What type of Solar Hot Water systems are available?

Solar hot water systems in Australia generally fall into two categories:

Flat panel
Evacuated tubes

At EnviroShop we recommend evacuated tube systems as they represent the highest efficiency systems on the market.
Evacuated glass tubes provide superior daily heat output due to the cylindrical absorber shape always being perpendicular to the Sun.(Positive Sun Tracking)

Insulation properties of the vacuum in the solar evacuated tube allow up to 97% of the heat from the sun to be retained.

The copper heat pipe with a large surface area at the transfer point and increased water turbulence rapidly transfer heat to the circulating water from the storage tank passing through a well insulated manifold ensuring maximum solar heat gain.

Fibreglass insulated collector manifold, sealed evacuated tubes, tri-chlor absorber coating and freeze protected heat pipes allow reliable solar gain even the coldest areas and on cloudy or overcast days.

Evacuated glass tubes are naturally self-cleaning when it rains due to their cylindrical shape and thus don’t lose performance from collector being coated in dirt and pollutants.

Replacing individual tubes at approx $30 per tube is a low cost maintenance as opposed to replacing a full solar flat panel.

Light weight means can be installed on more types of roofs and can be cheaper to install compared to flat panel systems.