Solar Thermal System

Sean Misskelley from Clarum Homes talks about the solar thermal system in the Menlo Passive Home Project.

The house is equipped with a 3-panel 120-gallon Velux solar thermal system with a high-efficiency vortex made by A.O Smith as a back-up water heating source. This system is designed to offset approximately 80% of the energy needs for heating the home’s water and up to 50% of the home’s demand for its space heating.

This system is also used inside the home in conjunction with the heat recovery ventilation system with a hydronic in-line heat coil. This system heats the water on the roof, coming down through a controller that reads the temperature and stores it in the storage tank. The high-efficiency boiler only kicks on when the temperature drops due to lack of solar heat caused from rainy or very cloudy weather.