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Adding a solar panel to my existing water heater

One of the most common customer situations is that they have an electric water heater that provides enough hot water for their family - BUT - they would like to save money by adding a solar collector. First of all, SMART MOVE! - heating water can be a large part of your electric bill, often nearly as much as heating or air conditioning. Solar can reduce your bill and pay for itself in 3- 7years. By the way, solar makes economic sense even in the northern regions of the US.

Here's What You Need To Know

FIRST, you will need an appropriate place to mount a collector. While special situations can usually be accomodated, the ideal is a south facing roof that is not shaded by trees or buildings during most of the day. Anywhere that is within a 30° angle east or west of due south is best. If your angle is more a slightly larger collector will compensate.

SECOND, since you intend to use your existing hot water tank, the solar collector should be sized to match your tank's storage capacity - with a consideration for how much hot water the collector will produce in your region.

Use the size of your existing tank divided by the number of gallons produced by 1 square foot of collector in your region to estimate the total square footage of collector area needed. Examples by region for typical tank sizes are shown in the 3 right hand columns
Existing Hot Water Tanks and Collector Size Needed
USA Regions	1 sq ft of collector produces		For a 40-50 gallon  tank - collector  size should be	For a 50-80 gallon  tank - collector  size should be	For a 80-120 gallon  tank - collector  size should be
Sunbelt	2.00 gal		20-25 sq ft	25-40 sq ft	40-60 sq ft
South	1.50 gal		25-32 sq ft	32-50 sq ft	50-80 sq ft
North	1.00 gal		40-50 sq ft	50-80 sq ft	80-120 sq ft
Far North	0.75 gal		50-65 sq ft	65-100 sq ft	100-160 sq ft

THIRD, chose one of our Pacemaker II Retrofit System packages with a collector size that most closely matches the area size you'll need. Our complete packages include controller, pump, and all valves and components to protect, shut off, and drain your system and to connect it to your existing hot water tank. If a larger collector area size is needed, additional collectors are sold individually that can be "daisy-chained" to suit any application.

FOURTH, installation can be handled by anyone that's capable of using basic hand and power tools following the included instructions. Hot Water System Diagram

• permanently mount the collector on the roof with the included hardware.
• provide water lines to/from the collector and your existing tank (tubing is not included)
• Add the valves and preassembled water tank conversion kit.