Replacing a hot water system

Very rare here the 1 1/4" threaded elements, probably less than 1% of HWSs.

Very easy to damage the HWS when removing them, if you don't have the right tool. I speak from experience:rolleyes:
 
However, I'm also interested to know if a solar system can really be cost effective in the longer term- especially given the claims of the people selling.
Ours costs a big fat $0 to run most of the time, and the rest of the time (ie, winter) we put the booster on, which uses about $10 per quarter offpeak.

Our solar HWS faces due south and is under a tree all afternoon so I wouldn't get too stressed about having it facing north. We didn't install it, it came with the house. It is quite new though, has 2006 as the manufacture date.
 
I know nothing about hot water systems, so what I am about to say may be totally wrong. Anyway, I was doing some reading on the subject and something I read said that the solar ones won't really save you any money because they still rely on electricity to pump the water onto the roof to heat, then they have to keep it heated until you want to use it.
 
That's solar ones with the tank on the ground. Ours is the older style one with a tank on the roof (which can require a reinforced roof). It works perfectly with the power out - I know this because we got the power connected to the house quite some time after we bought it and the hot water was literally the only functioning part of the house.

You raise a good point though, we're building and I think the one the builder provides has a tank on the ground, it would suck to have no hot water in a power failure so I'm going to have to get better specs on what they provide before we sign the final contract.
 
I know nothing about hot water systems, so what I am about to say may be totally wrong. Anyway, I was doing some reading on the subject and something I read said that the solar ones won't really save you any money because they still rely on electricity to pump the water onto the roof to heat, then they have to keep it heated until you want to use it.

We have one of these. In summer you can turn the electricy off altogether and still get fabulously hot, hot water, so much so that it took us a month after we moved in to realise there was no power getting to the hotwater system and we only realised then because we had a cold snap and overcast weather for a week. So not really sure about that.
 
So, a loaded question, I know, because everyone uses differing amounts, how much do you pay for electricity and can you see how much of that is for hot water. I'm asking because my bill is regularly around $900 or more and I am considering getting solar power. The consultant said I would get more benefit by getting a smaller system than I was enquiring about, and adding the hot water system. It would be cheaper too.
 
I know nothing about hot water systems, so what I am about to say may be totally wrong. Anyway, I was doing some reading on the subject and something I read said that the solar ones won't really save you any money because they still rely on electricity to pump the water onto the roof to heat, then they have to keep it heated until you want to use it.
have seen advertised, an addon small pv panel and pump. the pump runs when there is light and therefore when the water is heating, automatically, no electricity, runs faster when there is more light, so the water always returns to the tank hottest.
if a mains pump is used, the pump is very much less of a drain than the killerwatts of the heater elements
 
The consultant said I would get more benefit by getting a smaller system than I was enquiring about, and adding the hot water system. It would be cheaper too.
I think consultant is right, hot water is more efficient than pv, by huge amount, pv panels are still in development,
using the power generated by a pv panel to heat an electric hws just seems very counter productive.
3KW heater elements in a HWS would need a very large number of 64W standard panels to get the heat,
but a fraction of a 64W panel would spin the circulator pump on a solar HWS,
sunlight runs ~1KW heat/sqm in Aus,
even in Nova Scotia gets 550 watts heat/sqm (in winter only for 6 hours/day)
there is much more available heat than there is flux ( (??) something I read about that makes pv panels work, NO idea how they work )
 
how much do you pay for electricity and can you see how much of that is for hot water.
At my old house, anywhere from $100-600 per quarter (winter quarter ALWAYS higher) and the hot water was the offpeak bit, usually $10-20 of that bill. We had a very small electric storage HWS though, can't remember if it is 80 or 110L. We also only used 80-90L of water a day total (we use 300L at the new house) with 4 people ... saved the bathwater for flushing the loo with :)

We got a 30L storage electric HWS under the kitchen sink for uberhot water for dishes with no delay from long piping and didn't notice a rise in the bills AT ALL, and that one was peak power. Hot water doesn't use that much electricity.

I did look into solar heating for the house though, since $400 of our bill each winter was for heating, but solar heating systems cost ~$2000 and I couldn't justify it. Basically there was this flat greenhouse thingy you put on your roof that the sun heats up and a solar powered fan sucks the hot air into your house and sucks air out of your house to be heated up again. I imagine it would work really well, even in winter. Even on a cold day the roofspace can get very hot, so imagine how hot it gets under glass?
 
We got these http://www.cansolair.com/ mostly made from beer cans
6-7 hours per day in Candian winters they pump 130F air into the house fwith only a 75 watt fan for external power
been trying to get a demo one, on the huge south facing wall (N Hemisphere) directly pointing at the local showgrounds/racetrack
 
Looks interesting, Bob. But 3 grand! Let's see, 240 cans, that's 10 slabs of beer, or less than $500 worth. Less if you go the softdrink option. Enjoy the contents with your mates, stick 'em together and paint 'em black, stick it it on your roof with a perspex sheet over it and then hook up a fan to some ducting and you're set.:D
 
It'd pay itself off quite fast if you had high heating bills though. Not really something a Queenslander would want.

The one I saw wasn't cans, it was narrow channels with a glass/perspex lid and the fan had a gizmo that was activated when the air was hot enough. You could probably make it yourself, I don't think solar powered fans with temperature activators are especially obscure, you can probably get them at Jaycar. 2 fans, bit of wood (or cans) and perspex and ducting and black paint, good to go!
 
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