12-24-2009, 12:03 PM
I love solar, especially for hot water. You can cool your roof and heat your water at the same time. Almost half of your electric usage will go to heat water if you don't have solar. You really need to put a timer on the electric backup though. The problem is that we use hot water in the evening. The storage tank senses a drop in temperature and turns on the electric heater. When the morning comes and the sun rises you already have a tank of hot water that you bought. When I was using Helco for backup I set the timer to come on at 3pm and to go off a 7pm. I figured that if the sun didn't heat the water by 3 then I would need a boost and if it went off at 7 then it would be ready to catch some rays in the morning.