Solar Water Heating Radiant Floor Superinsulated House

Passive solar design takes advantage of a building s site climate and materials to minimize energy use.

Solar water heating radiant floor superinsulated house.

This is the best case because it means you can use solar for all of your heating needs. His mechanical room includes an electric resistance water heater to supply domestic hot water and a wall mounted electric boiler for the radiant floor circuits. Ideal for boosting passive house heating in cold climate zones. You can use any type of water heating system with a radiant floor system but the capacity of hot water that you use goes up dramatically with a radiant heat floor system.

After considering the pros and cons of the very popular ductless minisplit the author decided a hydronic radiant floor heating system was a better choice. Read all about it. At the very least radiant heating reduces your carbon footprint. Because of the small heating loads of modern homes it is very important to avoid oversizing south facing.

When solar energy is used directly to provide radiant heat the radiant floor system cannot be used by the backup heating system as this use would compromise the solar storage. A well designed passive solar home first reduces heating and cooling loads through energy efficiency strategies and then meets those reduced loads in whole or part with solar energy. Ecohome s new demo house will be a slab on grade with solar radiant floor heating powered by air tubes heated with air solar panels ingenious. The solar system can directly offset a portion of the fuel required to heat the water for the radiant floor system by at least 30 when compared to conventional forced air systems.

If you have a hydronic radiant in floor heating system your solar hot water can then be used to heat your home. Many hydronic systems use the same system to heat both the fluid for the in floor heat and your hot water supply. Ecohome is in the process of building our next demonstration low energy house and to do so we have partnered. What kent earle ended up with.

Normally a large solar heated storage tank with electric gas or oil backup supplies hot water to the radiant system and most often provides for domestic needs as well. So the attraction of a solar system also goes up dramatically because you get much cheaper hot water per btu. Hydronic radiant floor heating.