January 21, 2014
Green and Alternative Heating With Solar Panels
Like most Americans, you’ve probably grown accustomed to seeing your energy expenses go up every year. Whether it’s through taxes or service increases, electric and gas bills continue to rise as wages remain the same.
No matter how conservative you try to be with your energy consumption, the fact is electricity and gas are a necessity. Suppliers know this. Fortunately, alternative heating manufacturers know this as well.
Green technologies such as solar air heating may not eliminate your dependency on natural gas and electricity completely, but they can reduce your energy expenses by thousands of dollars a year. Here’s how:
Solar air heating panels install on the roof or wall of the room you want to heat. For larger spaces, they can be linked together to generate more heat. Two pipes are fed from the room to the solar panel. One takes air in, and one sends air back. A small fan provides the means for circulation.
While the air is in the panel, light from the sun heats it up. There is no gas or electricity needed. Solar energy is even used to power the fans within the unit.
The only drawback is that in the evening hours when there is no sunlight, there is no source for warming the air, and a secondary heat source must be used. However, running solar heat during the daylight hours, and using a secondary heating system to maintain that warmth at night will literally cut your energy expenses in half.
That’s certainly a step in the right direction.
