About Solar Hot Water for Brisbane families

Solar hot water is where water is collected for human use and heated by the sun using natural “solar” energy. A Solar heating system is made up of solar collectors or known as thermal collectors or solar panels. It also has a storage tank and water movement system to transfer the heat from the solar panel collectors to the outlet taps.

In the heating process, a small amount of electricity is generally used to pump the water within the solar heating system and uses local water pressure to move the water from the system through the home plumbing system. On a rural property or properties that don’t have a mains pressure connected water system, electric pumps are used provide the pressure to the household plumbing system.

Most solar hot water systems use what’s call a storage water system to capture the heated water throughout daylight hours when solar panels work at their maximum efficiency and retain it in various litre capacity storage tanks for use as people need it. Examples of this would be in a larger household with five or six people. A Solar hot water system works best when coupled with a gas booster. Gas boosted systems have the benefit of using solar energy through the day to heat the stored water and if weather conditions are rainy or cloudy the gas booster kicks in to keep the water heated to the pre-set temperature required. These are the most efficient solar hot water systems.

These systems can be used for many applications. Apart from general home use they can be used for business and industrial uses.

The good thing about using solar heating systems in places like Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast is that our climate and weather conditions allows a high degree of effectiveness of harnessing the sun’s rays. This equates to approximately 85% of domestic hot water energy.

History of solar hot water…

Wikipedia  provides a great read on the history of solar hot water. It talks about solar hot water heating being very popular in the 1920’s in places like Florida and Southern California which has similar temperatures and weather conditions to Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast.

It goes on about solar becoming more widely used as energy cost rose in the 1970’s and how  China has really embraced using solar energy in recent times. Australia too, has now made building energy efficiency mandatory in the Building Code of Australia for solar energy to be included in all new building construction in Australia.