Solar thermal panels are used for heating hot water which in turn can be used to heat your house, water for washing and showering and is a very green way of heating your swimming pool.

Most solar heating systems are used to heat water for washing and showering. The way the system is typically designed and installed is to have an array of solar collector panels on the roof of your home. These are then connected to a hot water tank and a fluid is circulated around the solar panels and the hot water tank. As the fluid passes through the panels, the suns energy heats the fluid up to a high temperature. However, the fluid that is circulated through your solar panels is used to heat the water in your hot water tank, it is not used for washing and showering.

These are not passive systems. They will have sensors to detect when the sun is hot enough to heat the fluid and will then start the pump working.

How Does the Fluid Heat the Water in the Hot Water Tank?

Inside your hot water tank is a copper pipe which is made into a coil so that you get a greater surface area in which to transfer the heated fluid in the copper pipe to the water stored in the tank.

This coiled copper pipe has an inlet at the bottom of the tank and an out let at the top. The solar panel outlet pipe is connected to the inlet on the tank and the outlet pipe of the tank is connected to the inlet of the solar panel.

What If the Solar Panel Does Not Generate Enough Hot Water?

If the solar panels, be it flat plate or evacuated tube type, do not heat the water to the desired temperature then you have a back-up system. You can get hot water tanks that are fitted with an electric heater element and a thermostat. Therefore the thermostat can detect if the water is hot enough, if it isn’t, the electric element will switch itself on until the correct temperature is reached.

Alternatively you can have your boiler plumbed into your hot water tank. This could be a back boiler which is fitted to a log burning or coal fire or it could be a gas boiler. So if the water is not hot enough, either of these systems will cut in as necessary.

If you have any questions about how solar heating works then ask it in the comment section below.

Using the suns energy for solar heating rain water is a very simple system to design and make and can be very effective on hot sunny days. Ideal if you want to build a solar shower in the garden. Furthermore, a real bonus is that if you wash your hair in rain water it becomes very well conditioned!

The first thing you need to do is have a source of rainwater. The easiest way to do this is to harvest the rain water that falls on the roof of your home. So you tap into the down drain pipes and siphon off the water into tanks. You might want one tank per drain pipe.

From these collector tanks you now want to pump this water, using solar powered pumps, into a central holding tank. The ideal location for this would be on the roof of your house, installed in a position where it is in direct sunlight for the majority of the day. Make sure you paint the tank matt black, you will definitely notice the difference in the temperature of the water.

All you have to do now is hook it up to your outdoor shower and at the end of a sunny day you will have warm water to bath in.

If you are feeling more ambitious, you can boost the heating of the water in the central cylinder. You can do this by attaching a black hose pipe to the central holding tank. Connect one end to the outlet and one end to the inlet. The longer the hose pipe the better it works. Attach a solar pump to outlet of the central tank and slowly pump and circulate the water in the tank via the hose pipe. As the water travels around the hose pipe it can heat up to very high temperatures.

Another way to do this is to make a solar thermal panel using a radiator, if you need more panels just connect the radiators together in series. So that the water passes from one radiator to the next getting warmer as it passes through each one. Remember to paint your solar panels matt black.

If you have any ideas on how to improve this system or have any better solutions for solar heating rain water, then please leave a comment below.

Solar heating systems have been around since the beginning of time; when man first realized that the heat from direct sunlight would heat up water in a container. Centuries later , a solar heating system would still consist of putting water in a tub or bowl, and then allow enough time to pass for the temperature of the water to warm up enough to take a bath or wash clothing. This was great in the summertime when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. However, often in the wintertime the sun was not strong enough to perform this simple task. Nothing much was thought about how to actually harness the sun’s energy until recently in the past 80 years or so.

Before the 18th century man could only dream of ways to collect the sun’s rays; they did not have the knowledge or the technology that we have today. Today, solar panels can be seen on the roof of many homes and businesses, conducting enough solar thermal heat to produce up to 75% of the buildings hot water needs. They can be seen in some homes for heating both the water in swimming pools and the homes hot water system. It seems that every year people develop new products pertaining to Solar Heating; panels and other items are continuing to get smaller and fit elegantly outside the house.

Issues of Using Solar Heating

Just in the past 50 years, man has advanced enough in technology to begin construction of Solar panels to first collect the sun’s thermal energy and to be able to store it. However, the cost of this technology was very expensive. There have been many private companies that have worked on the improvements of Solar power and the panels themselves. The panels were very large and bulky at first, taking up a large amount of space where ever they were built.

Today, the panels are not as big, and the costs are coming down all the time. The solar power packs are not the only items that a person needs to install. There are other necessary items that must be purchased separately in order to connect the Solar collector panels to a storage unit; such as a  pump, temperature sensors, air vents, pressure gauge, safety valve, expansion vessel and the connection pipes & gaskets. All of these items can be bought as a kit, and you can get different kits depending on your needs.

Solar Heating Works

Solar Heating has now advanced far enough that many people can purchase small Solar panels and packs that are so light-weight that they can be carried by one person. You can now find countries all around the world that have solar power stations which are connected to the power grid producing Heating for many homes and companies.

The Benefits of Using Solar Heating

Solar thermal heating is a lot more efficient and cheaper at producing hot water in comparison to electric solar panels or photovoltaic cells (PV). Conversely, the downside is they can’t produce electricity.

The world has seen what the fossil fuels have done to the earth’s atmosphere, and has just recently begun a world-wide program for cleaning up the pollution and restoring balance to the eco system. Solar Heating is contributing to that clean up. There are no harmful vapors or smog to contend with.

Governments around the world are offering credits and money back for people and companies that use solar heating which can help cover part of the cost of installation. In the very near future we will see many more solar heating units that are much smaller and much simpler to install. Technology will continually advance much faster than it has, and we will see theses changes in our life time.

You can get solar panels to put on your roof or walls which collect the suns energy and convert this to heat for your home. For a 1500sq ft home you will need about 150 to 190 sq ft of solar collecting area. Depending on which conventional fuels you currently use it could take 10 to 15 years to pay back on your solar heating investment.