Thread: Siting of panels for solar water heating
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John Beardmore John Beardmore is offline
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Default Siting of panels for solar water heating
In message . com,
writes
Richard Bates wrote:

First, flat panels give much better ROI than vac tubes

Quick nurse - the tin opener !


Second, British winters are mostly overcast, and flat panels work ok on
indirect sun, whereas silvered evacuated tubes work a lot less
efficiently under these conditions.

What do you mean by "silvered" ?


3rd, it is all more complex than that,

Quite so !


but suffice it to say that flat
panels are very much a going concern in Britain.

Yes.


An optimally designed system would have a mix of both flat panel and
vac tube, with each heating a separate part of the system.

Yes - been there, got the T-shirt.

Really they need to be on separate primary circuits.


Flat panel
is best for mid-temp water, as it gives much more output per £/$. Vac
tube is best for the final max temp water, as it gives high output
temps that flat panels cant consistently deliver. However, the ROI on
the flat tubes will be much poorer, so spending some of the money on
flat panels will much improve total annual output.

Hmmm... Have you seen the prices of the Chinese import ETs ?

To be honest, while what you say was true 10 years ago, the difference
in cost per area is now pretty small, and the prices we quote to end
users are much the same per area for FP and ET, because while ET is
slightly more expensive, installation is easier and safer in lifting and
handling terms, if not actually quicker.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore
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