"Alan" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi Graham,

I have looked extensively at solar water heating. I could bore you to
death with figures and calculations but my opinion is that at todays
prices you will never see payback on a commercially installed system.
I have looked at DIYing it and worked out a payback of 20 years (not
counting running and maintenance costs) and that is comparing it to oil
which is comparatively expensive.

How about using cheap Navitron equipment. They have dropped the price of
Solar equipment like a stone.

As a commercialy installedl system (even with a grant) is much more
expensive than DIY then your payback time is even greater than that.
I should also mention I am in central Scotland so I guess you might
have more sun than me and perhaps a better payback...

As energy prices increase, the payback time gets better so my advice to
you is to revisit this in a few years.

You didn't mention your motivation for looking at this. If
environmental then it maybe makes sense but I don't know the energy
costs in the manufacture of these.

You also didn't mention how many people you are looking to heat water
for or if this is a retrofit or part of a new build. Payback is better
on a larger system and installation cheaper on a new build.

Alan.