Oct 09, 2010 09:34 PM
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Here I would like to share some tips which could save you a lot of money on initial heater investment, installation / setup, running cost, maintenance etc.
The main concerns associated with solar heaters such as getting instant hot water in the taps and heating efficiency in rainy seasons are also solved.
Initially my only intention of going for a solar heater was to conserve non renewable energy, even though I had bought a gas geyser which was working pretty well for many years without out any issue, it always used to prick me of the fact that it is nothing but burning of fossil fuels and contributing to greenhouse effect.
So thought of going for a solar one, but then was concerned about the drawbacks it poses over Gas or electric geyser.
1 Initial investment is high.
2 What about theft?
3 What about maintenance costs?
4 What if tomorrow I want to go for a larger capacity solar heater? My initial investment is wasted.
5 Piping running from roof costs a lot.
6 Additional PVC tank needs to be put.
7 Water will not be hot in rainy seasons.
8 One needs to wait for half a bucket of cold to warm water come out of the pipe to get the real hot water.
When I was thinking in those lines, I came across the ad for i-hot water heating service of Anu solar (https://gethotwater.in ) which addressed 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the above points. Since it was a new initiative back in Nov 2009 in the market I could not find any reviews (looks like at the time of writing this also there are no reviews in the net) but still decided to tryout, you know that earlier explained conscious pricking thing :-)
I booked a 100lts one, the all inclusive cost of booking was just 1900 Rs (This is much cheaper than my gas geyser where I had paid around 4500) and that too it is refundable in this case if I opted to surrender the heater back for a higher capacity one.
In the era of depreciation I thought this is a good option how good it will be if the cars too had the same option to upgrade every year to a new model in similar lines :-)
The solar heater was delivered promptly after the booking, but then what about installation? The guy said it is better you have it done by your own plumber as we charge more. Also the guy who had come for the survey had no idea about advising the customer about the type of piping they should go for, why an additional tank is required etc,
Here Anu solar has to seriously improve in educating the customers and finding ways to reduce the installation expenses for them.
Also they just handed over a letter to be submitted to Electricity board for availing some rebate in electricity bill which I could not find time to submit for even today.
Here they should have done it on customers behalf since they will have many installations happening in an area and submit all documents together or they can have some high level agreement with KEB and share their client list with them to ensure their customers get the rebate.
Now coming back to the installation, I got hold of a local plumber and assigned him the job, can you imagine I paid nearly 5000 Rs for the GI insulated piping work material and labor that too I had opted out for installing a separate PVC tank which I though is not necessary, of course this was a heartburn but then thinking my original intention I had to console myself.
During the installation period the season was not rainy and had good hot water coming out everyday, their representatives colleting the rent of Rs80 per month (which includes 1000 Lts free) had become a normal thing now, rarely I used to exceed this free usage and that too after the free usage the charges per ltr is even more minimal some Rs 0.05 / ltr. That too if you submit the letter to electricity board you will get a discount of around Rs 50 in your bill so the net rental would be just Rs 30)
(I think outright purchase cost of 100lts solar geyser should be Rs 11, 500 that's what is indicated in the the copy of the invoice given to me just for reference, I was always thinking it will be around 18 to 22K)
But now comes the real challenge, whenever there was rain for 1 or 2 days the water used to be just warm in the morning, so when you feel like it is cold and you need hot water I had to mix solar and gas heated waters, this became some thing irritating which is mentioned in point 7, so I had to find some ways to avoid this hassle. I was also thinking is it because of the omission of separate PVC tank which made the T pipe long and caused the heat to dissipate (This pipe is used in the solar geyser outlet to release any excess pressure in pipe lines which causes water hammer effect, this will be hoisted vertical to the terrace)
Also point 8 is something which calls for that extra patience and work of emptying the cold/warm water from the bath bucket, which sometimes annoys one.
How about connecting the solar water pipe to gas heater? Kind of preheated water should make the Gas knob reduced to a lowest level there by utilizing the solar energy to what ever extent possible.
One fine weekend did this experiment, but unfortunately the gas geyser didn't like this setup and it used behave crazily, may be it was due to the lowered water line pressure or added friction in the flow, so reverted back the settings. (Nowadays I have become a good plumber you know, may come handy in the next recession :-) )
Well, I understand this saga is going bit long, thank you for your patience, now the interesting part is how I solved the above issue which addressed point number 5 also.
Thinking about all the possible ways the heat can escape, first thing came to my mind was the metal pipe which is GI, even though it is insulated with asbestos and an outer PVC pipe this itself was the culprit taking away most of the heat from water.
That too being a 3/4 " pipe, long routed to the bathroom, a lot of heat will be absorbed initially until it attains the temperature of water and also the 3/4" size causes point number 8 to happen so this concluded that technically going for a non heat conductive pipe typically PVC, flexible PVC or CPVC pipe laid to the shortest possible length of lesser diameter say 1/4" with a small length T pipe (if at all required) should prevent / reduce the heat escape from convection effect (which happens through out the day and night and more so in cold and rainy seasons) should fix the problem.
Another weekend, measured the shortest possible piping distance from bathroom to solar water heater, headed straight to a hardware shop and bought some hot water flexible 1/4 inch pvc with nylon threaded pipe (costing just Rs16 per meter, I had to literally ask him whether he was saying 60 or 16) some collars, Teflon tapes and other stuffs helping to connect the pipe on either sides all for just 270 bucks, where is 5000 and where is 270 ? Nearly 20 times expensive and of not serving the purpose.
(You can see in the picture the GI piping lying around disconnected, total waste of money)
For aesthetic conscious one can go for wall colored flexible pipings or CPVC permanent piping.
All I spent was an hour connecting them, it's done, no leakages anywhere :-) thanks to the additional rounds of Teflon tape on joints (we can just hand tight joints using Teflon tapes, they will be as good as done by a professional plumber, ideal for DIY people).
Look at the picture which shows the flexible pipe given a round near the solar geyser, this will avoid the heat to dissipating all the time due convection principle of heating.
Also using flexible pipe will avoid any water hammer effect which causes pipe bursts for which T pipes are mainly used in metal pipings apart from avoiding air locks which is not a concern here.
Flexible pipes absorb the increased pressure from water hammer effect by temporarily expanding themselves.
Voila !!
The hot water is now almost instant at bathroom, just a mug of cold/warm before you get really hot one same like Gas or electric geyser or may be better than them in GI pipe scenario.
Also since flexible 1/4" pipe is light and doesn't need any bends and other stuffs to route you don't have to worry about routing it in to bathroom and no need of several clamps on the walls of building so even if you are in a rented / leased accommodation your owner should not have any problems of having a solar heater installed, there is even no need to do any cementing / grouting to the solar heater on the terrace if the owner opposes as you don't need to really worry of the thieves since it is insured by Anu solar :-)
All you need to do is submit an FIR and Anu solar will put a new one in place (This is what I was told while buying it)
Can we conclude Solar is the best option to go for now as we see all that 8 drawbacks can be addressed?
So what are you waiting for, go ahead, go green, save our planet our next generation will thank you. Indeed you will save a lot of money in the time of soaring Gas and Power prices. :-) We never know, govt may even remove subsidy for gas anytime which will make Solar heaters even more unbeatable.
Happy buying and thank you for reading this review !
