Residential Solar Heating: Is Residential Solar Heating Right For You?

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Have you been weighing the decision to grab a residential solar heating system for your home? Looking for a bit guidance? Check out the Residential Solar Heating Guide below to get started...

Residential solar heating is one of the most popular, most cost-effective and fastest growing trends in the solar therma, or solar heating, market. There are two different types of residential solar heating systems that you can use to cut the heating energy bills at your home.

The first type of residential solar heating is domestic solar hot water heating and the second type of residential solar heating is solar radiant, or space, heating.

Domestic solar hot water heating is, by far, the most common form of residential solar heating used on the market today. Thousands and thousands of homes across the United States, and around the world, utilize this form of residential solar heating to cut their energy costs and live a cleaner, greener lifestyle at the same time.

Domestic hot water can account for 20%, or more, of your home energy costs. However, with a domestic solar hot water heater, you can easily cut 65%, or more, off of your domestic hot water heating costs. This is one of the key reasons that this is the most popular, and widespread, uses of residential solar heating.

Radiant, or space, heating is the second type of residential solar heating, and is growing in popularity across the Europe, from coast to coast in the United States and around the rest of the world. Your home heating costs account for roughly 40% of your home energy costs (typically, far more than your electric bills) and a residential solar heating system for radiant and space heating can easily knock hundreds of dollars off your heating bills every year.

What is involved in a residential solar heating system?

A typical residential solar heating system can be both simple, and complex, at the same time - depending on how you look at things. Generally speaking, a residential solar heating system is no more complex than a traditional hot water or home heating system, and uses many of the same components, with some obvious additions to utilize the residential solar heating portion of the system.

Typically, a residential solar heating system is installed where the solar collectors transfer the sunlight into heat, then the hot HTF (heat transfer fluid) is sent to a heat exchanger. From the heat exchanger, the potable water is heated...this is where the new residential solar heating is connected to your traditional hot water and home heating system. It is this marriage of residential solar heating and traditional heating system components that make residential solar heating so cost-effective...and popular.

Nearly every residential solar heating system in use is made with either:

• Flat Plate Solar Collectors or
• Evacuated Tube Solar Collectors