Setting Up Active and Passive Solar Thermal Systems

Solar thermal systems simply mean using the heat of the sun to heat what you need at home, like your water and your house itself. The advantage to setting up this kind of system is that once it's there, you never need to do anything with it again, other than check it periodically for rusting or degeneration.

There are two kinds of solar thermal systems – active and passive solar heat collectors. The simplest of these are the passive systems; these are the real “set them up and leave them” systems. All these require just tweaking your environment in order to take advantage of the sun's rays. And since home heating takes up about 50% of a household's expenses, you will definitely want to take one tip or the other into consideration for your own home.

For example, you can significantly cut down on your home heating expenses with just a solar sink collector set up inside your home. A simple and beautiful brick floor on the side of your house that receives the most sunlight soaks up the heat of the sun's rays in the daytime and releases it back into the house at night.

If you are building a new home or considering remodeling, this area of the house could be equipped with double-glazed glass picture windows and replacing some of the roofing with special glass panels will really take advantage of the heat you can collect.

You can heat water in the same way. One way is to place copper tubing under your brick floor to let it absorb some of the heat. A quick way to heat your bathroom is by using the leftover heat from your bath! Just drain it away when the water is already cold.

Once you have collected all this heat, don't waste it by letting it escape back into the atmosphere. The only way to keep it where it belongs is by insulating your home. Have insulation installed in your roof – you can lose up to 35% of your heat through the ceiling. Double-glazed windows save you a maximum of 30% of your electrical bill. And what about things you can do yourself? You can easily seal a room with weather stripping, install heavy curtains in light or white fabrics with thermal backing, put draught blockers like bolsters in front of doors to stop heat from escaping, add an extra layer of clothes, and clean your windows!

Active solar heating entails setting up a flat plate collector in an outdoor area that can absorb the sun's rays for most of the day. This heats water that is circulating inside the plate and once it reaches optimum temperature, it gets sent to an insulated tank for home use.

To conserve this hot water, insulate your hot water pipes so you can store hot water in your pipes as well as in the tank. If your pipes are copper, it's actually a better conductor of heat and heats it up faster and keeps it warm longer.