Solar Home Heating

Solar Home Heating - Perhaps the most exciting new development in solar thermal is in space or home heat applications.  With the newer more powerful vacuum tube technology, winter heating has become much more feasible.  Solar Space heating can be integrated into an existing home heat system via radiant floor heat (hydronics) & radiators or forced air home heat.  In all these applications, solar is to be used as a supplement to the existing heating system.  Because home heat consumes a great portion of your energy bill, its payback can be under 5 years.

Basic Principles - Solar Home Heating uses the solar collectors to capture the sun's energy, this energy is then transfered to a storage tank or concrete pad (in floor heating).  The stored heat is then integrated with the existing heat system to supplement the heat supply.  A larger storage tank can hold more energy and as such can be used in the evening to supply heat when the sun is not shinning.  Because the heat demand occurs during the winter, a secondary dissipation loop may be needed to off load the heat in the summer months.  Alternatively, this energy can be off loaded to heat other heat demand sources such as pools, hot tubs or domestic water heat.  A dissipation circut will also help regulate the storage tank temperature allowing the home heating circuit to be set at a comfortable level without over-heating.  Note: alternatively one can cover or unplug the heat pipes in the summer as a manual means of shutting down the system. 

Most heating system require some form of freeze protection in the winter months, thus the solar loop usually contains a mixture of water and glycol to prevent freezing.  Specialty solar storage containers have been designed for buffering the solar heat with the home heat.  These storage tanks have an internal heat exchangers built into them.  The solar loop is found in the bottom of the tank and heats the water.  Heat is  extracted the heat from the top of the storage tank to the heat load area such as radiant floor heat by activating a second pump.   When there is demand and the top of the tank is hot enough to meet this demand the pump will turn on.  By using a solar storage tank, the system can retain the heat that would otherwise be dissipated once the demand temperature has been met. 

System Design- Northern Lights Solar heating systems use a special solar storage tank. Alternatively a storage pad or gravel base can be used but this is not as efficient. This storage tank system allows for solar storage during the day and can release the stored energy at night when the demand is usually higher.