15 Advantages of using a solar water heater
Solar water heaters are environmentally friendly, sustainable devices to heat water with almost zero carbon footprint. Using solar water heaters will reduce your electricity bill and take you one step further to green living.
Before buying a solar water heater, you must be interested to know its advantages. Don’t worry! You have come to the right place. This blog will discuss the various advantages of solar water heaters and how they will help you save lots of money.
Here we have categorized all the advantages into 4 different categories.
Let’s start with the environmental impact of upgrading to a solar water heater.
Environmental Advantage
1. Solar water heater is better for the environment
A single solar water heater reduces carbon footprint by 1850 kg each year. If you use a conventional water heater, always remember it runs on fossil fuels. A standard water heater has a carbon footprint of 4000 kg per year, nearly double of a solar water heater.
You can see that solar water heaters are helping us save our environment by reducing greenhouse gases. If you want to adopt green living or just want to start a few positive changes for the betterment of nature, what can be greener than solar energy?
Heating your water with the help of solar energy can be equally environmentally friendly and cost-effective.
2. It uses a renewable energy source
Renewable energy sources are the key to the future. Look at the appliance’s name; it is crystal clear that solar water heaters use solar energy to heat water. The Sun has an enormous energy source that we can harness in many ways to keep up the human race.
The deposit of fossil fuels is decreasing day by day. Nevertheless, fossil fuels are not so compassionate to our environment. As a community, we are gradually turning to renewable energy sources to run our lives.
Solar water heaters, in this case, are our best choice. Some of us don’t know that heating the water consumes a decent amount of energy monthly, making it a major contributor to the high electricity bill. Replacing your traditional water heater with a solar water heater can stop heavy amounts of fossil fuel burn.
3. It does not emit pollutants into the environment
The most eco-friendly water heater you can have is a solar water heater. They don’t emit any greenhouse gases or other pollutants into the environment.
Solar heaters use the energy of sunlight to do their job. One of the main reasons for air pollution is fossil fuel burn. Harmful gases like Sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, etc., are produced when fossil fuels are burnt. Solar water heaters do not take part in this harmful contribution.
4. Easily available
Solar water heaters are becoming extremely common nowadays. Because of their simplicity and sustainability, solar water heaters seem to be the easiest-to-use solar-powered machine.
You can find various types of solar water heaters with different capacities and wattages, and you are free to choose the most suitable one for yourself.
All kinds of solar water heaters are readily available throughout the year. Start heating your water using sustainable energy after installing a no-sweat solar water heater.
Usability advantages
5. It has a simpler installation process
Installing a solar water heater is super easy and not at all complex. A solar water heater can be divided into a few parts: solar collectors, a storage tank, pipes, a pump, and controllers.
You need to place the collectors on the roof; they are nothing different from photovoltaic solar cell arrays. Then you need to install the storage tank wherever is suitable for you and connect it to the controller.
If you don’t want to install the heater yourself, you can call experts to install it properly. It is not so costly and will save you plenty of time as solar water heaters have simple structures, and you’ll not face any problem installing them.
6. A solar water heater is easy to maintain for years
After you install one solar water heater, there is no need to worry about the system anytime soon. This type of heater can serve you for many years and have a lifespan of 20-25 years. In contrast, an electric water heater has a lifespan of 8 to 12 years.
Solar water heaters win the race and typically don’t require special attention or caretaking in their overall work life. So, what do you think? A bold but wise decision to upgrade to a solar water heater will start paying you as soon as you install one.
7. You can use a solar water heater even at night
Some may worry about how solar water heaters will work after sunset. By the end of the day, solar water heaters use sunlight to heat water. So, do they work at night?
Yes, they do! They have insulated storage tanks that keep the heated water warm for a long time. So, you can get hot water even at night. Also, solar water heaters generally come with a backup of electric water heaters.
When there is barely any sunlight or no sunlight, and you need hot water, you usually get it from the insulated storage. But the backup system heats up the water if the water is not hot enough.
Thankfully you’ll rarely face that need to use backup.
8. You can use a solar water heater even in winter
Yeah, that’s true. Solar water heaters can work in winter, even in freezing conditions too. They have mainly two mechanisms to fight to freeze. An anti-freeze liquid circulates from the collector to the storage to eliminate freezing.
Another way is the drain back system. When the water gets too cold, it is drained out of the system. So your solar water heater does not freeze during extremely cold weather. Although in winter, you may experience a little less effectivity from your solar water heaters.
9. Solar water heater gives you control over your energy production
Traditional water heaters run on electricity produced by the power grid. Fossil fuels are burnt to produce that electricity. We don’t have any control over it from cost to production.
But in the case of a solar water heater, it is an off-grid system running on its own without consuming any electricity from the grid. It produces energy from solar irradiation, where the production is entirely in your hands.
The amount of energy generated depends upon your need for usage. This gives you more freedom and control over your energy production.
Cost-effectiveness
10. Using solar water heaters can save you money in the long term
Upgrading to a solar water heater means you will no longer be charged any electricity bill for heating water. You are using renewable solar energy for water heating and not using the electricity you get from your power grid. Hence, your electricity bill will reduce by approximately 18% because water heaters consume a good amount of electricity.
Depending upon the area of your living, you may need more hot water than usual. In those cases, solar water heaters will help you to save a lot of real cash in the long term. You may hesitate upon the fact that owning a solar water heater takes a little investment at the start. But my advice is just to consider the money you’ll save over the years! That too with a sustainable living.
11. Low maintenance cost
There is almost no maintenance cost for a solar water heater. It just takes a positive mind and a little investment to upgrade to a solar water heater. After you install a solar water heater successfully, you don’t need to spend any money to get it working.
You can do a periodic safety check along with a performance check, and it is always beneficial for maintaining the proper working conditions of the heater. You don’t even need to run a maintenance check for your heater annually.
Most manufacturing companies suggest maintenance checks every 3 to 5 years to look for leaks in the pipes or the entire system. But we recommend you do so once a year to ensure that a minor problem is getting your attention.
12. We can build solar water heating systems to reduce installation costs
To reduce the installation cost further, you can build your DIY solar water heater anytime. The mechanism of the solar water heater is simple and easy to build. Previously people used to build only passive systems, but those systems are prone to freeze.
Freezing can damage your system profoundly, so nowadays, people are making active solar water heaters at home. Building your own solar water heater at home takes around $400-$500. And the steps are quite easy too. You can get ideas from the internet on how to build a DIY solar water heater.
13. Tax exemption
The government has been encouraging renewable energy usage over convenience energy for a long time. Various government policies make it easier to install a solar water heater.
Different state governments have different policies to motivate people to choose sustainable energy sources like solar power, wind power, etc.
But the general policies are tax exemption, tax credits, or subsidies. The standard tax credit rate for a solar water heater installed in 2022-2023 is almost 30% by order.
Sustainable Community Growth
14. You become an inspiration
Today we are living in a time when energy consumption is a major issue of various global environmental deterioration. The pollution or the gradually harshening climate change is not a local event.
At this time, sustainable communities can help us to control this situation. If you become part of the sustainable community, you can also contribute to greening this earth. As a part of society, you can always inspire people.
If you start using a solar water heater instead of a conventional one, you bring a direct positive environmental change. You will be able to inspire a lot of people to upgrade to the use of renewable energy sources. Hence, don’t hesitate to go for a solar water heater.
15. It empowers the sustainability of a community
A sustainable community is a community that conserves resources for future generations. By saving resources, I don’t mean they cut down on their needs. Instead, they are adopting sustainable ways to fulfill their needs.
If you want to be a part of it, you don’t need to transform your living completely! You just need to bring a few changes to your life by adjusting a few simple things, for example, upgrading to a solar water heater instead of a standard one.
Solar water heaters are based on the technology of using solar power to heat water. This simple change empowers the community as you upgrade to a renewable energy source from fossil fuels.
ConclusionUsing a solar water heater will not take you a lot of money. This one-time investment in a solar water heater can reduce your electricity bill for heating water by up to 50%. Also, this type of heater is low maintenance and uses renewable energy to heat the water for you.
Most importantly, they have zero adverse effects on the environment. So, why not choose a solar water heater over the traditional one? We absolutely have no reason!
Bring home an easily installable solar water heater and start your sustainable living.
