myBDAsites.com

Hi Friends,

I am now onto installing a solar water heater and seek your advice here.
I would like to know the what would be the maximum capacity that I should go (for 6 people in a 4BHK house) and also, any best brand?

thanking you all,
pk

200 ltr capacity is enough for 6 people. (300 ltr on higher side for people who have the bad habit of wasting water while bathing. ).
Available in two types. 1) Evacuated Glass tube version(Low Cost, low life) and 2) Copper Fin type(Bit costlier, Longer Life)

No of Bed Rooms not important. How many Bathrooms to be connected and how much distance from your roof top hot water storage tank to the End use location makes the difference in efficiently using the solar hot water. More the distance, unnecessary wastage of heat from the stored hot water. Also dead storage of cold water(cold water stacked in the pipe line from the Hot water tank exit - till the end use location) every time you waste before getting the actual hot water will be more.

Brands doesn't make much difference, as majority of the solar products / Parts are generally imported from China and either assembled here or just labelled here. Tata BP Solar, Racold, Kamal, V-guard, Gilma, Pigion, Venus....etc available in the market. Look for wide coverage area of service/spare parts and after sales service for peace of mind in the longer term.

My recommendation is to go for 300 liter water heater. We have 300 liters Racold Pressurised water heater, it provides us hot water even on a cloudy day following a sunny day. This is probably because,we are not using all the 300 liters of hot water everyday and some hot water is used on the cloudy day. If we have consecutive cloudy days, we will have to heat the water ( we have a heater built-in).

msn1270, I always wondered if water can be "wasted" at all? The used sewage water is treated and let into the river for use in agriculture, industries, etc. So it is kind of recycled a few times. The cost of using (pumping, sewage treatment, etc.) more water is higher.

Hi Friends, thanks for your inputs and it really helps me.
I will try to locate some racold dealer near to my location and see their offerings.

I also suggest to go for 300Ltrs Solar water heater. Here more water you store for the next day, you will probably get more hot water. Ideally 200 Ltrs should be enough for 6 members family, but the remaining 100Ltrs for just storing for the next day. Like this even in monsooon also you can get reasonably hot water.

Also, now a days water heaters are coming with glass tubed heating elements instead of the old shell model. This is cheap in terms of maintenance as you may need to replace a tube if its tube broken other than replacing the full shell(flat collector).

I have a contact for Racold Solar water heater. If you need a one, you can ping me on private message. Also as the Govt is providing the subsidy, the rate is fixed and you just need to bother about the person who can provide you a good service.

^^ Thanks for the additional info. Would you please pm the contact info for Racold person?