Hot water in the winter?

Hey guys thanks for your help! My wife and I just moved off grid about a month ago and we are just getting things going.

Right now we have no hot water, which is not that bad because it is summer. We have very limited power and don't want to have to use propane to heat our water. I have looked into making a solar water heater, but before I did so I was curious if anyone had any experience with these in the winter. I am not sure if they work all that well (or at all) when it gets below freezing outside.

It would be great help if anyone can point me in the direction of a design of one that works well in the winter or let me know if I am headed in the wrong direction all together with a solar water heater.

Thanks again.

 

There are some good ideas and systems on the Builditsolar.com website. As I recall (maybe incorrectly) from a couple years ago there are links to plans to make 4x8 foot collectors that are about 94% as efficient as commercial collectors. Now that was by the creator's own measurements of btu output from his system. The thermal gain of those systems inside boxes seems to not be as good in very cold ambient temps as the ones with glass tubes with a vacuum inside which greatly reduces convective and conductive heat loss.

Take a look and see if you find the plans that go with this design for rolling sheet aluminum (flashing or gutter metal) into a u shaped channel to be stapled around copper tubing to improved thermal conduction into the copper flowing water. If not let us know and I'll look if I have links saved somewhere.

AT

 

Search Results for Query: evacuated tubes

 

If freezing is an issue, you may wish to modify the system linked by ghrit. What you may want is a solar heating system, using the liquid running through the solar collector as the medium for transferring heat to a heat exchanger which in turn heats the water you want to use for washing and laundering and so forth. The liquid running through the solar collector would be a water/glycol solution (the ratio will differ somewhat according to the expected temperatures below freezing) which should minimise the risk of pipes freezing and damaging the conduit system.

I'll try and see if I can find a reference to the source I am referring to.

As BT indicated....a combustion stove can be a primary source of hot water heating...

A combustion stove can also be a good means of boost heating a solar system where overcast and cloudy conditions reduce the solar gain.

 

Here is the design I've been eyeing to heat my shop:
Experimental Solar Collector Using Hybrid Copper/Aluminum Construction
Making, buying, and evaluating heat absorbing fins for solar collectors

Have fun.
AT

 

Doing it like grandma and grandpa did. Big old pots on the wood stove.
their cottage built in the 20's didn't have running water until 2009 (now you get to pump it by hand) and still heat up some big ass pots on the wood stove for dishes, bathing (prefer sauna and jump in lake or roll in snow after anyway), and cooking.

Sauna stove has beer keg with loop of stainless pipe running into fire box to thermosiphon heat the water, but being that it's unregulated .. be careful .. boiling water sucks if you don't temper it first .. but we all learned that at an early age .. like 3 or 4 .

 

UT
I have a solar hot water collector (summer with sun) propane supply on demand (summer when sun is above clouds) Electric DHW tank when power is running (gen sets for 10HP air comp , Lifts , splitters , mig/tig/plasma ,air arc gouge ) Still summer ,And I have major work to be done ..... but Wet Winter I use wood heat , I built a DHW SS jacket to pick up the heat from the Airtight stove . Never a Shrinking time when the airtight is on

You need to be creative & combine all systems to work separately but with the same basic components of the system . were just heating water to 105 max summer , 140 Winter here.

Sloth