batch water heater

[smangold]

HI, I am thinking of setting up some kind of summer domestic(solar) water heater.This would be strictly for HW only May thru Aug. My plan is to use three electric water heater tanks in a insulated box ,with a glass lid.my well would push water first thru one lower tank then thru the other slightly higher tanks. I wondered if this would work to supply all of my HW needs for this period.(2 adults 2 toddlers) I have a oil boiler in the basement and don't think it would be good to use this as backup. as the boiler would always want to maintain a high temp. maybe I should use a electric water heater as backup.Last summer I heated my hot water with my switzer(firing every 7 to 10 days). Yes I know this is good , but I want to keep lowering my wood use.I could also use a batch heater to preheat my HW. Thoughts. Thanks Scott

 

[semipro]

I plan to build something similar and have already collected 2 used electric hot water heaters. I've cleaned them out an removed the heating elements. I plan to mount each in an insulated dark box with a closable insulated lid. The lid would also be reflective to focus more sunlight on the tank when open. The lid would be closed based on some comparison of temps inside and outside the box, sunlight, or some combination of the two.

My intended use is to place this setup between my existing electric water heater and the well tank so that water is preheated by solar and such that the electric water heater would bring it up to required temps. I've also considered installing low voltage resistive water heating elements in the solar tanks and hooking them up to a small windmill.

There are off-the-shelf valves also available that will prevent scalding by mixing supply water with solar heated water should you be lucky enough to heat it that hot. If you're interested I'll dig up some drawings of my proposed box and plumbing.

Cheers.

 

[smangold]

http://builditsolar.com/
sun gives about 350btu/hr/sq. ft. i think. glazing,sun angle,clouds,etc. lower that value.

I was on that site last night. Thanks though. I,m leaning towards preheating the water going into my Switzer. Thanks for the responses.