The rusty panels keep coming in!

These photos are of a six year old Solahart. What can be seen is extensive areas of dirty white and considerable moisture buildup under the glass.

This is typical of the pattern seen across the board with flat panel solar water heating systems.

The family that owns this lives on an isolated island without mains electricity. Repairs and replacement are not as simple as calling in a tradesman. Fortunately, they have a wetback backup for water heating. They estimate that performance is at least 50% less than when it was new.

Sadly, there appears little or no political, bureaucratic, consumer organisation or industry motivation to draw these problems to public attention.

Sadly, there seems no motivation at all for any kind of product recall. It appears the thousands of affected New Zealand families and businesses are being left out in the cold to deal with these problems on their own.

Sadly, there is yet to be any evidence whatsoever that the replacement panels of today are any better than those of yesterday.

On a positive note: Our family is soon going to reinvest in solar water heating. We are and have always been committed to energy conservation measures. But these have to be measures that really do work in a way that they really do return much more energy into the "system" than they consume in their production from raw material to product.

Corroding solar water heating panels discovered in Sydney Australia

As we suspected dry Australia - the "land of fire" is equally affected. Here are examples from two Sydney installations which are the first and only ones inspected at random to date. The person who took these photos did so by walking down a Sydney street and selecting the first two he randomly came across.

The first photo is of a Solahart that is estimated, by the manufacturer, to be over 23 years old. What is significant is that the white corrosion is visible from the ground.

The following two photos are of a Solahart installation that is a little over three years old and visibly corroded.

What these and the many other photos on this website show is that there is a progressive deterioration of flat panel collector surfaces over their lifetime. Depending on make this process is beginning as early as 6 months after installation.

According to EECA of NZ a 20 year pay back period is required for a Solahart installation and that assumes near 100% performance over that period. It is assumed that this will be a shorter period in Australia.

Please ask your friends and neighbours with solar water heating to check their systems and ask them to send me digital photos of what they find.

We are seeking to identify systems that do not have signs of discoloration. Please help
Thank you.
For more information go here.

Corroding/fading panels found in Auckland

"Hi,
Panel itself has a white oxidised coating almost all over. It was installed only a year ago.
Cheers"

Dave
_____________________________
Gary Moller comments:
This problem is a nationwide one that potentially affects thousands of unsusupecting householders.

Readers, I need your assistance:

This is an installation on a refurbished South Auckland Housing Corp property. Apparently, Housing NZ has invested heavily in these systems. Dave tells me this is typical of the ones he has seen on Housing Corp rooftops.

The photograph, while a little blurred, clearly shows a whitish panel surface that should be a dark grey-black. White is not a good colour for collecting solar energy!

This is a very significant photo because it shows that the near 100% corrosion rate that I have demonstrated is happening to solar water heating panels in Wellington is not a regional freak happening. I am awaiting information about whether the same pattern is showing in Australia.

These systems are being sold to the unsuspecting public on the promise that they are good for the environment and will save the householder money. They will do neither if they progressively lose function and are as good as junk by five years. We are contributing to global warming and creating a landfill problem by installing these sub-standard systems.

Readers, If you know of any solar water heating panels sitting on a roof nearby, please can you assist by arranging with the owner to take a look at the state of the panels. Please take digital photos and send them to me with a description of the system, including brand, age and location. If they are in perfect conditioin, I want to know because these are a rarity. What's the situation in other places like the US?

A Solahart that is just one year old

Here is a Solahart system that is just one year old and doesn't it look really smart?

Look carefully through the heavily patternised glass and you can just see a lots of white patches dotted about the panel:

Here's another angle and another section of panel: No building consent

As you would gather, the owner (A family with two young children) was concerned that this could happen so quickly. To make matters worse; the installer had told him that a building consent was not required for the installation. The building inspector thought otherwise. This owner is now facing a costly and lengthy bureaucratic procedure to get retrospective approval.

Are there any systems that will reliably last 10+ years?

I cannot answer this. I found several brands; but some I could not get access to for various reasons (Mostly lack of safe access) and other installations were far too recent to be able to make any kind of judgement.

The Solar Industry and the Government need to certify which solar panels are of sufficient durability to provide at least 10-15 years of reliable service under New Zealand conditions.