I went to visit Ice Queen in Wales and she has a solar hot water collection system and was unhappy with it. I was, and have always been intrigued by such systems. So recently while thumbing through a copy of Mother Earth or some similar magazine I saw an advertisement for the SUNWARD brand solar hot water system. It comes as a kit, professional installation recommended but someone handy could likely do this themselves.
http://www.gosunward.com/
The system comes with 2 collector panels, 1 heat exchanger, 1 storage tank. The price is $6499.
What does not come with the kit is a roof mount $699 -or- a steel frame ground mount $1099 -or- a timberframe mount $1499. You need one of those three mounts.
There are modest shipping charges, there are also modest charges for additional tubing if that is required.
So figure your basic system is going to cost roughly $7500 with shipping.
Not sure about you folks but I only spend about $220 per month (actually slightly less) for my COMBINED natural gas and electric costs, this amount for a roughly 4000sq ft home. Not really sure what % of those costs are GAS versus what % are ELECTRIC but the last time I checked the GAS portion of the bill was substantially less than the ELECTRIC portion. So just a guess, let's presume that I spend $75 per month for GAS. And my current water heater is a 75 gallon natural gas unit. Assume that it consumes 40% of my total natural gas. That means that I spend roughly $34 per month on heating water. I can apparently save up to 85% of my water heating budget, so that means I can reduce my $34 bill down to roughly $5.00. Or I can save $29 per month or roughly $350 per year.
Again, the cost of this is $7500 + INSTALLATION. Assume $2000 for installation for a TOTAL COST of $9500.
BUT WAIT . . . there is a federal tax credit of 30% that I can save. So that actually cuts the price of this unit down, including installation, to a NET total of $6650.00.
So, I can spend $9500 up front, after filing taxes I get a savings that brings my cost down to $6650.00, in exchange for that I can save roughly $350 per year. ASSUMING that the unit is trouble free and requires no repairs, it would take me 19 years to BREAK EVEN based on my current energy costs.
Assuming my energy costs go up, which is likely, it would still take 10 to 15 years to BREAK EVEN.
Assuming that I have to borrow money (home equity loan/refinance my mortgage/etc) to install this, then there are interest costs that come into play.
SO, based on my evaluation of this SUNWARD unit, based on my energy costs, based on my home usage, investing in a SUNWARD solar hot water heater system is really a HUGE HONKING WASTE OF MONEY unless I keep this house until I die. Now your energy costs may be dramatically different than mine and mine conclusions may not be valid in YOUR situation. I think this is worth looking into, if your conditions are favorable then I think this might be worth buying. Just not for me. I'd really like to find a system that works for me, be it a wind generator, a solar collector, photovoltaic panels, etc. So far none that I see are remotely close to cost effective. I'm going to keep looking.
http://www.gosunward.com/
The system comes with 2 collector panels, 1 heat exchanger, 1 storage tank. The price is $6499.
What does not come with the kit is a roof mount $699 -or- a steel frame ground mount $1099 -or- a timberframe mount $1499. You need one of those three mounts.
There are modest shipping charges, there are also modest charges for additional tubing if that is required.
So figure your basic system is going to cost roughly $7500 with shipping.
Not sure about you folks but I only spend about $220 per month (actually slightly less) for my COMBINED natural gas and electric costs, this amount for a roughly 4000sq ft home. Not really sure what % of those costs are GAS versus what % are ELECTRIC but the last time I checked the GAS portion of the bill was substantially less than the ELECTRIC portion. So just a guess, let's presume that I spend $75 per month for GAS. And my current water heater is a 75 gallon natural gas unit. Assume that it consumes 40% of my total natural gas. That means that I spend roughly $34 per month on heating water. I can apparently save up to 85% of my water heating budget, so that means I can reduce my $34 bill down to roughly $5.00. Or I can save $29 per month or roughly $350 per year.
Again, the cost of this is $7500 + INSTALLATION. Assume $2000 for installation for a TOTAL COST of $9500.
BUT WAIT . . . there is a federal tax credit of 30% that I can save. So that actually cuts the price of this unit down, including installation, to a NET total of $6650.00.
So, I can spend $9500 up front, after filing taxes I get a savings that brings my cost down to $6650.00, in exchange for that I can save roughly $350 per year. ASSUMING that the unit is trouble free and requires no repairs, it would take me 19 years to BREAK EVEN based on my current energy costs.
Assuming my energy costs go up, which is likely, it would still take 10 to 15 years to BREAK EVEN.
Assuming that I have to borrow money (home equity loan/refinance my mortgage/etc) to install this, then there are interest costs that come into play.
SO, based on my evaluation of this SUNWARD unit, based on my energy costs, based on my home usage, investing in a SUNWARD solar hot water heater system is really a HUGE HONKING WASTE OF MONEY unless I keep this house until I die. Now your energy costs may be dramatically different than mine and mine conclusions may not be valid in YOUR situation. I think this is worth looking into, if your conditions are favorable then I think this might be worth buying. Just not for me. I'd really like to find a system that works for me, be it a wind generator, a solar collector, photovoltaic panels, etc. So far none that I see are remotely close to cost effective. I'm going to keep looking.