I live in the North East. I have been considering installing a solar hot water system. We have circulating hot water heated by an oil furnace to heat our home. The furnace also has a coil that heats hot water for domestic use ie washing and bathing. The hot water is essentially a free by product of our home heating during the cold months. However during the summer months the entire furnace boiler runs just to provide us with a small amount of hot water.

Usually in this climate a year round solar hot water system would be installed. These systems become a little complex and expensive. I am thinking of installing a active open loop system that I would operate only during the warm months and then drain for the cold months. I am thinking that I could get solar hot water May-September.

Since my winter hot water is almost free there is no point in installing an expensive complicated system to provide hot water during those months. I would like to have some opinions as to whether this summer only system is a reasonable idea.

Joekayak