solar panels and solid fuel range for DHW?

boarduser01

Has anyone used solid fuel range and combined it with solar panels for heating domestic hot water? How and what cylinder did you use?
Hope someone can advice me here.

Gugán

Has anyone used Solar panels and geothermal successfully? My builder says i wont need solar for hot water as geothermal is more than sufficient.

Is the geothermal expensive to run on elecricity??

Do you put in on at night only or all day and thermostatically controlled?

Cheers.

boarduser01

Gugan - I was told that using ground source heat pump was not any use to combine with solar panels.

However, I also in my research heard that GSHP's were expensive to run with electricity, not so much if heating underfloor heating, but is if you are trying to raise the temperature of the water to 65 degrees. It is like using an electric immersion heater at any time of the day (no use using night rate if using much hot water during the day).

For this reason and as we already have a solid fuel range, we are combining the range with solar panels to supply our domestic hot water. We are then leaving the GSHP to provide the heat for the underfloor heating. We are however still trying to work out whether it is better for us to use night-rate electricity supply or not.