Now that I am a homeowner - picked up the keys on Friday - I am once again ogling stuff like this. Aren't they purdy?
What I'm wondering is, if they work by heating air instead of water, why bother using the hot air to feed the hot water system? Why not pipe the hot air directly into the house and cut out the middleman? Admittedly in summer this wouldn't be so great, but in winter, why not?
3 comments:
That does look nice! I've been eyeing a similar composite tile (opaque, but doesn't provide useful heat). Around this area, hailstorms will utterly destroy rather thick glass, but such damage is localized and rare. I don't know how you'd heat your roof without making the attic scorching hot, but someone smarter than me must have figure it out already.
Well, it's time to go polish my roof . Thanks, Future!
Somet' to do with air's specific heat capacity... and the amount of energy required...?
Can't be, because that's how they work already - they heat the air which then heats the water via a heat exchanger. Seems rather inefficient to me. I guess you always need hot water, but hot air can be a bit of a curse in the summer.
But part of me still finds the winter situation a bit, well, inelegant - heating air to heat water, while the central heating system is heating water to warm the air!
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