Before you choose a solar thermal system for your home, it's important to go through the steps of energy conservation. We've said it before and we'll say it again: improving your home's energy efficiency is less expensive and more effective than any new renewable energy installation in the short term.
A multi-tank installation usually costs a lot more than a single-tank design and requires a lot more equipment and piping. The advantage is that the layout is a lot more flexible and retrofitting can be much simpler with several small tanks, rather than trying to get one monster tank through doorways.
The ideal location for a solar thermal collector array is one in which the sun's radiation falls full and unobstructed on the collector surface between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., with the collector facing the noon sun directly. However, the perfect location isn't always available, so here are some pointers to help you decide whether a site is acceptable or not.
Pressurized solar thermal installations for space heating follow the same solar loop layout as similar systems for hot water. They can use single or multiple liquid tanks or they can use sand as a storage medium.
Setting up a solar thermal space heating system is only one side of the renewable energy heating coin. The other side is actually delivering the heat the installation generates to your home. Assuming you've chosen an appropriate system for your needs, you have captured the sun's energy and either stored it or have it ready to be dumped straight into the building. What next?
In practical terms, choosing the right size for your solar thermal hot water storage tank and collector array is one of the most important aspects of system planning. Get the wrong sizes and you could be in trouble - too small and your grid-tied bills will be unnecessarily expensive and the system risks overheating; too large and your installation costs will be too high.
Very few solar thermal space heating installations provide 100% of a home's heating requirements year-round, so a grid-tied backup is almost always required. It is obviously a lot more efficient – particularly financially – to use the same heat delivery equipment for both systems wherever possible.
This is a common question from people who want to retrofit a solar thermal space heating system. The simple answer is "Yes, you can integrate the two systems." The reality of the process is a little more complicated.
