homemade solar panels

[C-Bag]

Solar water heating was the first big wave here in California in the 80's. My parents put in a unit in the early 80's and last I heard(last year) it was still functioning perfectly. This was tied into the hot water heater using it as the storage. It seems to have extended the life of the water heater too as it's still good. Which is unheard of here. Anymore we don't get more than 10yrs on a water heater. Usually a lot less.

I posted this in the thread about the gentleman who's doing the pad for his hot tub. But we have a small portable hot tub that is all foam so it's very insulated. And the pump motor is the heater. It has a jacket around the motor that runs the pump water through it as a heat exchange. It works really well with the benefit that it's always ready to go and during the winter cost about $35 a month in electricity and during the summer more like $20. We keep it a 104F and it auto cycles keeping the pump and water ok. And because it's always ready to go we are more tempted to use it. It's not fancy, but we got it cheap off CL 6yrs ago for $600 and it's still going as I speak. Meanwhile I see tons of free big expensive tubs on CL, all with dead heaters and pumps. YMMV.

I too saw the DIY solar panels sites, but like so many things on this site I admire folks spirit. But there's a PIA differential with me. I'd rather reuse, repurpose or adapt than do close to scratch. And with the new outfits like Solar City offering to do leases it doesn't make sense to put so much effort into it when I'm not sure it would be cheaper. I value my time as it seems I have less and less of it. Also a major factor is with the amount of change that's happening it makes more sense to lease. I would bet long before the lease is over the tech is going to make leaps we can't even imagine right now.