Browse Forums Eco Living 1 Oct 31, 2007 10:43 am Company I work for has dealings with a few housing estates and I was talking with the boss about them. Now, this is heresay, so please don't treat this as gospel.
Due to Eco friendly requirements, energy ratings and such, some of these estates make you put in solar hot water heating. All seems good for a while, but the heaters are only rated to last for between 5-10 years (although some offer 10 year warranties, perhaps they are more expensive ones or the technology has progressed in the last few years? ) Now the owners of these heaters are having to replace them as they are now failing. And the replacement cost......anywhere up to $14,000. Why? Scaffolding for rooves before work can start, paying to have units disposed of due to some of the chemicals in cells etc , crane hire for removal and installation among other things. Apparently some of the owners are baulking at this cost (gee...I wonder why) and bypassing the units and installing a regular hot water service. Why should people bother with solar? From what I have read, they are expensive to purchase in the first place, but you can save some money when it's running. But why bother when it will cost a small fortune to replace the thing later on, you'll never recoup that extra cost. Thoughts? Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 2Oct 31, 2007 10:49 am Al,
I have solar hot water as the builder required it... Simple! Would I have put it in myself ... NO! However I have future proofed in a way and elected to upgrade the solar with gas back up (as is generally standard) to one with a continuous unit on the side. If the solar panels fail/stop working for whatever reason I can simply disconnect them and continue using the continuous section. Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 4Oct 31, 2007 10:55 am Note,
HW systems generally are fitted with a sacrificial zinc anode which prevents or minimises corrosion in the storage unit. This should be checked (I think) about once a year, and replaced when it is getting fairly well eroded. This is proper maintenance, and should be performed to prevent premature failure. Ash. Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 5Oct 31, 2007 11:00 am royalblue Note, HW systems generally are fitted with a sacrificial zinc anode which prevents or minimises corrosion in the storage unit. This should be checked (I think) about once a year, and replaced when it is getting fairly well eroded. This is proper maintenance, and should be performed to prevent premature failure. Ash. Cylinders are normally ceramic or glass lined and there is little to no air in cylinders anyway. Anode protection is not really a factor nowadays. That said, they should be checked every few years anyway. Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 6Oct 31, 2007 11:29 am Technology has moved fast in this area. I see solar hot water systems regularly advertised for around $2500 fully installed - you can also apply for federal rebates in the order of $1500.
That $14,000 sounds like the cost of replacing solar POWER cells, which are more expensive and have long buybacks. I reccomend purchasing GreenPower from your provider rather than the expense of solar POWER. It has the same carbon neutral effect in the home at far less a cost. That said, electricity prices will continue to rise rapidly as the cost of coal etc goes up, therefore solar hot water systems will become increasingly cost effect As will solar POWER as both federal govts have committed to renewable energy targets which will stimulate supply and demand and lower the cost of solar power for all, yay, without costing jobs in the coal industry (most of it is exported so won't affect our energy production industry here) PS Libs have a target of 15% renewables by 2020 - but include clean coal technology in that figure Labout have 20% renewables by 2020, excluding clean coal. Building a Jandson Espirit in Pennant Hills "What is the use of a home, if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?"Henry Daniel Thereau Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 7Oct 31, 2007 11:34 am We wanted to do something for the environment and have installed SHW. But once you go and read a bit about it, it does make you sceptical. In Melbourne, the savings are supposed to be about 60%. Then the small print reads:
Savings shown are based on Australian Government approved TRNSYS simulation modelling. Savings and incentives will vary depending upon your location, type of system installed, orientation and inclination of the solar collectors, type of water heater being replaced, hot water consumption and fuel tariff. Maximum financial savings off your hot water bill are achievable when replacing an electric water heater on continuous tariff. Do I think we'll ever achieve 60%? No I don't. And the sad thing is, you have no way of knowing when the booster kicks in either. Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 8Oct 31, 2007 1:21 pm Al Why should people bother with solar? From what I have read, they are expensive to purchase in the first place, but you can save some money when it's running. But why bother when it will cost a small fortune to replace the thing later on, you'll never recoup that extra cost. Thoughts? I totally agree. I had a big brand name unit that corroded out at about 10 years. When I checked the cost of replacement ($3,500 for the unit only at that time) , I couldn't figure out how solar saves money. When I asked the seller of the units about this, he acknowledged there was no saving. Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 9Nov 01, 2007 4:38 pm First thing we did after buying our first house, back in 1985, was to install the top of the range Solahart, at $3500. It was a fair bit of money then. We had to pay approx $150 every 5 years for the zinc anode replacement and service.That system lasted until 2000, when one of the collectors started leaking heat exchange oil. I calculated that it paid for itself in about 10 years, so we had free hot water and that nice warm feeling of beeing eco-friendly for 5 years. When that collector packed up, we just bought a pair of the sound second hand ones and hooked them up to the old tank, all for approx $750. They're still there, doing their job. In our case the SHW has been worth it. My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son flies in a jetliner, his son will ride a camel.Saudi saying Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 11Nov 01, 2007 9:09 pm Hmm - A very sunny country and hot water 2me = free hot water.
Makes sense to me. My place had an 18 year old solar system when I bought it and the mild steel tank busted while I was looking at purchasing the place. So pretty good service I reckon. In the days of really crappy Adelaide water - much better these days Al - re the cost of putting a system in - unfortunately a lot of that is related to the OHS thing. Just like insurance was a few years ago - it will get some reality in the future. Personally - if you have water - cool - and you want to heat it - well that's a luxury Solar is a very good thing to have. http://genoa.ecovillage.org/genoceania/resources/greyenergy.html Steve Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 12Nov 01, 2007 11:47 pm Gosh Mek,
That was 7 years ago and I'm not sure if I remember all the details. We didn't have an electric booster with that system, but on the cold days used an old gas freeloader for hot water. I think that I counted the number of days we were using gas in a winter month, then compared the monthly bill with the period with no gas use, assuming that the average for cooking was constant, to arrive at the daily cost of gas for heating the water. I then divided that into the system's cost. I can't recollect if I bothered with inflation, but the final result was 10 years and some months. My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son flies in a jetliner, his son will ride a camel.Saudi saying Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 13Nov 20, 2007 7:06 am Very interesting to read the comments, just the sort of thing a person like me building for the first time needs!
As a result we have requested pricing for a split system instead. So most likely a Rinnai system, it sounds good actually, SS tank with no sacrificial anode, solar panes on the roof and gas boosted. This will be instead of an Edwards LX roof mounted one. Any comment on either of the brands? Rinnai vs Edwards - both as good as each other? Or alternate brands that do the split style systems? My last memory of a solar system was a rental house in Perth (SolaHart), it had a small leak that got bigger before we figured out what it was. I remember quite a few cold showers (not fun with a kid under 1yr old) and of course huge bills. Needless to say they fixed it by converting to instant gas fired, and that didn't work too well with our water saving shower head! Arrrgh. I suppose solar makes the most sense since we all have showers before bed, on most days the water should be at least somewhat warm from the sun even in the south west of WA, less need for additional heating to temp and less cost. But yes I am critical of new stuff most of the time, just ask my husband! Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 14Nov 20, 2007 10:53 am Quote: My last memory of a solar system was a rental house in Perth (SolaHart), it had a small leak that got bigger before we figured out what it was. I remember quite a few cold showers (not fun with a kid under 1yr old) and of course huge bills. Needless to say they fixed it by converting to instant gas fired, and that didn't work too well with our water saving shower head! Arrrgh. My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son flies in a jetliner, his son will ride a camel.Saudi saying Re: Solar hot water, why bother? 15Nov 20, 2007 11:05 am kristofw Quote: My last memory of a solar system was a rental house in Perth (SolaHart), it had a small leak that got bigger before we figured out what it was. I remember quite a few cold showers (not fun with a kid under 1yr old) and of course huge bills. Needless to say they fixed it by converting to instant gas fired, and that didn't work too well with our water saving shower head! Arrrgh. Yeah my experience was at a rental property (we were renting and it's what most people would consider a budget rental). I imagine the hot water system was never maintained, who knows why it wold have been leaking water out, onto the roof & down the gutter! Not normal deterioration by any means. Just wanted to clarify that I never meant to imply the fault was anything to do with the SolarHeart brand quality, simply that it was our first experience with solar, and not so great one at that! However I remain undeterred for the above factors mentioned. The time to heat is purely a function of the distance between the hws and the faucet. There are many options for hot water, you can also have a circulating circuit of hot… 1 8672 I want to build a decking to the drawn shape outlined in black. The problem is how close can I build to the gas hot water unit? Will I be able to build around it and be… 0 16200 DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair Hi, I've got a brand new (2nd hand) Bosch Hydropower 16H tankless hot water heater. Since it was installed I have noticed it leaks a lot. I took the cover off and it looks… 0 18133 |