Solar Home Space Heating

The popularity of Solar Home Heating or Solar Space Heating has shown the largest growth in the solar water heating market primarily due to the extreme high efficiencies and higher operating temperatures that are possible with vacuum tubes. Solar Evacuated Tubes perform in low light conditions and temperatures reaching minus 35 degree. Solar Home Heating is popular in Northern USA, Canada and Europe. By integrating solar thermal with an existing heating system such as radiator, in floor heat or forced air heat, a homeowner can expect to save up to 50% of their heating bill. Because home heat consumes a great portion of your energy bill, it’s payback can be under 5 years.

Solar Space Heating uses the solar evacuate tube collectors to capture the sun's energy, this energy is then transferred 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. Larger 119-gallon storage tanks 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 may be needed to off load the heat in the summer months. If a customer has a pool or hot tub, the excess heat energy can be transferred in the summer giving the customer free pool or hot tub heat and space heat in the winter. Alternative a dissipation loop such as buried pipe or exterior fan can be used to dump the heat. A geothermal system is also ideal way to remove the excess heat in the summer storing it in the ground for the winter!

Note: alternatively, one can cover or unplug the heat pipes in the summer as a manual means of shutting down the system.

Northern Lights Solar Home Heating Systems use a special solar storage tank. 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. The storage tank also is used as the domestic hot water tank so that the solar can provide both solar water heating for domestic hot water and space heating in one system. Our Solar Heating System comes with a 4.5 Kw element located in the middle of the tank. It is optional whether a customer uses this or not. The element can be used to ensure there is always hot water even in the evenings. This Hybrid system is especially popular for Solar Radiant Floor Heat, because the solar space heating system can replace the need for a Hydronic boiler as the 4.5 Kw heater and the solar energy should provide enough energy or up to about 2,000 square feet of solar heating space. The Resol controller is capable of controlling both the solar heating loop plus the 2nd heating loop. This type of integrated solar heating package has the highest solar heating paybacks!

Solar Home Heating combined with Geothermal heating is another very popular means of combining two Green energy sources to provide a Maximum Cost Savings. By using any excess heat from the solar water heater, we can add this energy to the geothermal loop by means of a heat exchanger. Click here for more information on solar heating & geothermal.

Another means of heating with solar is with solar air heaters. This is a much more cost-effective means of space heating, but it lacks the ability to store heat energy. Air is heated through a layer of glass and selective coated material that absorbs the heat. A solar PV fan system then distributes the heated into the house based on a thermostatic controller. This is also great for homes with basements or crawl spaces that want to heat the colder air. For more information on Solar Air Collectors visit www.123ZeroEnergy.com