Solar Hot Water Heating
When you consider the overall cost of heating water for your domestic use within your home, solar hot water heating becomes an interesting prospect.
Did you know that domestic hot water is the second most expensive energy cost in a residential home. If you consider using solar hot water heating, you could possibly save as much as 65% of your yearly energy costs.
Funny enough, this is one of the simplest forms of solar energy collection that you can perform. This can also be one of the cheapest. But I would recommend that you still consider the initial installation and maintenance costs and weight it against your potential long-term savings.
Click here for the DIY Solar Water Heater Guide
Let me offer you an example. I was pricing out a commercially available solar hot water heating system that contained a boiler that acted as a heat exchanger. The cost of the most expensive system was about $5,000 installed.
Right now, I’m spending about $70 per month heating hot water using two 40 gallon natural gas hot water heaters. If I was able to reduce my costs by one half, that would be a savings of $35 per month or $420 per year.
…my payback period would be 142 months …
If you consider the initial installation costs of $5,000, my payback period would be 142 months or about 12 years. So, for me, this system would not be practical unless I’m willing to wait out the 12 year payback period and then I’d begin to save $35 per month.
If the unit lasted another eight years, my payback would be about $3,300, not considering any repair or maintenance costs.
Now, for me, these figures just don’t excite me. But if I was running electrical hot water heaters, at the current rates of electricity right now, my payback period would all of a sudden be around seven years.
Now, this commercial solution is starting to look much better! This is the main reason I recommend checking out your particular situation before committing to a course of action.
I Began to Look at Alternative Solutions
I would still like to reduce my costs by installing a solar hot water heating system, so I began to look at alternative solutions.
To be honest, I’ve been looking pretty closely to a solution provided by the DIY Solar Water Heater ebook. They tout a solution that would cost me as little as $70 to build and install myself.
Now this is a more passive system then the commercial one I mentioned previously, but the low cost of this solution is definitely attractive.
Even considering a 10% savings per month, or $7 per month, it would pay for itself in little over a year, considering the cost of materials and the ebook as well!
This particular system consists of a bypass valve system to pass cold water entering the hot water heaters to the solar hot water heating box first. The water then moves from the solar heater to the hot water tank with the hope that the water would have elevated in temperature.
The author, Tom Hayden, claims that you should be able to save up to 1/3 from the energy bills. These savings are not as high as a commercial solution, but if you and I can save 33% from the a bill of $70 per month, then I would be savings of $23 per month.
I would be saving $276 per year!
By my calculations, I would have paid for this system in about 5 months! After the payback period, I would be saving $276 per year! That works out to one nice weekend getaway each and every year!
So, should you look into something like this? Really it’s up to you but for me, I’m definitely going to be building one of these solar hot water heating units and start saving up for a nice weekend getaway!
Click here for the DIY Solar Water Heater Guide
