Good day to everyone. I have a 1942 home with a gas boiler and 2 pipe radiator heating system. This is a two-story home, 3 br-2ba-living-dining-kit. It has 9 iron radiators. Wood/plaster lathe. My plan is to build a 4x8 Solar collector (copper/non-tox anti-freeze) with circulation pump (solar) into a copper coil in a 350-400 gallon insulated water tank. Estimations of water temp. are 170-180. I am an intelligent, researcher and skilled at DIY projects. I understand the dangers of over heating/pressure and electrical overloads.
So my question(s)
- can I tie the water tank into the existing heating system to supplement if not replace the gas boiler and sufficiently heat my home?
- If not, what must I do/add to get off fossil? Off grid.
Feel free to contact me for any questions or details.
THanks for your time.
often the biggest payback (maybe 5 year) is to preheat your domestic hot water because that is used year round. you get a hot water heater just to use for the tank. your collector, through a heat exchanger, heats the water in that tank. so cold water goes into this preheat tank which goes into your domestic hot water heater. the outlet of your domestic hot water heater tank needs a thermal mixing valve to not allow scalding water to be distributed.
most energy is consumed by heating water from incoming temperature to the hot water temperature desired. maintaining that temperature in the final tank uses much less energy. this also leaves your conventional domestic hot water system in place for when you don’t have solar heat.
your location for both solar collection and heat needs will determine much of what you need to know. a single 4x8 collector doesn’t collect a lot of heat.