Solar water heating makes sense at the worst of times - even in a cloudy year it'll provide the average Brit home with most of the hot water it needs, and it'll do the job with zero pollution and no bills. Suddenly this week looks like the best of times. Not only have we been getting tonnes of sun at the moment - give or take the odd, you know, tropical downpour - but British Gas is putting up its tariffs, taking the average UK gas bill over the £500 mark. Fossil fuels, eh? There are loads of UK companies that do solar heating though I like the look of 23-year old Solar UK and its LaZer2 Solar Hot Water System. A typical 2 metre square system - including the discount for a Clear Skies grant - costs between £2600-4200 fully installed. Oh, and you'll need a roof. That faces south.
"it'll do the job with zero pollution"
That's not strictly true, is it? These things take quite a bit of energy to make, and that energy is not clean.
Fair point, though for all we know it could've been made with renewable energy (to play devil's advocate!). What I really meant was that it causes zero pollution once installed.
It takes about 9 months for these units to become carbon neutral