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Can I heat my home with solar water heating?
Heating your home with solar water heating

There is a myth that you can heat your home with solar water heating powering your radiators or water underfloor heating.

If you look at this concept logically this cannot be done as you need your heating on when there is little or no sun power available.

You may be able to slightly supplement your heating supply but the saving aspect is very minimal as the heating fluid cools on each circulation of the heating circuit.

Usage of thermal stores, 3 coil cylinders or buffer vessels are all buzz words when it comes to solar space heating.
The flip side

Lets say that you did capacitate enough solar panels to help your heating effectively in the winter, what will happen in the summer???

In the summer you do not need heating on and you will have 3 to 4 times the amount of panel required and no where to dump the heat.

With no way to use the generated heat the panels will constantly vent and loose pressure and fluids. "There is an easier and cheaper way with the Allbrite flat ribbon underfloor heating".
Look at the maths

Scenario

Heating 210 litres of water using a single panel with an absorption area with 92% efficiency. The water start temperature is 10 and will be heated to 60 degrees.

In the summer it will take 4 hours 40 minutes at peak solar yield.

In the winter it will take 12 hours 38 minutes at peak solar yield.

A home heating system will lose between 2 - 5 Degrees per circulation, the pump will circulate upto 30 litres per minute.

1800 litres will be circulated in 1 hour with a net loss of temperature of between 17 - 42 Degrees per one hour.

As you can now see solar room heating is really not effective offering a very small saving if any at all as we do not get anywhere near 12 hours of sun in the winter.

  • Blue is heating requirements
  • Yellow is solar yeild achievable
  • Month 1 is January