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Old 01-31-21, 04:52 AM   #24
IamIan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WillyP View Post
Jeff:
I am not using it for domestic hot water. I will be using an electric hot water heater, powered by the PV panels (grid tied system).
I will be heating the whole house.
The Evacuated tubes will heat about seventy gallons of water. That water will feed heat exchangers inside the underground tanks and the discharge tank. Each tank will have its own thermal switch, with its own pump. That way I can regulate the temperature of the water that feeds the radiant floor heater.
The heater itself will have its own PV panels with battery backup. It wont be attached to the main system for the house. That way it will work in a power outage.
Conventional resistance electric hot water heater .. or .. heat pump hot water heater ?

Both use electricity .. can be powered by the solar / batteries.

But the heat pump option have 3 benefits over 'old school' resistance electric heaters.

#1> Efficiency
Less wh of electricity input per wh of heat output.

#2> Temperature gradient
Extract wh of heat out of the solar thermal sun room collector .. even when it's cold at the collector .

#3> Reversible
Can provide both heating and cooling

- - - -
The expensive (but easier) route is to buy the heat pump unit as an off the shelf from OEM plug and play unit .. the less expensive (more effort) .. is to convert one of the mass produced heat pumps to do the job.

The window air conditioning unit .. is a common mass produced conversion .. for people wanting temperature regulation for things like gaming CPUs , brewing (beer or wine) , pet enclosures (reptile or aquarium) .. commonly used for the the cooling (aka chiller) side .. but both heating and cooling are options .. do a web or youtube search for DIY 'chiller' and you'll see at least a few DIY conversions.
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