wannabauzzienurse

I was reading the other post about elctricity charges and it got me wondering why more Australian households don't make use of solar power for heating water, there is certainly enough sunshine for year round hot water I would have thought. I think it can be a biggish initial outlay but will pay for itself after a few years...even some people here make use of it with our watery sunshine
just a thought

jayr

Solar hot water heating is relativley common, you see a solar panel about 2m square on aroof with what looks like a large gas cylinder attached. However, the thing is that there is a big initial outlay and it takes a lot of years to pay off. Not really commercially viable on a household scale, despite quite a lot of subsidies being available. I'll see if I can find some numbers.

moneypenny20

We've got it simply because when we bought this house the water tank was very small and on it's last legs - more rust than a rusty thing Didn't see the point of replacing with similar and we still had pounds to spend. Cost us $3,000 which included the rebate.

We have only had it since about March but have had to have the electric heater bit on it a fair bit because of not enough sunshine believe it or not, it's wired to the cheap rate meter though but obviously can't tell you savings because we didn't have the old one for long.

More and more people are having them but to be honest if I were down in Tassie, Victoria areas I possibly wouldn't bother because of slightly more overcast days.

JaneandJim

Here in Queensland for new builds, the water heater now has to be solar or gas. Its not allowed to be electric anymore. I would think that most people will go for solar as there is no gas supply here, you have to buy bottles.

Jane

jayr

There are about 170,000 households in Brisbane that have reticulated gas (pipes in street) and as you say all others have to use bottled.

Gas is relatively expensive in Australia and in QLD in particular it is uneconomic for energy suppliers to put gas pipes in the street. To be economic requires about three gas appliances - so cooking, hot water and space heating. Of course in QLD space heating isn't on enough to make it economic never mind the cost of retrofitting something like gas-fired hot water heating (gas central heating) in the first place.

The best the Govt can do is either subsidise (which costs taxpayers) or make it illegal to use electric hot water in new estates (which costs the individual buyer).

NickyC

Loads of Australian houses have solar hot water. We had it installed in our 80-year-old house a few years ago. I think the cost was around $3k - I know we got about a third of the cost rebated from the government. We did our sums at the time and figured we be in front after about 10 years. As we don't plan to ever move from here we will benefit financially eventually, although that wasn't our prime motive for doing it. We needed a new hot water tank and believe you have to take the green option, if possible.

Newer systems don't have the tank on the roof any more. We just have three flat solar panels which are less intrusive than the lumpy things that you see around the place.

jensteve

We have a gas supply, which does the cooker hob and then the hot water heater. My gas bills are never over $50 a quarter!

I have thought about solar water heating and figured theres no real financial gain for us at all, lets face it when summer arrives my cold tap feels like its been through a furnace anyway.

The pool has solar on it, which I could probably start using properly from the end of september to bring the pool temp up, but unless the roof is over 30° it takes ages to do anything to the temp of the actual pool.

Hope this helps
Jenny

Centurion

I have solar hot water. The latest models dont have the tank outside the roof and is instead underslung into the roof space. All you see is two panels. Is backed up by electric if we need it. That way I dont have to bother with gas supply since the whole house can be run from electric.

$10,000 from energex will also buy you a solar system to power your entire house. Cost effectiveness of that can only be measured over the time you plan to stay put in the house (over 5 years will pay for itself or thereabouts).

jayr

I dont have soalr myself (except direct sun on pool) but you should get decent temperatures from on-roof solars water heating for pools. Because there are lots of very narrow tubes the heat gets to the water more than it would to the pool itself. Also, the temp on the roof surface will be considerably higher than 30C if the air temp is 30C.

On a hot day, the air temp may be say 35C but the temp of bricks on the ground (or presumably tiles on the roof) may be more like 50C.

Lindsay Clan

We have solar heated water only because the ex display home we purchased came with it. It's very efficient and the gas only kicks in if their isn't enough sun to do the job. All new builds have to be 5* energy rated now and that includes either solar heated water or a water tank for toilets etc.

Lorraine

bramptonbrian

If you are in the sunshine coast area I'd most certainly advise you to speak to your local expat licenced plumber/gasfitter for no obligation quotations ~ me

lesleys

We have it with a huge tank on the ground, 360 litres I think.

cresta57

Not quite true on the paying for itself thing as the batteries need replacing every couple of yrs depending upon how big a bank of batteries you have and how far you discharge them each day.

Our solar hot water incorporates 2 panels on the roof and a 300 l storage tank under the house. We've had the odd dull day when we've had insufficient hot water though as we're reliant on tank water we do tend to have quick showers and try not to waste water regardless

wannabauzzienurse

What tends to happen hear is rather than maintaining vast battery banks the homeowner uses the power that is available when needed and any power that is being generated but not used is supplied back into the grid and the power supplier pays for it

cresta57

Grid what grid?
Most of the rural setups here feature a back up generator for battery topping up should the levels drop to low. Some of the homes as little as 10 k from us have no power other than this system We have a diesel generator that kicks in to provide limited power when the grid all to often fails.