Solar Water Heaters

Summary: Solar water heaters can save energy and produce immediate savings on your power bill. A Solar water heater can now blend in with your roof.

Many years ago, just after I first started building houses, a friend and I took on a solar hot water franchise as a side line to home building.

We thought solar heating was cool and avant-garde, and that everyone else would too.

Boy, were we wrong!

We couldn't give solar heating away.

People thought that the solar collectors were ugly and no one wanted those ugly contraptions on their roofs.

Besides, electricity and gas were cheap, plentiful and we would never run out of either.

My, how times and thinking about things change.

Today, solar water heaters are slim and trim and mount flush with your roof.

They look more like skylights.

Those bulky solar units from the past were indeed just plain ugly.

Harnessing energy from the sun to heat water is nothing new.

Solar water heaters have been commercially available since the 1800s.

What's new is...read the rest of this excellent article on Solar Water Heaters from the NAHB Research Center.