Photo credit:
Ajay Tallam, flickr
If you are a science nut or any kind of geek, you have to check out physorg.com. I came for the solar water heater story. I stayed for the nanotech. The payback on the solar water heater is incredible. Here's how it worked for a North Carolina couple who were faced with replacing their 18 year old electric water heater:
- Cost before tax credits: about $6,200
- Cost after tax credits: roughly $3,300
- Break-even on investment due to reduced energy costs: about three years.
In India, a University hostel showed a similar break-even period on a 1000 liter installation. In Europe, about 500,000 solar water heaters are installed each year. Austria, with a climate similar to Chicago’s and just 8 million people, installed about 160,000 units last year. Solar water heater technology is a late arrival in the US, but people are embracing the concept now as never before. As energy costs go up the payback on solar gets better and better.
My electric hot water heater is about twenty years old and probably due for replacement. After reading the physorg article I visited the EnergyStar web site for a little more information. Since it gets pretty cold—like minus 30 degrees F—around here in the winter, I'm a candidate for a heat pump water heater. Heat pumps are often geothermal rather than solar. So, I'm faced with a planning challenge, and probably there's a home improvement loan in my future. You see, if I'm replacing the electric water heater with a heat pump, whether solar or geothermal, I might want to replace the gas furnace at the same time. Our gas bill is stratospheric!
I'll share more as this brainstorm becomes a solid intention and, hopefully, a money-saving, energy-saving upgrade to this old house.
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I think our heater's about to give up the ghost ... What a fabulous idea!
Do you suppose a lot of home owners associations have a fit about these?
I don't know. It's certainly important to ask before installing! I think restrictions on unsightly solar power installations could be renegotiated, given the climate crisis. Also important would be whether your unit uglifies your neighbors' view.
If your gas bill is "stratospheric", you need to be looking at improvements in your building envelope- not solar water heating! First you get your heat bill under control by insulating and tightening up your house. If your electric water heater is 20 years old it should have been replaced a long time ago. Solar heating and heat pumps are not a "cure all"-as a matter of fact they don't even make sense for most people. Spend you money on cutting down on energy consumption- not switching to a different type heating system!
I see your point! And you've quite nicely described the problem we face. We're faced with a major make-over here, and utility improvements are one part of the project. This is an old farm house and we've lived here 19 years pecking away at improvements in a fairly random order. Five sides of the building envelope are pretty good... well insulated with new energy efficient windows. The bad parts are the foundation, the floors on the first floor and the cellar qua crawl space. New flooring in several rooms will help as well bundling up the foundation. But the mechanicals her are pretty funky. The boiler is ancient, the chimney throws heat skyward, the water heater you know about... they told us to bulldoze the place and build from scratch when we moved here and it was probably good advice.
This makes no sense to me. Assuming we are talking about domestic water (not for heating the house) how does it pay back in three years? With a cost of $3300? Who is spending $1100 a year on hot water? Maybe you should stop taking 18 hour long showers if you are.