[clug] OT: Solar power recommendations and advice

[Mike Carden]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 8:43 AM, steve jenkin <sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au> wrote:
>
> In places like QLD, solar hot-water should be a 'no-brainer'...
> More limited results in Canberra, and if the pipes freeze, you've got
> real problems.

When I first moved to Canberra in the early 90's I lived in a house on
Mt Rogers with a solar hot water service. It had a manual electric
boost (a switch on the wall in the kitchen) for those occasions when
solar heating wasn't enough.

To my surprise, the boost was only ever needed in mid winter, and even
then not very often.

I think the main problem with solar hot water here is that an all
electric hot water service is just so darned cheap to buy and for all
sorts of reasons a solar one is expensive. I haven't seen a Total Cost
of Ownership calculation done to compare them, but I bet someone has
done it.

-- 
MC