At the end of the day a good installer will look at your usage and advise you exactly what size to go for.
Solar hot water system panel size.
Use the formula below to do this calculation.
Sizing ratio 1 15 8 34 x y z.
For an 80 gallon tank then you will need 53 square feet of collector.
By raising water temperature your swimming season can be extended in colder locations by as much as 100 and works year round in warmer weather.
A typical solar hot water panel is 2 square metres and will supply 150 litres.
More importantly if this panel is used in the solar hot water heaters design the system can produce about 70 of this site s daily hot water on an annual basis.
In the midwest and atlantic states you will need one square foot of collector per gallon of tank capacity.
Having said that many 4 person households who are very water efficient get by just fine with a 150 litre system with 1 panel.
Z is the btu ft2 rating of the solar collector.
So a typical 4 person family will need a system sized at 300 litres which has 2 panels.
X is your set point temperature typically 135f y is the well mains water temperature.
This particular solar water panel on average will produce 27 100 btu a day with mildly cloudy solar conditions.