Solar water heater- what you need to know

Posted by admin on Jan 11, 2014 in Posts

There are two types of solar water heater available for you. Stand alone heater, which supplies all the hot water to your home, is the first type and the second; you can employ it as a pre-heater as it heats the water passed through your existing heater. The stand alone heater usually comprises of a reservoir which stores the heated up water. Pre-heater is different from the existing water heater considered to be its reservoir. Solar water heater comprises of the heat exchanger which is actually used to heat the water from the heat of the sun. Heat exchangers are available in various designs and are used all over the world since it is the key element of the solar heater.

Stand alone heater usually consists of a storage tank or reservoir with a heat exchanger and hoses or tubing to combine and connect them. One way valve is provided in some applications so that it can stop the flowing of cold water back into the tank. Due to this some systems have the pump to prevent this flow and make it pass through the heat exchanger. But, if a system is installed properly then there is no necessity of a pump since it can be overcome by the natural occurring convective current. But, in case, if in your system a heat exchanger cannot be placed on the same level as the storage tank is placed due to non-availability of space, then a pump is necessary to circulate it into the system. For such system, you can use a 12 volt pump which is powered by solar panel. It does not require any battery to run since solar heater works on sunlight as solar panel does.

The pre-heaters types are connected to the cold water supply line to your existing water heaters. It makes an easy job just to preheat the cold water coming into your heater. This saves energy and pain of your bill by providing hot water to your existing heaters whenever necessary, as sometimes during cloudy days your solar heater may not work. This consists of a heat exchanging unit tied up with cold water supply and water heater which discards the need of a pump. There are many provisions when these heaters are off during winter to avoid damages of outside parts, which are caused from freezing.