For someone looking to save on their energy bill one possibility to remedy that is to hook up a solar water heater to your house. Hot water is the second largest user of energy in the U.S. home, cutting back on this cost would put more money in your pocket.

You could install a solar water heater and you would have made a long term investment that will pay off for years. If you want to have a solar heater professionally installed you can expect to pay a larger sum when you figure in casts for materials and labor. You can actually build a heater yourself and save big.

When you decide to install a solar water heater you will need to decide how big of a system you need. Figure that if you have four in your family you may need an 80 gallon holding tank. A general rule of thumb some use to determine the size of the solar collector is one square foot of collector for each two gallons in an area with a lot of sun.

What may be the simplest solar system to build is the batch heater. If you are going build a D.I.Y solar water heater this may be the way to go for you. It basically consists of a container of water inside a glass covered enclosure that has been insulated.

The cold water enters the batch heaters lower entrance point and the hot water flows out of the top opening. The water sits in the batch heater in the sun all day getting hot, when hot water is called for it water flows out of the top and cold water will fill the tank from below. Its