Solar Water Heater DIY

Making your own solar water heater can be a very easy and rewarding project. As with most do it yourself (diy) projects, making your own solar water heater can also be a bit more involved is you want to get the maximum usage and return from your work of art.

 

Hot Water Needs – Requirements

Reduced flow shower head

Before you start building, we should take a good look at your present hot water usage. Have you turned down the temperature on your present hot water heater? Are you washing your clothes in cold water. Do you have reduced flow shower heads and aerators on the faucets? Just by implementing these changes, I have reduced by total hot water heating cost to under $100 per year (I have a fairly new gas hot water heater).

 

Solar Water Heater Annual Usage

Now that your requirements for hot water have been optimized, it’s time to look at a couple of alternatives for diy solar hot water heaters. The two basic alternatives are ALL YEAR USAGE and PRIME SUNLIGHT USAGE. You can build a solar thermal hot water heater that will convert the maximum amount of sunlight into heat for your hot water and works all year round. Or, you can build a solar thermal hot water heater that will replace your existing hot water heater “most” of the time, but is definitely drained during “freezing season”. The option is yours and we’ll cover both models. The biggest difference in these two models in the cost to build.

The Bread Box Solar Hot Water Header basically uses a black water tank, placed within an insulated box, to provide your hot water. The tank is often a used tank from inside an old electric hot water heater. The outside shell and insulation is remove. The tank is painted black. It is then placed inside a wooden, insulated box, with a glass cover. The whole unit faces the sun. Water is fed into the bottom of the tank and heated water is taken from the raised top of the tank. If this system is to be used in areas where the temperature can go below freezing, you need to super insulate the pipes feeding the tank and returning the hot water. Consider using a “de-icing” wire, inserted beside the pipes and inside insulation, to keep the pipes from freezing. Or you can drain the system during the months when you could get freezing temperatures.

Another alternative batch solar water heater for the do it yourself-er, works very well in very sunny climates, or for ”summertime” usage only. For this version of the batch solar water heater, you take a water tank, paint in black, connect up and intake and output hose and you are done. The water in this system will not get much above air temperature and you’ll lose a lot of heat at night. However, if you live in the southern states, northern Australia, or use it just for a summer cottage, it will deliver all the hot water you need.

The batch solar water heater in this picture provides warm water for our outside shower at the cottage. If it’s warm enough to swim, then the batch solar water heater is working also.

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• Homemade batch solar water heaters
• Home Solar Panels
• DIY Solar Water Heater

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