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[coolidge]

    Been thinking of adding some solar for hotwater in the summertime.

My idea;   Have some Panels installed(depends on cost and payback) on garage roof.
Plumb it to outdoor wood boiler via a heat exchanger in garage, boiler would act as storage and then feed to my Turbomax installed in the basement.

Dumb?

I generally use $5-600.00 for propane in summer months, payback might be tooooooooo long

[mlappin]

Not sure if I believe it, but Natures Comfort claims that their vacuum tube collectors will even add heat in the dead of winter.

Figure if you had free hot water in the summer, then if they worked as claimed and you burned less in the winter payback wouldn’t be as long.

[Roger2561]

I was thinking of doing the same thing but I just had my oil tank topped off a few weeks ago after 4 years of not buying any and it cost ~$450.00 to fill the tank.  I had about an 1/8 of a tank of oil left in it.  My DHW in the non OWB season is about 5 months long; that's less than $100.00/mon.  If the oil doesn't get stupid expensive it doesn't make sense for me to go to passive solar hot-water.  Now, if I was a tree hugger, then I'm supposed to spend ten of thousands of dollars for the solar system.  Don't get me wrong, the environment is worth protecting but so isn't my wallet.  Roger   

[oldchenowth]

I follow a guy on utube for a dune buggy build and he had a few segments on vacuum tubes for hot water, looked to boil water in - 15 F weather outside.  Kinda made me think about it.  I do not know the cost of such a beast, but it looked pretty neat.

[mlappin]

I was thinking of doing the same thing but I just had my oil tank topped off a few weeks ago after 4 years of not buying any and it cost ~$450.00 to fill the tank.  I had about an 1/8 of a tank of oil left in it.  My DHW in the non OWB season is about 5 months long; that's less than $100.00/mon.  If the oil doesn't get stupid expensive it doesn't make sense for me to go to passive solar hot-water.  Now, if I was a tree hugger, then I'm supposed to spend ten of thousands of dollars for the solar system.  Don't get me wrong, the environment is worth protecting but so isn't my wallet.  Roger   

Not sure if a tax credit is still available for solar collectors, but then your protecting your wallet a little more.

[coolidge]

I thought I had seen where our acting leader was going to have some good credits available for solar soon, maybe not though.

[mlappin]

I thought I had seen where our acting leader was going to have some good credits available for solar soon, maybe not though.

I just was searching for vacuum tube manufacturers and found one site that claimed a 30% tax credit was in effect for the total cost of the system.

[coolidge]

Yes 30 percent until 2016 from the Feds, you would need to check the local state rebates.