Monday, January 5, 2009

Gary, who do you recommend for installing a solar hot water system in Nelson?

"Hi gary I am taking the wonderful step of building a new home, I wish to put in a evacuated tube heating system we have a three person home, who sells a good brand ie stainless tank and actually knows what they are doing. We live in Nelson
Regards James"

_______________________
Gary
James,
At present this is the only service that I am prepared to recommend at this point in time:

The reason why I am prepared to 
recommend this company is it has had solar water heating systems installed for several years and I have received no complaints about them which is not something I can say about a lot of others.  I have seen several of their installations which are examples of quality and craftmanship.  As far as I know, all are still performing as good as the day they were first installed.

Photo: A quality Chromagen in Wellington installed by Infinergy several years ago and performing as good as the day it first went in.

I have met the owners of the company several times and find them to be of good character and absolutely devoted to the environmental merits of solar hot water.

Flat panels vs tubes?
I now have a tube setup which has been working faultlessly now for the best part of a year.  In comparison with my earlier flat panels, It is producing less overall hot water than the flat panels in their first year before they began to rust out.  While I am very happy with them, I can not say they are any better than flat panels for our setting.

Our monthly electricity bills for 2008 averaged about $45 with the peak being $84 during mid winter.  We have almost halved our electricity use as compared to 2007 with reliable solar water heating being central to this.

Sadly, the company that supplied our AMK solar tube setup has gone broke, so I will not recommend them
 (of course!).  I am now faced with the issue of servicing and spare parts.  Damn!

I think the best thing to do is to go with a firm that has been around a long time and which has a good track record (Infinergy is one and there are others).  Please look through this website and you will see the sad stories of many installations that leave much to be desired.  Also have a read of the BRANZ reports on this site.  While they are mostly to do with flat panels, please bear in mind that most of the installation issues apply equally to tubes as to flat panels. I am aware of performance issues with some tubes and these performance problems will become more apparent as these newer installations age.

Other sources of good information
I can't really think of any.  I believe that the Consumer and EECA websites are generally unhelpful for the consumer and best ignored because they conveniently avoid mention of the quality and warranty issues that have been raised on this website.  They lull you, the consumer, into a sense of false security and nudge you in the direction of some products with known issues.

Whether you go tubes or flat panels is not the issue - the main things to look for are:
  • Track record with solar water heating systems and known to be a viable company that is not going to go bust in a hurry
  • Quality of the product (avoid the cheap stuff).  Be prepared to pay good money for good products and services and reap the long term benefits
  • Ensure it is a closed loop heat exchange system
  • Quality of the installation work and the provision of ongoing after sales service
James, the best time to install solar water heating is when building a new house, so go for it.  This is the most cost effective time to do the work because retrofitting is more costly and more technically challenging.
Let us know how you get on.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Congratulations! This is the best thing, Thank you so much for taking the time to share this exciting information.
So-Cal SolarINC.