SOLAR HOT WATER INSTALLATIONS

February 2005
Todd Blackman’s unsolicited letter to Butler Sun Solutions

   As a conservation technician for an electric utility, I look first for the payback in energy efficiency upgrades. There are many ways to save energy in the home, but what most homeowners really want is to save money on their bottom line.

   Simple payback is when the cost of an upgrade has paid for itself by the energy costs it has offset. If an energy efficiency investment does not pay for itself before the end of its service life, you will never actually save any money off your utility bills!

   Unfortunately for homeowners, most energy efficiency upgrades are costly and not all pencil out well when you do cold hard math. The key to seeing a good payback on your investment in a solar water heater is in keeping the purchase price, installation costs and maintenance to a minimum, this is something we have not seen much of from the alternative energy manufacturers.

   Barry Butler of Butler Sun Solutions and Al Rich of Solarroofs.com are onto something with the Solar Wand drop-in heat exchanger and the Fireball flat plate collector. Barry and Al's focus is somewhat unique in the industry but I believe their philosophy is quite sound.

   Their system is simple in design and function, light weight and easy to install for a handy homeowner. Even if you are not a handy person, the ease of installation will still help keep costs down for a local contractor to do the installation for you.

   Once installed, the system requires very little watching over or maintenance, and because it is solar assisted, you will always have the hot water you need whether the sun is shining or not.

   The concept of 'Solar Assisted' is honest and does not set up the homeowner for unrealized expectations from their investment; quite simply, whenever the sun is shining you are either using or banking free hot water.

   The unfortunate situation that we avoid here is spending too much money for a system that is too complicated for the typical homeowner to understand, install and operate. As a person employed in the field of energy efficiency and conservation, it has been very exciting for me to watch over the development of this system and to also have the honor of trying out one of the first Fireball/Solar Wand combinations on my own home.

   I helped install it myself and two years later the system is working fine and supplying hot water every sunny day! When we have free hot water banked, my wife and I enjoy taking extra long showers or even using more hot water in the wash, these were benefits we never expected before installing our solar water heater!

Todd Blackman
Energy Services Specialist & Certified Home Energy Auditor for electric utility, Homeowner