A builder friend of mine knocked up some diy solar panels, he ripped some large flat panel rads out of a school, installed them in like a cold frame on top of encapsulated insulation that and the rads were painted black, rads had 3/4 tappings so 22 mm pipe gravity feed to an indirect fortic at high spot in the roof, that fed the C/F to the H/W cyl in the airing cupboard, no electrics, never went wrong free hot water from April to Oct
PCM Night Storage Heaters
- Thread starter martinwinlow
- Start date
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If the materials are free and the labour is uncosted, the return on investment can look quite good.
Burglar?
Burglar?
Agree on both points but the thing now (Vs even 5 years back) is that PV is potentially way simpler to install (even DIY), is cheaper and hugely more versatile as you can do anything with the PV-generated energy compared to just making hot water with solar thermal.
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I don't really understand the obsession with stored hot water.
We're electric only, our hot water is heated by an on-demand water heater. Basically an electric version of a gas multipoint boiler. It flows slower, it's about 45 degrees instead of 60 but is perfectly adequate for washing and showering. You don't need 60 for hygiene if it's fresh flowing water rather than stored.
We don't get the 3x or 4x COP you get with a heat pump, but we also don't waste energy heating water that we probably don't need that will mostly just go cold again. Also we don't lose a cupboard as the thing is tiny. Upfront cost is about £200 instead of £1000s that you'll never get back for a cylinder, magic box and/or heat pump.
Yes it costs around £2.50 an hour to run (9.5kW). But the point is that it's hardly ever on, unlike a stored water system that will chug away for an hour or so every day whether needed later or not.
So less "efficient" but also much less wasteful. I reckon it balances or is possibly cheaper to heat this way.
I'm guessing that the reason these things don't seem to figure in guidance is that if everyone had one then the surges on the grid would be too spikey. Otherwise there's no good reason why most people don't seem to know they exist.
We're electric only, our hot water is heated by an on-demand water heater. Basically an electric version of a gas multipoint boiler. It flows slower, it's about 45 degrees instead of 60 but is perfectly adequate for washing and showering. You don't need 60 for hygiene if it's fresh flowing water rather than stored.
We don't get the 3x or 4x COP you get with a heat pump, but we also don't waste energy heating water that we probably don't need that will mostly just go cold again. Also we don't lose a cupboard as the thing is tiny. Upfront cost is about £200 instead of £1000s that you'll never get back for a cylinder, magic box and/or heat pump.
Yes it costs around £2.50 an hour to run (9.5kW). But the point is that it's hardly ever on, unlike a stored water system that will chug away for an hour or so every day whether needed later or not.
So less "efficient" but also much less wasteful. I reckon it balances or is possibly cheaper to heat this way.
I'm guessing that the reason these things don't seem to figure in guidance is that if everyone had one then the surges on the grid would be too spikey. Otherwise there's no good reason why most people don't seem to know they exist.
