My budding family uses a good deal of hot water - dirty clothes, baby baths, and now a dishwasher. We can easily drain our 30 gallon hot water heater a couple times a day. We heat that water with natural gas that is actually pretty `cheap' in the Modern Economics sense, but expensive for our species.
I've been a long-time solar hacker, dragging homebrew tracking photovoltaic systems to Burning Man, building small grid-untied DC LED night lighting systems for the homes I've been in, and volunteering with GRID Alternatives installing solar electric system on low-income housing here in San Francisco. Along the way, I picked up my NABCEP Entry Level certification for Solar, making me (foolishly?) confident enough to decide to self-install a solar thermal system =)
Happily here in California we currently have what look to be excellent rebates for solar hot water. You can read about that here. My calculation of the state rebate for the system I want to install is a generous $1875. Further helping tamp down the bill is the 30% Federal tax credit for solar thermal. I hope to have a total system cost for under $3000 when all is said and done. Stay tuned...
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