NickyC

It's not just being talked about. There must be hundreds of thousands of houses with solar panels for hot water - some of them well over 20 years old.

We had a solar hot water system installed a couple of years ago in our 80-year old house. We had a reasonable rebate (about $1300 from memory) so the total cost to us was around the $2000 mark. Our hot water costs are almost zero during the summer. You do you need to put some effort in during the winter, by checking the cloud cover and flicking the switch for the booster if it's been dull for a while - otherwise you can get surprised by the odd cold shower.

MrsDagboy

Exactly - solar hot water & solar power to run a house. Two different things, I've had both, not sure which one the OP was referring to, but my guess is solar hot water .

Vash the Stampede

Some people can't be bothered with the extra fuss and expense; others object for aesthetic reasons.

cresta57

We heat all our hot water using solar energy. We have a 160 litre capacity "solarhart" system on the roof and it heats enough water for four adults and 2 teenage children to shower and wash clothes etc.
Grants are available and a system installed on a new property costs approx $2400 including the rebate from the Govt. The Qld state rebate ended at the end of the last financial yr though the big federal one is still available.
Solar power is quite common up here in the more remote areas and I've seen quite a few systems installed. A good one costs 24k upwards and that is eligible for rebates of up to 50% depending upon location. Down side is the batteries need replacing every few yrs and they are an expensive item. Most folks use a back up generator for cloudy overcast days.

Bradley7

OK thanks for proving me right. Look on any weather related sight and look up day light hours, sorry I won't do the hard work like looking up a search engine and typing in what you want to find lol. Sorry I digressed and you jumped on the oh Aus in everyway is better than UK! Uk has longer summer day light hours fact, please read original post.

So you were saying?

MrsDagboy

Yep, so you were saying?

Suggest you take your advice & re-read your first post .

Can't be bothered to argue with someone who is simply posting stuff just to stir the pot, if solar power works so well in the UK I suggest you get some solar panels on your roof to run your computer.

cresta57

I don't want to embarrass you further so I won't actually quote your original statement.
Suffice to say that from the north pole to the south pole and all the bit's in the middle get exactly the same hours of light and dark over the course of a whole year. Hence during the arctic summer it doesn't get dark yet in the winter it doesn't get light.
If you want a very simple explanation, and it looks as if you need one.
Take a torch and shine it on a globe the bright centre of the torch where the light is concentrated will be around the tropics, now when the sun is higher ie the northern summer the light from the torch is concentrated on the tropic of Cancer and the light spills over the top of the north pole. the same is true for the Autumnal equinox when the sun is over the tropic of Capricorn and the light spills over the south pole. Thus giving equal amounts of daylight/darkness to the whole world. It also explains why the middle bits are the hotter places, nothing to do with distance from the sun etc. just that they get a more direct angle of sunlight.
Sunlight however is a very different story and best left for when you've absorbed todays lesson in astrology. Something school kids are taught here in grade 4/5 geography. You were probably wagging that day.

moneypenny20

Cresta, just been looking at solaheat's web site, now saved in favourites - thanks. I know nothing about solar heating but as we want to build our own house eventually would want to use the sun if possible. Does your system have some sort of backup for cloudy days? I always thought you didn't actually need direct sunshine or have I got it wrong?

Kiwipaul

I looked into this last year and it costs about $3,500 for a 3 bedroom house after the gov rebates. This is a black radiator on the roof to heat the water and a tank on the ground to store the hot water. As a previous poster says it's going to be compulsory in QLD for new builds in the near future. But yes you do need a backup heating system for the occasional overcast day and I believe this backup system if it's electric they charge you a standing charge that is almost as must as electric water heating costs me at the mo. If your backup system is gas you don't get the gov rebate for installing the solar system as they are trying to reduce the electrical generating requirement.

If you want solar panels to generate electricty you are looking at $100,000 min and that is why it's few and far between and only the rich greenies can afford it. You would also need solar hot water as well because solar panels just don't have the umph for heating water comercially even for a household.

moneypenny20

Seems to almost defeat the object then (if the object is to save money )

leedslad

100k wow thats alot!

its sad really that we are putting so little research into these renewable energy sources. We can double a pc's processing power in a year, but green energy research moves so slow.

I bet when electric heaters become illegal it will spark a massive investment into researching cheaper solar energy.

Wol

Tomorrow's lesson will be on the difference between "Astrology" and "Astronomy" (!)

Sorry, couldn't resist it!

Kiwipaul

Large ammounts of money are being spent on research on this at the moment but they need an Einstein with a radical idea to break the impass.

How I see it is there are 3 brick walls we have hit. We cannot produce power from fusion, we cannot find a way to store electricty efficiently (Batteries) and we cannot generate power from the sun comercially. I'm sure their are more but these to me are the keys to economic success.

I'm also in favour of $2 per litre petrol as I HATE the thought of being dependent on Middle eastern oil and paying a high price for petrol virtually guarenttees alternatives will be developed that are not dependent on middle eastern oil (oil shale in Oz is a prime candidate).

leedslad

The extra money spent on fuel would only be channeled down another non-environmentally friendly, non-Australian route.

Taxing the public isn't the answer in my view. It’s the Industry giants that should be taxed.

cresta57

Nice one Rog My spelling is atrocious though it's usually good enough to know that the words are spelled wrongly so I rely far too heavily on spell checker bloody thing let me down big style this time. I guess I should have seen it in the stars