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Solar water heaters are becoming more and more popular in the realm of solar heating, so I’ll start with these. Solar water heaters are great for your hot water tank and heat exchangers.

You can chose between 1) glazed flat plate collectors, 2) batch collectors or 3) vaccum tube collectors.

For now, lets look at glazed flat-plate collectors as solar water heaters first since they are very common…

They are available as liquid- based or air-based. (Air-based is used for heating buildings, crop drying or air ventilation). Otherwise, use the liquid based for domestic hot water (or commercial hot water too), buildings and indoor swimming pools.
If you need a temperature of 30-70C, or for heat applications during winter, these are a good choice.

How do glazed flat-plate collectors work to make solar water heaters? Well, there is a flat absorber that efficiently transforms our sunlight into heat. To keep the heat escaping to a minimum, the plate - the flat absorber - is located between a glazing (a transparent material or glass) and an insulating panel. The glazing is chosen so that the most amount of sunlight will pass though it and reach the absorber.

More to come.

Peace.