We’ve finished installing the solar hot water system, and after a month or so, I thought I’d post the first lessons we’ve learned.
Installing a solar system will not, in and of itself, make a huge difference. You will also have to change your behavior to take advantage of the system’s strengths and weaknesses.
For us, this has created a few issues with how we handle water usage.
The solar system includes the panels and a storage tank. During the day, the tank is filled with heat collected by the solar panels. This heat is used throughout the night to heat the water and, by extension, the house.
This time of year, a full day of sun will not only fill the tank to its maximum, but will start dumping heat out of the overflow loop, too. So, the key to making the best use of the solar energy is to adjust our use of hot water. What we’ve found is that we can’t really start using hot water for a few hours each morning. We also need to stop using the hot water near the end of the day. The tank needs to go into the night “fully charged.”
The biggest issue has been laundry. My normal mode was to start the laundry as required early in the morning. What works better, from a solar standpoint, is to start laundry after lunch in the afternoon. That way, we use the hot water from the solar panels, but we still have enough time to finish collecting heat for the evening.
We’ve already noticed a difference in how much propane we use. We’ll see how well it does after we’ve had a full winter.