Ballpark cost for solar

reilig

I have a new house. Been living in it since January. Have a gasiication boiler that's lit once or twice a week to heat the hot water at the moment. I recon if I had solar panels, I wouldn't have to light the boiler for 4 months of the year. My plumber advised me to put in a 300l triple coil stainless steel cylinder just in case i ever wanted solar, so that's what I did. There's the Gasifying boiler and a stove connected to the Hot water tank and a spare coil for the solar.

So how much would i be looking at for to get good quality solar tubes and the full set up? Plumber has advised that i only use a company that uses proper solar piping rather than copper. The house is very exposed so the roof mounting system would need to be pretty strong. Would i be entitled to any SEI grant??


Dan

ccsolar

Hi Reilig

The following link will answer your question in regards to the SEAI Grant.
http://www.seai.ie/Grants/GreenerHomes/Homeowners/How_to_Apply/

CC

gears

Dan

If you moved into a new house in January this year you wouldnt be entitled to a grant as it was changed recently (in the last year or so) so that only houses occupied prior to June 30th 2008 are now eligible for a grant. As for the cost, there is a huge variety in system quality and prices but as a guide I would say €3-€3.5K for the kit and another €1-€1.5K for fitting. Much less than that and I would think there are some short cuts being taken with either the kit or the fitting, eg no heat dump.

saibhne

reilig wrote: »

I have a new house. Been living in it since January. Have a gasiication boiler that's lit once or twice a week to heat the hot water at the moment. I recon if I had solar panels, I wouldn't have to light the boiler for 4 months of the year. My plumber advised me to put in a 300l triple coil stainless steel cylinder just in case i ever wanted solar, so that's what I did. There's the Gasifying boiler and a stove connected to the Hot water tank and a spare coil for the solar.

So how much would i be looking at for to get good quality solar tubes and the full set up? Plumber has advised that i only use a company that uses proper solar piping rather than copper. The house is very exposed so the roof mounting system would need to be pretty strong. Would i be entitled to any SEI grant??


Dan

Hi Dan,
Gears is right about the grant so it's likely you wouldn't be eligible - having said that you were clever enough to have the cylinder installed already so you will make savings there equivalent to the grant anyway.
It sounds like you are looking for a system that should be optimised for summer as you will have your boiler and possibly whatever is connected to the third coil in your cylinder on during winter - you could also consider flat plates in this scenario as they will perform as well as tubes in Summer - it depends on your water useage and the size of the array though.. As your site is exposed I would recommend an integrated flat plate in this case. Otherwise tubes with no reflectors are the way to go in an exposed area.

Copper pipe is fine to use on solar systems so long as compression fittings are used to join the pipe - it can be cheaper as well. What you have to look out for is the insulation - it has to be high temperature rated to take high temps possible from Solar. Flexible stainless steel solar pipe is beneficial from the point of view of time - it's quicker to install, but technically it offers nothing better than copper piping.

Price-wise gears is in the ballpark imo.

Bitten & Hisses

reilig wrote: »

My plumber advised me to put in a 300l triple coil stainless steel cylinder just in case i ever wanted solar, so that's what I did.

Reilig, at the risk of dragging the thread off topic, is this your buffer tank for the gasification boiler? Do you find 300L big enough for you, or would you prefer to have gone with 1000L?

reilig

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

Reilig, at the risk of dragging the thread off topic, is this your buffer tank for the gasification boiler? Do you find 300L big enough for you, or would you prefer to have gone with 1000L?

I have a 1500l buffer in my garage for the gasification boiler. Its about the right size for a 25kw boiler. It feeds a coil on the 300l hot water tank in my hotpress, it also feeds all my radiators. I also have a stove connected to a coil on the hot water tank.

Bitten & Hisses

Again, apologies for dragging this off topic, but I'm interested as I'll be plumbing in a similar arrangement in the next 2 months. Am I correct in saying that you'll link your solar panels to the DHW tank rather than the buffer store?

reilig

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

Again, apologies for dragging this off topic, but I'm interested as I'll be plumbing in a similar arrangement in the next 2 months. Am I correct in saying that you'll link your solar panels to the DHW tank rather than the buffer store?

Yes, the panels will be linked to the dhw tank. Linking them to the buffer would be madness in my opinion. You would want a lot of panels to heat 1500l of water. My idea is to have solar to heat the DHW tank in summer so that I don't have to light the boiler.

Bitten & Hisses

On the solar thing, I got a price a while back for supply only of a solar kit comprising 120 evacuated tubes and all necessary bits and pieces costing €4200 + 21%VAT

gears

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

On the solar thing, I got a price a while back for supply only of a solar kit comprising 120 evacuated tubes and all necessary bits and pieces costing €4200 + 21%VAT

If there's no tank that sounds very pricy to me.

Mike2006

Thats around what I paid as well for 120 tubes and all equipment except tank as I had a buffer tank already.

I priced around and that price is reasonable. 120 tubes is a lot. Even at €30 per tube that is €3600 + solar controller + pump station + stainless pipework (€320 for 15m) + glycol (100 Litres) + expansion vessel....

It all adds up.

Mike.