To get more information about these systems and how a solar heating system might work for your home, please refer below or complete our Contact Form.

Solar heating systems are primarily used to heat domestic hot water. For certain types of new super-insulated homes, it can also be used for primary space heating. Systems are composed of flat plate or evacuated tube collectors which use the sun to heat a heat transfer fluid, and move that fluid back to exchange that heat with water in a storage tank.

Location

Solar heating systems are best located on a relatively unshaded south-facing roof surface or ground location. Unlike solar electric systems, which are typically mounted flush to the roof surface or at an average of 35° for ground-mounts, solar heating collectors are typically mounted at steeper tilts to maximize winter production and reduce extra summer heating. For best integration and aesthetics, Halco prefers to mount solar heating collectors on steep roofs, ground locations, or as part of building awnings. Please note that for ground-mounted systems, pipes must be buried from the collectors to the house. Because of these pipe runs, systems can usually be located at a maximum of 200-300 ft from your home.

Sizing

Typically, homes in New York use around 40,000 BTU per day to heat water for domestic uses like showering, laundry, and washing dishes. The energy input for heating whole homes varies more widely, and the average home uses around 300,000-800,000 BTU per winter day. These BTUs can come from a variety of fuels such as natural gas, propane, fuel oil, or wood. The first step in considering one of these systems is to provide our staff with the last six months to a year of your heating bills, and we can assist you in determining your average heat loads. These heat loads will then be used to calculate the number of collectors needed to meet your domestic hot water needs and building heating needs. For most homes in New York, domestic hot water needs can be met easily, but whole home heating is usually only possible for super-insulated homes with an extremely low BTU/hr or BTU/day requirement.

Specifically, as homes in New York are often inadequately air-sealed and poorly insulated, undergoing a building energy audit and making improvements to the building envelope is important before installing any renewable whole home heating system. For more information on this process, visit the Halco Home Energy Performance page. These improvements are an important first step because efficiency (i.e. improving building envelope and reducing heat loads and fuel usage) is almost always a more economic first step than building additional generation. Once heating loads are known and in a reasonable range, solar heating can be considered, depending on available space, budget, and preference. If the home heat load is still too high, we often recommend geothermal heating as a better option.

Integration with Existing Heating Systems

Solar heating systems always retain a boiler or furnace as back-up heat source. Depending on the exact system design and size, this back-up source is typically used only on some winter days or days when the weather is particularly cloudy.

Total Costs

Total system cost typically ranges from $12,000-$18,000 for a 2-3 collector solar heating system for domestic hot water, and from $18,000-$60,000 for a whole house heating system up to 10 or 15 collectors. Exact system size and type will determine the initial cost estimates, and of course these costs are fully worked out in project proposals. Please note that system cost per collector goes down significantly as system size increases because of economies of scale.

Actual Costs

There is currently no New York State Solar Heating Incentive Program through NYSERDA. There may be such a program implemented in the near future, but this remains uncertain at this time. These systems are, however, eligible for federal and state tax credits. These tax credits are reductions to your tax liability for the year, regardless of your withholding. Presently, the federal tax credit is 30% of the system cost to the customer. The state tax credit is then 25% of this final cost, capped at $5,000. Generally these tax credits cover 40-50% of the costs of these systems.

Economics of These Systems

These systems are affordable, and are good investments that provide a hedge against future energy prices and excellent returns after the short to medium-term. In fact, solar heating systems can be more economic and offer a better payback than even solar electric systems. This is primarily because solar heating collector is close to 80% efficient, while a solar electric module is around 18% efficient (please note that because of the physics of the photoelectric effect, the maximum efficiency of silicon solar electric cell is 26%). A typical solar heating collector is about the same price as a solar electric module. Thus, for heating applications the solar heating collector produces more BTU per dollar spent. This also means that solar electric modules should just be used for loads that truly require electricity. The economic advantages solar heating systems offer can be examined through cost per kWh and payback analysis.