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Anyone know of a good website that offers plans for building solar hot water panels, with diagrams or photos? Willing to pay for the info. tax ccredit solar hot water heater
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If you can find the book “Home energy how to” you will see there plans for building your own water solar panel. tax ccredit solar hot water heater
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tax ccredit solar hot water heater Anyone know of a good website that offers plans for building solar hot water panels, with diagrams or photos? Willing to pay for the info. Thanks
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http://www.webconx.com/2000/solar/solar.htm
From a number of sources, including the one cited above, I see very large estimates of the energy needed to heat water. When I look at my own experience, it doesn’t seem to match. We have a gas water heater. During the summer months, when the hot water heater is the only thing that uses gas, our gas bills run about $10 per month, which includes a $7 minimum service charge. So I figure our water heating costs are only a few dollars a month year round (the water heater is in a heated area of the house). What am I missing here? Are the large estimates I keep seeing about water heating costs based on electric water heaters? Is that why they are so large? Ellen — Start-Up Education, P.O.Box 7072, Pueblo West, Colorado, 81007 USA Find out about Start-Up Education: http://way.opens.org/start-up
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… During the summer months, when the hot water heater is the only thing that uses gas, our gas bills run about $10 per month, which includes a $7 minimum service charge. So I figure our water heating costs are only a few dollars a month year round (the water heater is in a heated area of the house).
Check your tariffs carefully, and you may find that the “minimum service charge” is *not* added to fuel cost. In other words, you pay $7/mo whether you use no gas, or $7/mo of gas. If you use more than $7/mo, you pay extra for the extra gas. (I do not know whether this is the case for your service area.) Also, where you are in Colorado, gas should be relatively cheap, e.g., under $.80/therm fully delivered. A “therm” is 100,000 BTUs or enough to heat 1000 gallons of water 100 degrees F. There are lots of BTUs in gas, obviously. A ten minute shower using a 3GPM showerhead is 30 gallons, of which pipe temperature) = 15 gallons raised 65F = 975 BTUs. Add in various losses, figure a bit over 1000 BTUs per shower, or 100 showers per therm. tax ccredit solar hot water heater Gas where I am has been running around $1.30/therm delivered (which is actually a pretty good price in California). — In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Berkeley Software Design Inc / Wind River Systems
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…A ten minute shower using a 3GPM showerhead is 30 gallons, of which temperature) = 15 gallons raised 65F = 975 BTUs…
Heating 1 pound of water 1 F takes 1 Btu, and a gallon weighs about 8 pounds, so heating 15 gallons 65 F takes 15×8x65 = 7800 Btu (2.3 kWh.) And if half the water is 120 F and half is 70 F, the water is 95 F, for a pretty cold shower. Try taking a shower with a thermometer… A 30 gallon 110 F shower requires 30×8(110-55) = 13,200 Btu.tax ccredit solar hot water heater
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Heating 1 pound of water 1 F takes 1 Btu,
Oops, I knew something was wrong. Not quite awake yet I guess. tax ccredit solar hot water heater (Forgot the factor of 8.) And if half the water is 120 F and half is 70 F, the water is 95 F, for a pretty cold shower.
I like mine cold, according to the last couple of girlfriends anyway. tax ccredit solar hot water heater (Never could see how they could stand the scalding temperatures they preferred.) — In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Berkeley Software Design Inc / Wind River Systems
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A ten minute shower using a 3GPM showerhead is 30 gallons, of which pipe temperature) = 15 gallons raised 65F = 975 BTUs. Add in various losses, figure a bit over 1000 BTUs per shower, or 100 showers per therm.tax ccredit solar hot water heater
Using Nick Pine’s corrections and a bit more precision, and assuming the rest of you like those scalding 110-degree showers, but have a 2.5 GPM showerhead like mine (the girlfriend complains about this too): time: 10 minutes gallons: 25 pounds: 25 * 8 = 200 original input water temp: 55 desired water temp: 110 increase: 200lbs water +55F = 200 * 55 = 11000 BTUs Add losses for (in)efficiency, say 85%: 11000 / .85 = 13,000 BTUs. At 100,000 BTUs per therm, this means you get about seven and a half showers per therm. At $1.30/therm, one shower a day = 4 therms/mo = $5.20/mo in gas. (My showers are usually shorter than ten minutes too, so I use closer to half that myself.) — In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Berkeley Software Design Inc / Wind River Systems
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At $1.30/therm, one shower a day = 4 therms/mo = $5.20/mo in gas.
Well, the funny part is, the $5.20 is about on target, but for all the wrong reasons! Here’s data from an actual bill of ours from last August: Measured usage: 10 Therm Multiplier: .9 Therms used: 9 Times .49865 = $5.10 They then add $7.37 for metering and billing (the fixed monthly charge, which I am pretty sure is not the tariff you described). At that rate, we spend $61.20 per year heating our water for an average of three showers a day, dishwasher, laundry, faucets, etc. That’s about 20% of our gas bill. Fast forward to the present, where our cost per therm has increased to $.86, and the annual total is still only $92.88. Even if you doubled that to reflect higher costs in other parts of the country and you’re still only around $180 per year. So, to get back to my original question, what is different in other homes that would make water heating a much bigger portion of energy bills? Or are the many articles touting savings through solar/alternative water heating overstating the savings? My husband and I are stepping through a series of projects to convert our house to renewable energy sources. We don’t rely on economic payback periods, as we feel these measure just one dimension of costs/benefits. But we are measuring our usages and rank ordering projects in terms of costs, effort, energy savings and comfort. Converting our water heating methods keeps falling to the bottom on this basis, and I am just wondering why it seems to be higher on other people’s lists. Ellen — Start-Up Education, P.O.Box 7072, Pueblo West, Colorado, 81007 USA Find out about Start-Up Education tax ccredit solar hot water heater
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Thanks, I just ordered it from Amazon used books dept. Hope it gives me ideas how to build solar waterheating system as electric rates are skyrocketing up here in the Great Northwest. At least in the summer time I should be able to supplement some sun for electricity. Thanks again!!
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – If you can find the book “Home energy how to” you will see there plans for building your own water solar panel. Written by A.J. Hand. Good luck
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.88 / therm delivered in NJ — Steve Spence Subscribe to the Renewable Energy Newsletter: http://www.webconx.com/subscribe.htm Renewable Energy Pages – http://www.webconx.com Palm Pilot Pages – http://www.webconx.com/palm X10 Home Automation – http://www.webconx.com/x10 (212) 894-3704 x3154 – voicemail/fax We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. –
tax ccredit solar hot water heater During the summer months, when the hot water heater is the only thing that uses gas, our gas bills run about $10 per month, which includes a $7 minimum service charge. So I figure our water heating costs are only a few dollars a month year round (the water heater is in a heated area of the house). Check your tariffs carefully, and you may find that the “minimum service charge” is *not* added to fuel cost. In other words, you pay $7/mo whether you use no gas, or $7/mo of gas. If you use more than $7/mo, you pay extra for the extra gas. (I do not know whether this is the case for your service area.) Also, where you are in Colorado, gas should be relatively cheap, e.g., under $.80/therm fully delivered. A “therm” is 100,000 BTUs or enough to heat 1000 gallons of water 100 degrees F. There are lots of BTUs in gas, obviously. A ten minute shower using a 3GPM showerhead is 30 gallons, of which pipe temperature) = 15 gallons raised 65F = 975 BTUs. Add in various losses, figure a bit over 1000 BTUs per shower, or 100 showers per therm. 
Gas where I am has been running around $1.30/therm delivered (which is actually a pretty good price in California)tax ccredit solar hot water heater . Chris Torek, Berkeley Software Design Inc / Wind River Systems
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I’m guessing they are comparing to electric, or might be throwing house heating into the equation. At $200/ year, if my solar hot water heater provides half of my hot water, I’m looking at a 10 year payback, based on a $1000 cost. It might not last 10 years without some service. But the energy cost might go up. But I’m happy to be using the sun, so I don’t care about the payback. I used 190 therms last month. $.88/therm — Steve Spence Subscribe to the Renewable Energy Newsletter: http://www.webconx.com/subscribe.htm Renewable Energy Pages – http://www.webconx.com Palm Pilot Pages – http://www.webconx.com/palm X10 Home Automation – http://www.webconx.com/x10 (212) 894-3704 x3154 – voicemail/fax We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. –
tax ccredit solar hot water heater At $1.30/therm, one shower a day = 4 therms/mo = $5.20/mo in gas. Well, the funny part is, the $5.20 is about on target, but for all the wrong reasons! Here’s data from an actual bill of ours from last August: Measured usage: 10 Therm Multiplier: .9 Therms used: 9 Times .49865 = $5.10 They then add $7.37 for metering and billing (the fixed monthly charge, which I am pretty sure is not the tariff you described). At that rate, we spend $61.20 per year heating our water for an average of three showers a day, dishwasher, laundry, faucets, etc. That’s about 20% of our gas bill. Fast forward to the present, where our cost per therm has increased to $.86, and the annual total is still only $92.88. Even if you doubled that to reflect higher costs in other parts of the country and you’re still only around $180 per year. So, to get back to my original question, what is different in other homes that would make water heating a much bigger portion of energy bills? Or are the many articles touting savings through solar/alternative water heating overstating the savings? My husband and I are stepping through a series of projects to convert our house to renewable energy sources. We don’t rely on economic payback periods, as we feel these measure just one dimension of costs/benefits. But we are measuring our usages and rank ordering projects in terms of costs, effort, energy savings and comfort. Converting our water heating methods keeps falling to the bottom on this basis, and I am just wondering why it seems to be higher on other people’s lists. Ellen — Start-Up Education, P.O.Box 7072, Pueblo West, Colorado, 81007 USA Find out about Start-Up Education tax ccredit solar hot water heater
So, to get back to my original question, what is different in other homes that would make water heating a much bigger portion of energy bills?
Swimming pools. (Perhaps also radiant or baseboard heat from water, but I would bet “swimming pools” are the #1 item.) — In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Berkeley Software Design Inc / Wind River Systems
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Swimming pools.
I should add, I meant this to include hot tubs. (I have neither one, but I suspect many home swimming pools are not actually heated, while obviously all home hot-tubs are. I know someone who has a hot tub and actually had their gas line upgraded.) There are probably also people doing laundry once a day, in hot water, in a 30-gallon washer. — In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Berkeley Software Design Inc / Wind River Systems
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Hi Ellen, I can provide a data point here, since my electric water heater is currently the only load which is on the grid. Our family of six uses approximately 11 kWh/day to heat water in the summertime and about 16 kWh/day to heat water in the wintertime. If we assume a year-round average of 13 kWh/day and $0.07/kWh, that comes to $332/year. If my electricity rate were $0.12/kWh, this comes to $569/year! That is for a house equipped with 1.2 GPM shower heads, a front-loading washing machine, and an Asko dishwasher (4.1 gallons per load). Hope this helps,tax ccredit solar hot water heater
tax ccredit solar hot water heater At $1.30/therm, one shower a day = 4 therms/mo = $5.20/mo in gas. Well, the funny part is, the $5.20 is about on target, but for all the wrong reasons! Here’s data from an actual bill of ours from last August: Measured usage: 10 Therm Multiplier: .9 Therms used: 9 Times .49865 = $5.10 They then add $7.37 for metering and billing (the fixed monthly charge, which I am pretty sure is not the tariff you described). At that rate, we spend $61.20 per year heating our water for an average of three showers a day, dishwasher, laundry, faucets, etc. That’s about 20% of our gas bill. Fast forward to the present, where our cost per therm has increased to $.86, and the annual total is still only $92.88. Even if you doubled that to reflect higher costs in other parts of the country and you’re still only around $180 per year. So, to get back to my original question, what is different in other homes that would make water heating a much bigger portion of energy bills? Or are the many articles touting savings through solar/alternative water heating overstating the savings? My husband and I are stepping through a series of projects to convert our house to renewable energy sources. We don’t rely on economic payback periods, as we feel these measure just one dimension of costs/benefits. But we are measuring our usages and rank ordering projects in terms of costs, effort, energy savings and comfort. Converting our water heating methods keeps falling to the bottom on this basis, and I am just wondering why it seems to be higher on other people’s lists. Ellen — Start-Up Education, P.O.Box 7072, Pueblo West, Colorado, 81007 USA Find out about Start-Up Education tax ccredit solar hot water heater
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This may be a little off topic, but I figure it has to do with conservation, so I think I’ll post. Have you looked into a tank less water heater? Higher initial cost, but they last almost the life of your home, and they don’t heat water when you don’t use hot water. They turn on when they detect flow. However, since there is no tank, they heat the water quickly. Mike – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi Ellen, I can provide a data point here, since my electric water heater is currently the only load which is on the grid. Our family of six uses approximately 11 kWh/day to heat water in the summertime and about 16 kWh/day to heat water in the wintertime. If we assume a year-round average of 13 kWh/day and $0.07/kWh, that comes to $332/year. If my electricity rate were $0.12/kWh, this comes to $569/year! That is for a house equipped with 1.2 GPM shower heads, a front-loading washing machine, and an Asko dishwasher (4.1 gallons per load). Hope this helps, George Estep At $1.30/therm, one shower a day = 4 therms/mo = $5.20/mo in gas. Well, the funny part is, the $5.20 is about on target, but for all the wrong reasons! Here’s data from an actual bill of ours from last August: Measured usage: 10 Therm Multiplier: .9 Therms used: 9 Times .49865 = $5.10 They then add $7.37 for metering and billing (the fixed monthly charge, which I am pretty sure is not the tariff you described). At that rate, we spend $61.20 per year heating our water for an average of three showers a day, dishwasher, laundry, faucets, etc. That’s about 20% of our gas bill. Fast forward to the present, where our cost per therm has increased to $.86, and the annual total is still only $92.88. Even if you doubled that to reflect higher costs in other parts of the country and you’re still only around $180 per year. So, to get back to my original question, what is different in other homes that would make water heating a much bigger portion of energy bills? Or are the many articles touting savings through solar/alternative water heating overstating the savings? My husband and I are stepping through a series of projects to convert our house to renewable energy sources. We don’t rely on economic payback periods, as we feel these measure just one dimension of costs/benefits. But we are measuring our usages and rank ordering projects in terms of costs, effort, energy savings and comfort. Converting our water heating methods keeps falling to the bottom on this basis, and I am just wondering why it seems to be higher on other people’s lists. Ellen — Start-Up Education, P.O.Box 7072, Pueblo West, Colorado, 81007 USA Find out about Start-Up Education tax ccredit solar hot water heater
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So, to get back to my original question, what is different in other homes that would make water heating a much bigger portion of energy bills? Or are the many articles touting savings through solar/alternative water heating overstating the savings?
I think the reason for the estimates’ being so far from your experiences is simple: Consumption varies – alot! It seems you’re a conscious energy consumer. My experience tells me the average american isn’t! (And the average Dane unfortunately neither – but our high energy prices tend to at least draw some more attention to the subject…) My experience from environmental work is, that an average consumer doesn’t exist – even in the same building block, the heating consumption of one flat can be more than double of another, independently of the number of inhabitants. For the use of hot bathing water, the variation possibilities are obviously even larger – some people prefer hours of immersion in basins of thousands of litres of boiling hot water, whereas it’s actually possible (and practised) to have a nice shower using the water from a 5 litre electric water heater… The variations in the prices of energy from electricity, gas and other sources only add to the breath of variation imaginable. But, when you are eg. a government agency or a private company, who want to explain why it is sound to use renewable energy, of course you prefer to use some kind of average, with a tendency towards high consumption, because this explains better the virtues of the system, and is still true for a lot of households, thus motivating them to change energy source. Once this said, I myself find that the use of renewable energy sources must (in peoples’ heads) be linked with a somewhat more modest water consumption pattern. But of course the awareness, if not already at hand, has to start someplace – eg. by the installation of a solar water heater… Yours Niels Lyck, Copenhagen, Denmark- tax ccredit solar hot water heater
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Hi Ellen, I can provide a data point here, since my electric water heater is currently the only load which is on the grid. Our family of six uses approximately 11 kWh/day to heat water in the summertime and about 16 kWh/day to heat water in the wintertime. If we assume a year-round average of 13 kWh/day and $0.07/kWh, that comes to $332/year.
My thanks to George, Chris, Niels and Steve for their responses. My sense is that pretty much by accident, the starting point at my house is pretty low usage of both gas and electric. Since our heating and water are both on gas, our electric averages about 15 kwh/day for the whole house. Our gas bills range from about 10 therms/month in the summer to an all time max of 135 therms in a winter month; probably average around 50. What accounts for those levels? Combination of gas and electric utilities, just two people in the house, no swimming pool, no hot tub, Colorado weather, a house not deliberately built as solar (we bought an existing house) but with a true south face and south-face glazing at about 6% of floor space. On the other hand, we do not live in a spartan way by any means, and have pretty heavy electrical usage in our home office. The good news is, our usage is already low. The bad news is, remaining steps get tougher, especially if looking for an economic payback (which we are ranking pretty low in our priorities). We decided about a year ago on a goal of decreasing our usage by 10% and substituting renewable energy sources for another 50% of our usage. So far we have converted to compact fluorescent bulbs, added thermal drapes, added a pellet stove, installed a hot air panel to heat our office (coldest room in house). And just for fun, we bought a Prius hybrid gas/electric car; that alone will save about 500 gallons of gas per year — and it’s a great car. We’ve measured our electrical use, and it breaks down roughly in thirds: 1/3 for our office, 1/3 for heating and cooling, and 1/3 for everything else. My husband is working on building a turbine wind generator to carry the load either for the office or for the heating/cooling. We may consider PV for another piece beyond that. We have a walk-out basement that we don’t use since my husband lost his leg and stairs became a problem. We are looking at the plans for home built hot air collectors to warm that basement, which in turn has a big impact on the comfort of the whole house. Back to where we started the thread, solar water heating consistently drops to the bottom of our list of priorities, given our usage levels and gas water heater. It’s really been neat taking a good look at our consumption patterns, modifying where possible while living comfortably, and looking at renewable energy solutions for the rest. It gives us a great shared hobby! I would be interested in how others have established their priorities. Ellen — Start-Up Education, P.O.Box 7072, Pueblo West, Colorado, 81007 USA Find out about Start-Up Education: tax ccredit solar hot water heater
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