A home solar hot water system is a pretty simple concept. Our system uses two rooftop collector panels that heat a working fluid (like the antifreeze in your car). This hot fluid flows through coils inside the tank on the right. This tank’s job is to preheat the water before it flows into the water heater (on the left).
In the summer, we get 80 gallons of 140 degree water every day for the energy cost of about 1 kWh (the energy to run the small pump in the black & white box). In the winter, the tank is usually around 100 degrees when we get home from work.
The beauty of this system is that if the sun doesn’t shine for a day or two, the gas fired water heater will take over automatically.
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