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I have been researching solar water heaters. And I ran across the following system:
www.thermomax.com
Among all the available options, it seems the most efficient at capturing solar energy. Apparently, it can make hot water even on cloudy days and in cold climates, because the solar collectors sit inside a vaccuum. Thermomax claims the vaccuum eliminates conductive losses, a major heat loss for most solar water heating panels. BUT the heaters costs alot of money around $3K.
They also claim that you can use thermomax to heat water for a radiat floor heating system but for a 3000 ft^2 house….it becomes prohibitively expensive, about $20K for the heaters alone.
Does anybody have any experience with the thermomax water heaters?
Replies
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I looked at the web site and they do have some clever and helpful features. Most of all the vacuum insulation which should allow the panels to work well at lower temperatures, in cloudy weather, and/or to produce higher temperatures.
Since a radiant floor needs very low grade heat, (90-100F) - less than domestic hot water and far less than forced air heating - these panels wouldn't be used to their full advantage. A fairly dumb, simple, cheap panel would do fine (and does provide some heat on cloudy days and at 0F). At $3,000 per, I'd definitely buy more regular panels. It's been 15 years since I was installing DHW solar systems, but 4'x8' panels were about $400 each so you could buy a lot of them for $3,000.
These spiffy panels would make sense if you needed all of their advatages (low temp operation, cloudy wheather, and the need for high temperatures). But the only folks who need really high temperatures are generating electricity or powering an adsorptive or absorptive cooling system - which is not going to be done on a 0F cloudy day. (In many parts of hte country the coldest days are clear, not cloudy.) Or possibly if you had very high energy costs and limited roof space (a composting outhouse in an Alaskan bush town, perhaps?) -David
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I have been researching solar water heaters. And I ran across the following system:
http://www.thermomax.com
Among all the available options, it seems the most efficient at capturing solar energy. Apparently, it can make hot water even on cloudy days and in cold climates, because the solar collectors sit inside a vaccuum. Thermomax claims the vaccuum eliminates conductive losses, a major heat loss for most solar water heating panels. BUT the heaters costs alot of money around $3K.
They also claim that you can use thermomax to heat water for a radiat floor heating system but for a 3000 ft^2 house....it becomes prohibitively expensive, about $20K for the heaters alone.
Does anybody have any experience with the thermomax water heaters?