When you install a solar hot water system, you do not need to sacrifice your family’s convenience by sacrificing storage space. Such a solar system is mainly made to connect to either an oil or gas hot water heater, or conventional electrical water heaters as well. With solar hot water heaters, DIY or otherwise, you still need to install the solar panels on suitable locations that can generously capture direct sunlight for energy. The solar cells or photovoltaic panels are also known as solar panels or solar cells. These solar cells convert solar energy into electricity using photovoltaic.
DIY solar hot water systems are also available in kit form that can be assembled at home. If you are considering this kind of system, you need to firstly plan and list out the necessary things needed to build it. The solar cells or photovoltaic panels are then to be placed onto the frame that is made from aluminum or tin. The final product would consist of copper pipes that are laid in various orientations. All the wiring connections should then be fixed onto the copper tubes. When you consider building a diy solar hot water system, you need to remember that these systems do not function at night.
DIY solar heaters have many advantages over conventional electricity based heating equipments. The most important advantage is that this kind of heating system reduces your overall energy consumption since the solar heaters do not operate on electricity. This means that your electric bill will go down considerably. With such an arrangement, it would make it easy for you to reduce or eliminate your power consumption.
Another advantage of such solar hot water systems is that they are highly effective. You would not need to have a huge solar collector system to heat water. Just a small flat plate collector would do. And since the heat from the collector plate is then converted into solar energy, the heat that is generated is again used to heat water. This means that even a small solar collector system can provide good results.
There are several disadvantages of using solar heaters however. One is that the setup process can be rather difficult. With such a solar heater, it is quite necessary that the water tank is placed in an area where the sun’s rays can receive it. In case the tank is not placed in an open space, the temperature would remain static. This would mean that the water heater would require frequent re-heating during the winter months.
Another drawback of DIY solar hot water systems is that they are more expensive than the conventional hot water systems. This is because a solar collector and solar water tank requires more materials to install than the conventional system. And this type of system does not use the same types of energy to generate heat like the conventional system does.
With this said, it is a great idea if you can implement a solar system into your home. Even if the upfront cost may be higher than a conventional water heating system, the long term savings on energy costs are significantly more. This is because you will no longer need to pay for expensive energy bills.
The cost of construction is relatively high compared to other forms of energy production. But if you can make do with less expensive materials, the cost of the DIY solar water heater should be well worth it. A solar collector and solar water tank is very simple to build. If you are interested in doing this on your own, then you can find a lot of useful information on the internet. You may even choose to purchase a kit to get the process started faster.
