costly and this cost can be avoided if you do it yourself. The plumbing and electrical installation is commonly easy and can be done without the help of a plumber or electrician.

You can visit the authors website for more information on DIY solar hot water panels and how to build your own wind turbine.