Solar Panels

There are two types of Solar Pannels the ones that heat hot water and the newer photo electric.

The ones that heat hot water are just black painted glass tubes that are plumbed into your water heater. BUT you need a storage heater to use them. If you have an instant hot boiler you cannot use them. What happend is the solar heated water circulates thru your storage tank and is heated by the sun, when you need hot water this is them take by the boiler and as it is already hot just need a top up.

I know people that in the summer use hardly any gas and the pannels still work well in the winter.

The photo cells are used to charge a bank of batterys or reverse your meter. When you call for power it takes as much as it can from the pannel and then what else it needs from the grid, if you are not using all the power you can sell it back to the grid.

Unless I was getting a new roof put on I would wait a few years for the techonology to improve.

If you have a combi boiler you can use one but need and expansion tank as well as a hot water tank. The water is preheated by the solar panels before it goes through the boiler giving much reduced gas useage for your hot water requirements. Worcester Bosch do a very good set up.

Payback time is about 4-5 years. At present, dont bother with the electric version, payback time is up to 20 years with higher install costs.