Solar heating

Paultoby4321

Had someone here selling solar for heating water and the whole house they say it will keep the house at the same temperature all the time and just small amount of back up from back boiler and oil it's quite expensive does this work very old stone house so can't insulate have attice done

_Brian

Without knowing what system they were selling it’s hard to answer.

I’d hazard a guess he was talking about some sort of buffer tank system but who knows.

BUT.
In general these systems rely on high levels of insulation, the building being airtight and ventilation controlled mechanically with heat recovery included.

I know someone who installed a geo pump system in a poorly finished build and they were freezin all the time even with huge running costs.

Paultoby4321

_Brian wrote: »

Without knowing what system they were selling it’s hard to answer.

I’d hazard a guess he was talking about some sort of buffer tank system but who knows.

BUT.
In general these systems rely on high levels of insulation, the building being airtight and ventilation controlled mechanically with heat recovery included.

I know someone who installed a geo pump system in a poorly finished build and they were freezin all the time even with huge running costs.

No it's a 3 coil cylinder. Not a heat recovery pump. Panels on roof heat a liquid this goes through the cylinder and heats the water which is circulated to the rads thank you

Latro

Figure it out yourself if it would work.

Take oil consumption from last winter. Base on that and taking oil boiler efficiency (probably around 80%) in consideration calculate how much heat energy in kWh you generated. 1 liter of oil equals 10kwh of heat energy.
If you research what is power generation from solar during winter time you will clearly see that there is no way that you could even remotely heat your house that way.

Perhaps he was talking about air to water heat pump with solar panel like heat exchanger on the roof. That would work and would be cheaper than oil but then again I personally would prefer normal A2W heat pump with fan assisted evaporator. Probably cheaper to install and more reliable energy source.

dathi

Paultoby4321 wrote: »

Had someone here selling solar for heating water and the whole house they say it will keep the house at the same temperature all the time and just small amount of back up from back boiler and oil it's quite expensive does this work very old stone house so can't insulate have attice done

search the plumbing forum and the construction forum with the company name lots of threads on here about them. the problem with them is thatwhen you require the most heat to heat your house ie. winter, is the time when they can provide the least heat.

_Brian

Paultoby4321 wrote: »

No it's a 3 coil cylinder. Not a heat recovery pump. Panels on roof heat a liquid this goes through the cylinder and heats the water which is circulated to the rads thank you

I was using the geo as an example..


I cant see how a triple coil tank will work as you suggested, thats why I suggested maybe it was a buffere thank, this is a much larger thank that is heated when there is sun over a period of time and the water circulated to the rads when needed.. even then good detailing will be needed.