Solar Hot Water Company Fields Solar for Brownstone Questions

cmu, The ROI is 8-10 years. Closer to 10 now that gas is so cheap. It’s not so much a money saver as much as a positive thing to do for the environment. Install cost are around $15-20k, at least I was never able to get them any lower, and trust me I wasn’t making much at all on that. Look I run a for-profit business, when there is no profit, there is no business. We concentrate on the conventional stuff now and although I still firmly believe in environmental stewardship, I have to focus on making the conventional heating and cooling methods as environmentally friendly as possible. If someone wants a solar thermal system, we can and will do it for them. The systems are awesome and I do love them, I just couldn’t count on them to keep my business afloat.

steam_man

in Stores 12 years and 3 months ago

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SolarUSA | 12 years and 3 months ago

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Hi, my name is Ian and I am from SolarUSA, a solar thermal company in Long Island City. This post is for anyone interested in learning more about solar hot water for their brownstone. If you have any general solar questions please feel free to ask those as well. Cheers, Ian www.getsolarusa.com

dnk | 12 years and 3 months ago

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okay Ian, I’m game. What would the lay of the land be for setting up solar hot water on a brownstone — say, mine, which is 3 stories and 2 families? Currently we’ve got 50-gallon tanks in basement that are hooked to gas lines that go to separate meters for tenant/owner. What would a solar system look like? Tanks on roof? Or panels that feed to basement? Any batteries needed for the solar? etc. What about cost? What are your guarantees, and how long does equipment last?

steam_man | 12 years and 3 months ago

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Good luck, Ian. I tried this 3 years ago. People aren’t that interested. I hope your venture turns out better than mine.

Augustiner | 12 years and 3 months ago

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From a logical perspective nobody in their right mind would use gas to heat up water, when it´s 90 degrees outside. But Energy prices are still very low compared with europe for example, and it looks like prices for gas will stay low for a long time Happy Fracking!

needmtg | 12 years and 3 months ago

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Yes, please give ballpark figures so we can compute a ROI. I suspect it’s over 10 years. But I’d be interested if it was lower, say, 5\. Also, what’s the permitting like?

ellenlourie | 12 years and 3 months ago

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if you would install boilers for under $5k, then it would be interesting proposition, with solar? fogetabotit.

Silvermax | 12 years and 3 months ago

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I definitely encourage people to explore this. We have solar panels for electricity, no more room for solar thermal unfortunately, but anything you can do to reduce your gas (as he says above, happy fracking) is to the good. Two of our neighbors also went solar as a result of seeing us do it. Start a trend on your block!

daveinbedstuy | 12 years and 3 months ago

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Geothermal is much more efficient but not here in Brooklyn. I wonder if anyone has ever laid geothermal tubing 9not the well based geothermal) throughout their yard here????

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