Solar Home Heating - Perhaps the most exciting new development in solar thermal is in space or home heat applications.  With the new more powerful vacuum tube technology, winter heating has become much more feasible.  Solar Space heating can be integrated into an existing home heat system via radiant floor heat (hydronics) & radiators or forced air home heat.  In all these applications, solar is to be used as a supplement to the existing heating system.  Because home heat consumes a great portion of your energy bill, its payback can be under 5 years.

Basic Principles - Solar Home Heating uses the solar collectors to capture the sun's energy, this energy is then transfered to a storage tank or concrete pad (in floor heating).  The stored heat is then integrated with the existing heat system to supplement the heat supply.  A larger storage tank can hold more energy and as such can be used in the evening to supply heat when the sun is not shinning.  Because the heat demand occurs during the winter, a secondary dissipation loop is needed to off load the heat in the summer months.  Alternatively, this energy can be off loaded to heat other heat demand sources such as pools, hot tubs or domestic water heat.  A dissipation circut will also help regulate the storage tank temperature allowing the home heating circuit to be set at a comfortable level without over-heating.  Note: alternatively one can cover or unplug the heat pipes in the summer as a manual means of shutting down the system. 

Most heating system require some form of freeze protection in the winter months, thus the solar loop usually contains a mixture of water and glycol to prevent freezing.  Specialty solar storage containers have been designed for buffering the solar heat with the home heat.  These storage tanks have dual copper heat exchangers built into them.  The solar loop is found in the bottom and heats the water.  The top heat exchanger extracts the heat from the top of the tank to the heat load area such as radiant floor heat.  By using a solar storage heat exchanger, the system can retain the heat that would otherwise be dissipated once the demand temperature has been met. 

System Design- Northern Lights Solar heating systems use a special dual heat exchager. Alternatively a storage pad or gravel base can be used but this is not as efficient. This storage tank system allows for solar storage during the day and can release the stored energy at night when the demand is usually higher.  Alternatively if a solar home heating system can be combined with a hot water system or other heat demands then a buffer tank may not be necessary as there will be very little excess heat left to store (see Complete Solar Home Heat System below).

Solar Home Heat- Radiator or Infloor Heat

 

 

 

 

Solar Home Heat- Forced Air

 

 

Complete Solar Home Heat - Hot Water and Space Heat Combo

 

 

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