Solar Hot Water


To continue reducing the amount of fossil fuels we consume in our home / office, we decided to install a solar hot water system so that we wouldn't have to operate our oil-fired hot water furnace through the summer just to make hot water.  The system designed by Feucht Solar Services is a drainback system.  This assures that the distilled water in the collectors never freezes but without having to charge the system with glycol-based anti-freeze.  Water is pumped up to the flat plate collector panels when the collector temperature is 20 degrees warmer that the temperature at the bottom of the storage tank.  There is a backup electric heating element in the hot water storage tank, but during the summer, we can keep it turned off and get virtually free hot water.  Only minimal electrical energy is used to run the circulating pumps.  We'll see how the system performs through the first winter.