Hubble, Bubble, Boil and Anything But Trouble

It's a bit rich to expect Shakespeare to have known about, yet included the heating of water using the power of the Sun in one of his famous and also infamous of plays, MacBeth. Maybe if he had the witches in the famous 'Hubble, bubble toil and trouble' scene use solar energy to slowly simmer and stew their mystical, supernatural concoctions, the good karma from using such a clean, non-polluting energy source might have gone someway to dispel the apparent curse associated with the so called 'Scottish Play'. Fortunately, a few hundred years down the track, we have available to us what Shakespeare did not. Free, clean, hot water for your home courtesy of your very own solar hot water heater.

It takes a great deal of energy to constantly heat the water we use in our homes for baths, showers and washing our cloths and dishes. To perform this function the normal electric or gas hot water heater adds a significant amount of cost to the average home's annual energy bill. That's why the solar powered version is such a boon to every house that uses them. This technology is different to the common image most people would associate with solar energy, that being the solar cell, and it is much simpler too. Instead of using the sun to generate electricity in a photo-voltaic(electricity from light) reaction, the solar hot water heater is simply water heated directly using the light from the sun.

The whole unit fits on the roof of your house instead of on the ground. The panels are flat (about 4 or 5cms in height) with a clear glass top to let the sunlight through and a black lined bottom side to absorb the maximum amount of heat from the sunlight, which then heats the water. The water is then cycled through the panel periodically to keep a constant temperature. The water tank is on the roof with the panels and is insulated like conventional tanks to prevent heat from escaping. It's that simple. It's sounds fantastic, so why don't we all have one?

The main obstacle people face in purchasing a solar hot water system is the initial cost. It takes a number of years to recoup this investment but once the system is installed there is usually very little maintenance required. This is an investment that has monetary and environmental returns. It may take time to see a financial return but the great news is the environmental returns are immediate and quite substantial. Right away you will start using alot less electricity or gas which means alot less greenhouse gas production and we're literally talking many tonnes of greenhouse gas per year.

Government bodies are recognising the benefits of having more of these systems installed into homes and businesses and there have been incentive schemes introduced to encourage more people to do this. At Futureworld you can learn if your local, state or federal government provides any of these incentives, how much it costs to have a solar hot water heater installed and how much one will save you and the environment. You can see one here right in the flesh and learn for yourself just exactly what makes one 'tick' withg a cutaway version showing all of the 'insides'. Of course, if you're a spiritual person you won't recognise the solar water heater as required equipment in any yoga or meditation philosophy, but if you put one in your home the environment will love you for it and you will earn some good karma points, enough to give any curse, bad luck or misfortune the Heebeegeebees!!!!!