photo credit: Andreas Kollegger
How to Use Home Solar Power to Heat Your Water
One of the things you will discover as you are converting your main power source to home solar power, is that your appliances will need some adjustments in order to contain the power source. One of these appliances has to do with keeping your shower nice and warm.
When using home solar power to heat your water, it may become necessary to purchase a solar powered water heater to do just that. However, it is possible that you may just need to make a few adjustments to your existing system.
Believe it or not, there is more than one way to heat your water with home solar power, including creating your own home solar power source.
Before entering your home, the water runs through the pipes. When heating the water with home solar power, it is heated by passing through a solar source that attracted light. It is also possible to have a tank in which to store the water, and in which the water can heat up. For this to happen successfully you will need both a solar collector as well as a storage tank.
The most common collector is a flat plate collector. Designed to be a thin, flat rectangular box with a see through lid, it is able to carry the fluid to be heated. The fluid could be water, or even antifreeze used to keep the water from freezing.
After being in the solar collector, it will move through tubes into an absorber plate. Painted black, the plate is designed to attract and then absorb heat from the sun. After the collector is hot, it heats the fluid passing through the tubes. From the tubes, it then goes into the storage tank, which holds the heated water. It is best to insulate the tank in order for the water to stay heated for a longer period of time.
At this point, the water flows home on demand, and you have home solar power heated water.
The solar water heating systems are either active or passive. When it is active, it means it will rely on pumps or another mechanical device that will move the water between the flat plate collector and storage tank. The active system is the most popular, because it is quicker and more efficient. We all like that!
The passive system will rely on gravity to feed water from the flat plate collector into the storage tank. This will often cause it to be slow, making it difficult to keep up with the demand. You must also be sure that the flat plat collector and storage tank are angled properly in order for the gravity to feed the water through.
Either system is a great choice – it just depends on your preference.
To heat your water using home solar power is not only very possible to do with minimal effort, but it is also cost effective. We can see how choosing to implement this will not only help to preserve the environment and save you money, but we can also see how it is a great way to choose beginning your home solar power journey.
Until next time,
Let the sunshine in!
Lauren
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Thanks for the post. I now understand the options that I have available to me when it comes to heating the water in my house.
Hi
Interesting that you can have a passive system. I was not aware that you could have that type of solar water heating system
Thanks
Ken
Hi, thanks for the great post on solar water heating systems. I have been researching my options on this subject and your site if very helpful.
Thank you for all of your information on solar energy. It has been very helpful. I need to research a lot more and look forward to reading additional info on your site!