How you can help and save money at the same time.

The installation of a solar water heater enables you to make choices to provide a positive contribution to our global environment.  The simple act can save up to 60% of your electricity usage, which in turn means our local power utility burns less coal or gas to generate electricity.  Reduced burning of fossil fuels wil cut the greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, especially in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2).  Greenhouse gases include methane and chloroflourocarbons (CFC's), as well as a variety of other gases.  Solar water heaters are one of the best investments you can make - both financially and for the environment.

How does it work?

Correctly designed solar water heaters are an extremely simple and reliable concept that uses the sun's energy to heat water.  Today several million homes and businesses all over the world use solar water heating, which supplies 40% - 70% of all the energy needed for water heating.  A typlical solar hot water system consists of a flat plate solar collector or an evacuated-tube collector, which is connected to an insulated hot water storage tank.

1.  Flat plate solar collector:

The flat plate solar collector is a very simple device.  It is an insulated rectangular box, which contains a metal absorber plate (copper or aluminium) that has been painted black, with headers made of 22mm copper pipe at each end.  These are connected with small risers made from either 10mm or 15mm copper pipe.  Generally the more headers present, the more effective and costly the model.  The entire box is covered with hail resistant tempered glass and is installed north facing.  Supply water flows from the hot water storage tank to the header, then into the risers where it is heated by the sun's energy and returned back to the storage tank for domestic sonsumption.  The hot water tank is fitted with an electric element that turns on only if the water temperature cannot be maintained by the solar water heater. 

2. Evacuated tube collector:

Evacuated-tube collectors are designed for colder "freeze prone" areas and are made up of rows of parallel, transparent glass tubes.  The air is withdrawn ("evacuated") from the space between the tubes to form a vacuum, which eliminates conductive and convective heat loss.  Each tube consists of a glass outer tube and a copper heat pipe, which i installed with-in the glass tube.  The copper heat pipe is covered with a selective coating that absorbs solar energy well, but inhibits radiating heat loss.  The heat transferred to the tip of the heat pipe is in turn transferred to a copper manifold in which water circulates to heat the domestic hot water tank.

Simple or Complex Solar Water Heaters save money!!

What is in it for me?

• Enables you to contribute positively to the environment.
• Hedge against spiralling energy costs.
• Free hot water for life.
• Independance from erratic utility power supply.
• An investment in your children's future.
• The release of much needed energy to industry.
• Reduced burning of fossil fuel (release of CO2 gasses in the atmosphere).
• Increase in you resale property value.

A quote from the National Geographic:

"For centuries we've been clearing forests and burning coal, oil and gas, pouring carbon diocide and other heat trapping gasses into the atmosphere faster than plants and oceans can soak them up.  We are now geological agents, capable of affecting the processes that determine climate.  We have created the envoronment in which our children and grandchildren are going to live."

Still not convinced?  Some more facts and figures from the National Geographic:

• 2005 was the warmest year ever recorded, beating the previous record high set in 1998 and continues a general trend of rising temperatures dating back to 1980.
• In May 2005, scientists concluded the Earth is absorbing more of the sun's energy than is being emitted back into space, disrupting the planet's energy balance and resulting in global warming.
• Scientists agree the Earth's climate is being directly affected by human activity, and for many people around the world, these changes are having negative effects.  Carbon dioxide levels today are nearly 30 percent higher that they were prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution, based on records extending back 650,000 years.
• According to NASA, the polar ice cap is now melting at the rate of 9 percent per decade.  Arctic ice thirkness has decreased by 40 percent since the 1960's.  The current pace of sea-level rise is three times the historial rate and appears to be accelerating.
• New evidence of the effects climate change is having on the natural world is being researched by scientists all over the world at institutions such as the Earth Institute.
• Droughts in the Sahel during the 1970s and 1980s were found to be caused by warmer sea surface termperatures, and the current drought in the Amazon is also suspected to be a result of rising ocean temperatures.
• The cause of intensifying tropical storms in the Atlantic is currently under study, and some scientists believe rising sea surface termperatures to be the cause.
• Poverty and food insecurity has been tied to climate variability, and climate change research provides crucial steps towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.