Local Entrepreneur Offers Advanced Solar Water Heater

The Charleston Gazette mail ran an article on Sunday about James Richards and his Sunbank solar water heaters.  Mr. Richards has improved on a Chinese design that he believes will allow for cost-efficient solar hot water:

Richards looked at other designs for heating water via the sun. A "split system" puts the solar collectors on the roof and the tank in the basement. Glycol is used as a heat-transfer fluid and a pump circulates it.
But such units can cost about $8,000, whereas a 40-gallon Sunbank costs $1,499, with an extra several hundred dollars for the cost of installation and materials -- and even less, for do-it-yourselfers. (The cost of a Sunbank will go up in 2012, Richards noted.)
The return on investment is much quicker with such a unit. It can pay for itself in several years, after which you're saving money with the sun pre-heating your water, he said.
As an experiment, the prototype unit on his South Hills roof handled all the house's hot water usage in June for three people, he said. "And we just got back our electricity bill which was like a treasure trove for me.
"I compared June of this year to June of last year and we used about 34 percent less electricity. That saved $35 in June off the electricity bill. So, if you extrapolate that to 12 months that's a pretty significant savings."

The return on investment calculations found on his website seems a little optimistic, particularly where gas, rather than electric, is the method of hot water heating.  My gas usage for 3-4 people in July, which is solely for hot water, was less than 2 mcf, and gas is going for about $10 per mcf, so I couldn't save the $30+ per month Richards refers to above. And just comparing electric usage from one June to the next provides insufficient data to demonstrate how one appliance performed. Nevertheless, it's nice to see an entrepreneur working to develop solar hot water heating in the Mountain State.

Later note - Mr. Richards contacted me, and noted that, in calculating the return on investment, one could factor in the tax credit of $500 available for installing a solar system.  He said he hadn't mentioned it to the reporter because he's trying to get people to adopt the system on its own merits, not because there's a tax advantage.  Some renewable projects only work when there are tax credits or subsidies from the government, so Mr. Richards deserves plaudits for making solar hot water heating work on its own.