Innovating Today s Solar Technology for the Future of Tomorrow SunMaxx Solar Hot Water - Silicon Solar Inc - www.siliconsolar.com - www.sunmaxxsolar.com - (800) 653-8540
Introduction & Radiant Heating Facts SunMaxx Solar Hot Water Systems are not only for heating your domestic or potable water. In fact, thousands of households across the United States, and millions around the world, use Solar Hot Water Systems to provide heating for their home during the winter and heating seasons. These homes are taking advantage of the great free source of power, the sun, saving hundreds, or thousands, of dollars a year in energy bills. Whether you heat with oil, natural gas, propane or electric, a Solar Hot Water System designed to provide central heating will cut your bill by 50% or more, every year, no matter where you live. And, a SunMaxx Solar Hot Water System can be used to provide heating through any existing, or new-installation, home heating system. By use of Heat Exchangers, baseboard radiators or in-floor radiant loops, your SunMaxx Solar Hot Water System can easily integrate into your current heating system, dramatically reducing your installation costs and initial investment. The average American home spends 30-50% of its total energy bills every year just on home heating. By using a Solar Hot Water System to eliminate 50% Plus of this expenditure you can save hundreds, or thousands, of dollars every year - giving you more expendable income, and lowering you cost of living, which is steadily increasing across the United States today. The chart below shows the annual costs of operating various home heating systems.
Types of Systems Your SunMaxx Solar Hot Water System can be used in concert with three main types of home heating systems. This versatility allows you to save money on your Solar Hot Water Installation - meaning you have a lower initial investment, higher return on your investment and a shorter payback period. Baseboard Heating These heating systems use baseboard radiators in the rooms in your home or office. As hot water is passed through the radiators, heat is trasferred out into the room, providing ample space heating to keep the rooms at a comfortable, pre-set temperature. It is incredibly easy to integrate a Solar Hot Water System into a baseboard heating system. By pre-heating the water that will move through the system with your solar collectors, you can dramatically reduce the amount of heating that must be supplied by your standard electric, oil, propane or natural gas heating system. In-Floor Radiant Heating By installing radiant heating loops under your floors, you are able to provide direct radiant heating to your home or office with a minimal investment. Today, radiant in-floor heating systems are a standard installation in many homes, and new construction homes and offices typically have these in-floor heating loops (often made of PEX) to save new home owners money on their electric bills. Of course, these radiant loops can also be installed in your exisitng home or office, without too much trouble. By feeding water that is heated in your Solar Hot Water System through these loops, you are able to significantly reduce your home heating bills be lowering your reliance on oil, natural gas, propane or electric as your main heating source. Forced Hot Air Heating Systems Yes, your SunMaxx Solar Hot Water System can also be used to heat your home through your existing forced hot air system. While this is not the most efficient use of a Solar Hot Water System for home heating, if you already have a forced hot air system in place, it makes economic sense to simply utilize your Solar Hot Water System in this existing system, saving you the cost of installing baseboard radiators or in-floor radiant loops. The installation for this type of System is rather simple. The only additional component that you need is a air-to-water heat exchanger which operates by passing hot water through a series of fins. As the fins are heated by the water, your furnace blower can be used to move the hot water through the home or office s air ducts.
Typical Layout - Baseboard/In Floor The image below shows the typical system layout for a single zone solar hot water system used for in-floor radiant heating, but can also be used to demonstrate the basic configuration of a Baseboard System, where the infloor loops are replaced by baseboard radiators, but the main flow of HTF (Heat Transfer Fluid) through the system remains primarily the same. Additionally, though the diagram shows a single solar collector, your system will likely a number of collectors in series and/ or parallel, which will connect to the system just as a single collector would. Though this diagram shows the use of a storage tank to supply the hot water needed for the radiant heating loops, a similar system can be utilized that has no tank, but simply utilizes the HTF directly from the Solar Collector Loop. This is a less efficient way to setup this system, though it does eliminate the additional cost purchasing a Solar Hot Water Storage Tank for use in your System. A Forced Hot Air System using Solar Hot Water can be setup similarly with or without the Solar Hot Water Storage Tank.
Domestic Solar Hot Water Typical Installations - Forced Hot Air Installing and designing your Solar Hot Water System to provide heating to your home through your existing forced hot air system is relatively simple. The most complicated aspect is installing the air-to-water heat exchanger, which simply fits into the plenum of your existing furnace. By running the hot water from your Solar Collector loop, or from a solar hot water storage tank, you will be able to heat the air within the plenum without relying so heavily on your existing fuel source. Here are simple diagrams of what a solar hot water system for forced hot air heating look like. These images show a system with a storage tank dedicated to simply your home heating, and the second shows a system which incorporates domestic hot water into the loop. You can also use a Solar Loop that incorporates only the solar collectors and the Heat Exchanger, though this is not the ideal setup. Forced Hot Air - Storage Tank/Closed System Forced Hot Air - Storage Tank w/ Domestic Hot Water
Choosing Your Pre-Packaged Kit To make your Purchase even easier, SunMaxx offers a number of Pre-Packaged Kits for you to choose from. These kits include the major components needed for installation (the solar aspect of your heating system, and are designed to ease the process of purchasing, designing and installing a Solar Hot Water System for Radiant Heating. We offer pre-packaged solar radiant heating systems for homes from 1000 square feet up to 2500 square feet. If your home is larger, we can custom size a solar radiant heating system to meet the needs of your home or office today. These pre-packaged kits are designed to cut your heating needs from 50% up, with a maximum amount of heating at 75-80%. Model Number of Solar Collectors Solar Collector Model 1000 Square Foot Home Models Storage Tank Size Heat Dump HH-1000-50 2 SunMaxx-30 184 Gallon Recommended HH-1000-70 3 SunMaxx-30 184 Gallon Recommended HH-1000-80 4 SunMaxx-30 184 Gallon Recommended 1500 Square Foot Home Models HH-1500-50 3 SunMaxx-30 275 Gallon Recommended HH-1500-70 4 SunMaxx-30 275 Gallon Recommended HH-1500-80 6 SunMaxx-30 275 Gallon Recommended 2000 Square Foot Home Models HH-2000-50 4 SunMaxx-30 328 Gallon Recommended HH-2000-70 5 SunMaxx-30 328 Gallon Recommended HH-2000-80 7 SunMaxx-30 328 Gallon Recommended 2500 Square Foot Home Models HH-2500-50 4 SunMaxx-30 415 Gallon Recommended HH-2500-70 7 SunMaxx-30 415 Gallon Recommended HH-2500-80 8 SunMaxx-30 415 Gallon Recommended