Is Solar Thermal Heating Using A Water To Air Heat Exchanger Really Efficient?
Posted by admin on December 21, 2009 under Heat Transfer | 
2 Comments to Read
I’m considering doing a solar water heater and getting a large storage tank to let me partially heat the house by doing a heat exchanger from the tank for our furnace. Is it worth trying?
jason_in said,
By installing a heat exchanger in your A coil you would pull heat from the solar first.In order to do this you need to size the solar properly.You’ll need more than just a 4×10 over an 80 gal. tank.More than likely you would at least need say 2-4x8s maybe even 2-4x10s over a 120. This all depends on where you live too. Below is a good site for figuring size and cost.
Dave S. said,
USA Not enough info. First, you need to be in an area where you will get plenty of sunlight. You mention a furnace – that means you have a warm air heating system. Instead of a heat exchanger, why not put a hot water coil in the duct at the furnace? Actually, the coil is a heat exchanger, but I assume you mean a water-to-air heat exchanger mounted external to the furnace. Feed hot water to the coil from the storage tank. It is definitely worth trying.
If you have a hot water heating system with a boiler, in lieu of heat exchangers and tanks, why not run hot water heating pipes through a solar collector, and tie the solar heated water directly to the boiler hot water return piping. By using thermostatic controls on the water pipes, you can open / close valves to use or close off the solar supply.
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