Solar Heating For Your Home

"Find out how you can take advantage
of solar heating systems."

Residential solar heating systems can be used to heat your home's living spaces, household water, or swimming pool.

There are several applications available to homeowners for heating with solar energy. Whether you are interested in active or passive solar energy systems, there are solutions to suit your needs.

But before we go through the different solar power heating applications, let's take a look at the basic components all these heating systems have...

Components of a Solar Heating System

All solar thermal systems have three basic system components or functions...

• Collection: A method to capture the solar energy coming from the Sun and convert it to heat. Passive solar homes use the house design and structure to collect solar energy. Active systems will use boxes called solar collectors to capture the solar energy.
• Storage: A method to store the heat that has been collected. Solar thermal energy can be stored using thermal mass, water tanks, or rock bins that hold heated air.
• Distribution: A method to distribute the heat throughout your home. This can be done using either mechanical means (fans, pumps) or basic physical principles (convection, conduction, and radiation).

Now that you know what the basic components of a solar thermal energy system are, let's take a look at the actual applications you can use for heating with solar power...

Solar Heating Applications

There are three types of solar power heating applications you can use for your home...

• Solar Space Heating uses solar thermal energy to heat the space inside a building.
• Solar Water Heating uses solar thermal energy to heat your household water.
• Solar Pool Heating uses solar thermal energy to heat your swimming pool water.

These three basic heating applications can also be broken down into active solar energy systems and passive solar energy systems.

Active systems use mechanical devices such as fans and pumps for the collection, storage, and distribution of the solar energy.

Passive systems don't use mechanical devices. Instead they use design elements and basic physical principles such as convection, conduction, and radiation for the collection, storage, and distribution of the solar energy.

Benefits Of Heating With Solar Power

Heating with solar energy has economic, environmental, and energy independence benefits for homeowners...

• Economic: The economics of solar power will save you money! A Florida Solar Energy Center study found that homeowners using solar water heating saved 50% to 85% on their annual utility bills compared to those using electric water heaters!
• Environmental: Solar thermal energy applications do not pollute! By heating your home with solar energy, you will reduce your carbon footprint and be helping in the battle against global warming.
• Energy Independence: By heating with solar power, you will protect yourself from future utility price increases thereby gaining your independence from the utility company! You will also help your nation reduce it's dependence on foreign oil.

As a homeowner, solar power heating provides a number of simple and cost effective ways for you to take advantage of solar energy.

Whether heating your home, your household water, or your pool, there's a solar heating application that's just right for you!