Chromagen solar water heater

vpande · Sep 21, 2007 11:28 am

Our builder has informed that they have moved from Dux-sunpro to Chromagen as their hwS providers. initially they were placing panels on western roof but after much discussion we were now told that they are using chromagen which requires single panel on northern roof... wondering if anyone had any views on this.
cheers

Casa2 · Sep 21, 2007 12:02 pm

Strange. Solar panels (photovoltaic or hot water) should be placed on the northern roof. Not sure why your builder was ever putting them on the western roof.

vpande · Sep 21, 2007 7:24 pm

well, first of all they mentioned that northern roof faces the street and will be 'visible' hence added extra panel and placed on west which was not approved by me.. so after much debate they now have a new provider thats solved our issue. i just wonder about how good the HWS is .

Ed Perry · Sep 24, 2007 8:17 am

Just make sure there are no covenants which dictate the streetscape. Ed

DuckyQuackQuack · Oct 03, 2007 6:07 pm

Ed Perry

Just make sure there are no covenants which dictate the streetscape. Ed

DQQ

PhoenixStar · Oct 03, 2007 6:36 pm

Hey vpande, we too are having a Chromagen unit installed. We are building with "H" and they have recently changed their supplier. Are you building with "H" too? We thought that we too would have the panel on the north facing roof as that is the back-side of the house. But because we have an alfresco there, the roofline will not allow it. Therefore we have the panel being placed on the western facing roof as well. The front of the house faces South.

Do you know what model you are getting?

We are getting the 200lt tank, but there are 3 options on the gas booster, there is 18, 20 and 26lt, plus there is another 5.5 star rated unit which is a T26. We need to clarify what booster we are getting before contract signing. For a home of 34+ sq's i would think that the 26 or 20 lt minimum would be required but will check out the website to make sure we know what unit we should be getting instead of accepting what they offer.

Check out www.chromagen.com.au for more info

vpande · Oct 03, 2007 7:12 pm

Hi phoenix
We are building with M (fingers crossed!)
I spoke to one of the chromagen rep(from the website) who mentioned that there's very little loss of efficiency on western placed panels (approx 6 percent or so) but do try to move it to northwest if u can. We will be getting 200 L tank and 26 L booster. I wasnt happy with Dux as we met their rep at the homeshow who suggested us to upgrade the tank size(from 170 L) and that would cost 1 K more. M has credited us the cost of additional panel and the chromagen sounds better.
Interestingly most of chromagen staff have had long careers in rival solar heating companies

Casa2 · Oct 03, 2007 8:01 pm

If your solar hot water collector panel faces due west, you will loose 20% effeciency. A lot less than I expected, bu nevertheless a big drop in effeciency.

Refer to www.cibse.org.au/files/wellington/solar ... eating.pdf and look at page 22 for evacuated tube collectors and p23 for flat panel. Figures are for Wellington, but the effeciency drop would hold for true for most of Australia.

Cheers,
Casa

vpande · Oct 04, 2007 5:56 pm

Thanks Casa. I have managed to ask them to move the panels as much north as possible so they end up on Northwest.

Mark Peall · Oct 30, 2007 4:27 pm

On sunny hot days you should not see a problem with a West facing panel, the main problem with SHW in Australia is that they "work too well" often producing too much hot water. You might, however, have issues when you have a West facing collector and its been overcast for a few days. I suggest a loose of 20% efficiency is likely in the southern states, not so much in the northern (hotter) states. You are going to use more electricity if your panel is on the West side and its been cold and overcast; this is because your "booster" will be needed more. A gas boosted SHW might be your best option if you need to have a panel (not) on the North face.