Hi Robert,
I'll take some pic's of my solar panels later. I put five panels of 20 evacuated tubes on the roof to pre-heat a 300 litre storage tank, That's 100 tubes.
It's turning out to providing all my hot water, even on cloudy days, for approx 8mths of the year. For the winter the tank usually heats to around 25 deg C so still quite useful.
It is fed from the tank to my combi boiler which is a modern regulating type, that is it senses the incoming temp of the hot water and adjust the flame to only what's need to raise the out going temp to what's required.
I have fitted a valve before the boiler so that if the pre-heated water is 46deg or more it bypasses the boiler altogether and is fed directly to the taps.
All works rather well...
As I sourced and installed myself the cost of it all was £2.5K, not £25K as quoted by the "professionals"
At full cost it would have been a joke, but quite reasonable when done DIY.
It should take about 5-7 years to balance out cost wise, depends on future energy prices which of course will only go one way.
I would like electric panels but the cost puts me off.....but like you my next property must have water.....except the powers that be won't let you make electricity that way unless you
participate in the funny handshake have deep pockets.
I have a Lister single cylinder diesel with genny that will run on used veg oil, but not got far with that idea as yet.
You're a man after my own heart....
![:thumbup:](https://madmodder.net/Smileys/default/happy0034.gif)