Warming up

At last, after the long winter, there is some heat in the sun and we're seeing more of it. Several sunny days in the last week have meant that the solarhot water system is already doing some useful work, topping up the hot water cylinder with 'free' heat.

Technical guidance from solar thermal suppliers and designers says you should only expect to get useful heat out of these systems from April to October in the UK. Okay, so our system isn't yet seeing enough quality light/sun to mean we can switch off the boiler supply to the hot water cylinder, but our first full season of using the solar thermal system is definitely underway.

Hopefully I'll be able to advise on how long the system will pay for itself later this year, so come back then to find out more. With fuel prices going upwards thanks to the Middle East and Japan situations we could be looking at shorter payback than expected.