You can do what I did.
550 sf of unglazed, Swiss stainless collectors.
I have two heat storages. Inside 800 gallons with heat exchangers inside (STSS tank around $3,000 with tanks from Penn.) and 4,000 gallon tank burried, outside.
During the spring, summer, fall, I use the 800 gallon tank.
During the winter, I run the outside, buried tank with low temperatures and use a heat pump to extract heat from it and heat the 800 gallon tank. The outside tank termpatures are low and the panels become efficient at heating it during the winter.
I would increase the size of the outside storage though.
Eric in Seattle, cold, cloudy. |