Active Solar Water Heater Systems
Solar water heater systems are designed to be active, with pumps or fans to promote the gathering of heat, or passive, with no mechanical parts added to the system. Solar water heaters have been around since just before the dawn of the twentieth century. Standard natural gas water heaters took their place in the early 1900’s. Since the 1970’s, new technologies have solved the many problems that have plagued the solar water heater industry. Problems like excessive oxidation and just plain not having enough hot water are not problems now.
The only major differences between the four different kinds of active solar water heater systems is the way in which the heat collector, which is located on top of your roof or similar location, protects itself against freezing. These systems are called: Recirculate, drain-down, drain-back, and heat exchange.
The recirculate system
This system uses an electrical pump to move water through the collector to prevent it from freezing. Moving water will not freeze, but some heat is sacrificed to do this.
The drain-down system
This system simply takes the water out of the collector by opening a valve more…
Archive for February 4th, 2009
Tankless water heaters have been used in Europe and Japan for the past 75 years. One of the reason is because tankless water heaters consume less energy than hot water tanks. So, they really helped to lower energy cost for the past 75 years in both area, where electricity and gas prices are high. In that case, tankless water heaters just make sense.
Unlike ordinary water heaters using a storage tank, the tankless units have no storage tank and thereby have no standby heat loss. Standby loss describes the energy wasted to maintain a specific temperature in the tank. Standby loss accounts for up to 20 percent of a home’s annual water heating costs. Avoiding standby heat loss is primarily how tankless water heaters can come up with their claim of being energy efficient.
Since tankless heaters do not hold water, they are less subject to corrosion and their life span is approximately 20 years. Much longer than its counterpart’s, the tank-type water heaters that lasts about 10 to 15 years .
Other advantages to tankless water heaters are that they do not waste water since water is heated almost immediately. People don’t need to let the water run as more…
